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Who Would Actually Build an Ubuntu Smartphone?

Posted by timothy on from the small-but-dedicated-band-of-belgian-craftsmen dept.

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."

8 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Who cares? by MacDork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Give me a ubuntu rom that works and I'll install it myself.

    1. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      ... case closed ...

      No, dammit, keep that case open! I want to put in an aftermarket battery. I have my soldering iron right here.

    2. Re:Who cares? by jareth-0205 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Give me a ubuntu rom that works and I'll install it myself.

      Yeah, I talked to a Ubuntu guy at an Android conference about this who was showing off a dual Android-Ubuntu runnin Mororola Atrix II. His position was fairly much 'no', since they want to sell this to manufacturers as a feature they can have. Shame, though I can see their point of view.

    3. Re:Who cares? by SolitaryMan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Same here.

      I think this is the right strategy to let geeks play with it first and solve all the problems. THEN try to sell it to the general public.

      Personally, I would definitely want to try this. Hell, I would even buy a new device for this, if needed.

      --
      May Peace Prevail On Earth
  2. Many of us welcome true mobile computing... by paulsnx2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Can I run it on my old phone? by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    Isn't that sad? A state-of-the-art piece of technology is only a clunker because its handicapped.

    Tell me about it...
    -- Stephen Hawking

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. Re:Can I run it on my old phone? by Psyborgue · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I made that mistake the first time I bought a smartphone. It's running CM10, and i'll probably bring it higher than that until it ceases to be supported, but it's not an easy device to install a custom ROM on. For me it's Nexus from now on. At least then I know the boot-loader is going to be unlock-able and i'll probably get official updates for a very long time if I choose to go that route (i'm currently doing that with my Nexus 7, which I love).

  5. Re:The real question is by Psyborgue · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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).