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Who Would Actually Build an Ubuntu Smartphone?
Nerval's Lobster writes "When Canonical whipped back the curtain from its upcoming Ubuntu for smartphones, it set off a flurry of blogosphere speculation about the open-source operating system's chances on the open market. But which company would actually build such a device? Apple and Research In Motion and Nokia are all out of the running, for very obvious reasons. Motorola, as a subsidiary of Google, is also unlikely to leap on the Ubuntu bandwagon. While Hewlett-Packard has flirted with smartphones in the past, most notably after its Palm acquisition, the company doesn't seem too focused on that segment at the moment. That leaves manufacturers such as HTC, which currently offer devices running either Google Android or Windows Phone. But given Android's popularity, it might prove difficult for Canonical to convince these manufacturers to do more than release a token Ubuntu device—especially if Google and Microsoft apply counter-pressure."
Give me a ubuntu rom that works and I'll install it myself.
I'm still waiting for a simple, pain-free, way to turn my old phones (not just Android ones) into simple general purpose computers by wiping the existing ROM. Cyanogenmod isn't available for my clunker.
Isn't that sad? A state-of-the-art piece of technology is only a clunker because its handicapped.
If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
I would like to do actual development on a smart phone, and why not? It has more hundreds of times the computing power of mainframe I, as a student, shared with the entire university!
I want an app that lets me use any computer and keyboard to connect to my phone, and use it as a gateway to the cloud, to hold my personal work, etc.
Ubuntu is too popular to be cool here. As soon as something becomes popular, it ceases to be cool. Yeah yeah, unity sucks balls bla bla bla... but you don't have to use that window manager. Canonical has made Ubuntu successful. I'm not happy about the Amazon thing either, but you can at least turn it off (and I might not even, as I do shop on Amazon).
Now it's called "The Chinese".
They offer you any combination of software and hardware you would like, from what's freely available, for a small price. There are zounds of companies selling cheap, branded devices which are simply customized generic devices onto which some generic Android version has been installed. All it takes for Ubuntu for Mobiles is to be flexible enough to allow itself to be slammed onto those generic devices. Screen Resolution from X*Y pixels to Z*T pixels, accelerometer support, 3G Support, USB Dongle Support, etc. and you're done.
here in Romania we have Allview which offers cheap phones and tablets, with Android 4.0.4 and above. A dual-SIM (both SIMs working at the same time) device costs about 160 USD retail price, no strings attached. Of course, you don't get an exquisite hardware quality but at this price you can't ask for it, really. Those devices work, they do their stuff well enough.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
The thing is, a year or two ago, I would have bought one. Until recently, I ran Ubuntu as my primary desktop since Dapper (before that, I was a RedHat person), so you would think I would be part of the primary target group. But, if my own feelings are in any way indicative, this is going to be a very tough sell. Even I gave up hope for Ubuntu (and linux) after numerous annoyances and bugs...things were getting worse each year, not better.
- The Ubuntu One annoyance started it for me.
- The Gnome 3 fiasco. "We just don't care what our users think. If we build it, they will come. Oh, wait, don't leave... Come back!" Nope, we're gone.
- The Unity fiasco. Worse than Windows 8. Really. (OK, I'll be honest: I haven't used Windows 8. It could be just as bad. But it's bad.)
- The Amazon search fiasco. Wow. Privacy, anyone?
- The ongoing hostility toward anything closed being available on linux (because god forbid we users actually have a choice).
Given the last two items, why would a nerd who is protesting Apple's closed system ever want to choose Ubuntu?
Nerds like to tinker. We pride ourselves on it. But we also pride ourselves on using the best tool for the job. That is no longer Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is completely misreading their market.
My switch: I have been using Win 7 for about 6 months now, and I love it. There are also smaller smaller things that I didn't even notice were wrong until I switched: When transferring large files on my network with NFS, I always got random Nautilus crashes from time to time. I just assumed it was my router or something, and never really had time to look into it. I lived with it. No such issues with Windows 7 shares. Dragging and dropping large folders from one computer to another has never been easier for me. I could kick myself for being so stubborn that I didn't switch sooner.
I would buy one, I think, depending on details. Since the death of MeeGo, there hasn't been a serious GNU/Linux based phone on the market. If Ubuntu can deliver a phone with something approaching the same feature set as they do in their full desktop distro, then it would be exactly what I've always wanted from a Smartphone.
I know you're being snide, but a reminder that Ubuntu is still the most popular Linux distro; although it is no-longer flavour of the month with the Slashdot crowd, it still has a large enough following to be a serious player.
And hey, Unity is always being criticised as looking like a phone/tablet OS shoehorned onto a desktop...
Are you saying a more advanced user isn't capable of installing and using an alternative window manager or running a very simple command to disable Amazon searches? I get what you're saying and you have a valid point, but what's going on here is a lot more than just complaining about Ubuntu's focus. It's seemingly an opposition to Ubuntu for anybody. It's throwing the one hope for Linux on the desktop under the bus on idealistic and group-think grounds. It's unrealistic idealism, elitism and smug superiority. There will always bee niche distros and even Linux from scratch if you really want, but it doesn't make Ubuntu bad, or even a bad choice for power-users / developers.