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."

Comments

i could see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Will they be releasing source?

[Knuckles]

London, 15th February 2013:

Images and open source code for the Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu will be published on Thursday 21st February, supporting the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 smartphones.

Canonical press release

Re:Oh, the stupidity!

[Nikker]

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 ./