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Ubuntu For Phones To Arrive Next Week On Nexus 4
nk497 writes "Canonical has revealed that a developer preview of Ubuntu for phones will arrive next week, on the 21st of February. The touch preview will initially only be available for the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 smartphones, but Canonical plans to support more devices. The release is designed to let developers create apps — and to give 'enthusiasts' a sneak peek — ahead of the smartphone side of Ubuntu arriving in version 13.10 in October. Canonical suggested that the OS will initially only support low-end smartphones, but the group plans to also support higher-end models, too, and the OS will work across mobile devices, PCs and TVs."
I can't see it ever becoming more than a gnat on the side of Android and iOS, but I can see it filling a particular niche - a phone for more technically literate people who are not happy with Apple's draconian control and Android's data harvesting (excepting certain community mods like Cyanogenmod, granted).
If it turns into a device that can run my desktop software with a "real" windowing system with good mouse/kbd support, e.g, not a bunch of fullscreen touch apps when it's talking to PC peripherals, and without losing good touch support when it's acting as a mobile device, then hey I'm down. Hope they port it to the Galaxy S3 or upcoming S4.
Apps will be tricky since the community will be so much smaller than iOS and Android. But we need to support phones that don't march us ever closer to a world where everybody's experience is beholden to megacorps. Even if there are amazon-shoppping-whatzits installed on the Ubuntu phone by default, if it's really fairly bog stock ubuntu underneath without a ton of carrier-locked-down shit, could be good. I could see it being everything the N770/N800/N900 series could have been had it kept on being developed: a hacker's dream phone.
Will reserve final judgment until I get to test drive one.
I was at the FirefoxOS announcement in Brazil. They gave a developer device to many developers because it is on its first steps. I think it will have a very long way to beat the Canonical OS.
Really? I have pages and pages of apps. Rather than memorize where that rarely used but critical app is, I just search.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
If they're targeting low-end smartphones, either there's a range of super amazing phones I'm completely unaware of, or the decision to release for Nexus 4 as well is a bit odd.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Is there any? I ask because I don't see the possibility of support conracts...Or do they exist? Anyone?
Ubuntu has been surprisingly close to the chest on this effort. I haven't seen any source code come out for this, or for their Ubuntu for Android work. If they release the source for this, it will be ported to a plethora of devices in a very short time period. There is a very active community of developers on xda-developers.com who would be all over this.
So it makes me wonder, if they plan on releasing source at all, or if this will be some closed-source fork, and thus useless.
Buying the Nexus 4 was the best way to say "fuck you" to the marketers who coined the phrase "4G LTE". I have the Nexus 4 and I would love to load Ubuntu onto it. Forewarning: The Nexus 4 MIGHT be low end compared to some unreleased phones that will reach consumers in 2013.
No trees were killed to send this message, but a great number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
You won't be modded down for being a heretic; it will be because you're delusional. Most companies are still using Windows because they consider themselves stuck with it, which to a degree, they are. Plenty of companies *do* use Linux and a few big ones (Google, IBM) saw what was coming much sooner than most and also run non-MS desktops. The hard part is extracting themselves from the lock-in.
Mark Shuttleworth will break into your house in the middle of the night and install Ubuntu Phone on your smartphone, toaster and refidgerator with out you knowing. It's been known for a while not sure why it hasn't become a post on ./
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
And do you want to remember and tap that obscure name into the phone's keyboard? I also have many pages of apps, but with a decent set of named folders to organize them, I can get to any of them in a few taps.
Foe example, I know I have an app of the periodic table, but I certainly don't remember it's named "EMD PTE" (by the way, that's an absolutely terrific free periodic table app if you need one), yet I swipe and tap into my "Weather and Science" folder and there it is.
John
Hint to anyone peddling a new phone OS, target devices which have been abandoned. Why would someone who explicitly bought an Android device which will always be updated suddenly abandon ship and install another OS? On the other hand users who have been abandoned on an older version are much more likely to roll the dice and throw something on.
Files in folders is great. I have no problems with it at all. So far, no one has found anything better.
If you have something better, write it up. If nothing else, you'll learn to appreciate the current system.
Nothing yet proposed has matched (or even come close) to the simplicity and utility we have now. Steve's goofy idea didn't make anyone's life easier. The lack of FS access on iOS has done nothing but made simple, common, tasks difficult or impossible . iTunes is about as far from ease-of-use as it gets. The whole library and sync concepts just don't work very well outside a very narrow (and uncommon!) use-case.
Trying to extend that bad idea to other user data like documents, pictures, etc. was one of the biggest mistakes Apple's ever made. Why do you think dropbox is so popular with iOS users? It gives them some of the control they're absolutely desperate to get back. It let's them do simple things like "copy and damn file" and organize their documents, photos, etc. in whatever way suits them best. Dropbox is primarily a workaround for a broken UI.
Required reading for internet skeptics
I'd love to see Ubuntu replace Android. In case you haven't noticed, Android is a bit of a mess. Even Android development is a nightmare compared to iOS and BB10.
Now, if they can ditch the over-engineered pile of garbage that is X and replace it with something sensible we could see the whole of Linux improve dramatically. That's probably not going to happen, sadly. Still, Ubuntu phone is a step in the right direction.
Required reading for internet skeptics
The sad thing is you are 100% right.
The not-so-sad thing is that Linux is still damn useful in many situations and those who know how to use it will continue to do so for those applications where it is appropriate.