Ubuntu Touch For Phones Hits RTM, First Phones Coming This Year

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday September 28, 2014 @12:22AM from the competition-is-a-good-thing dept.

An anonymous reader writes: In early 2013, Canonical showed the world Ubuntu Touch, a version of Ubuntu developed specifically for smartphones. Now, the mobile operating system has finally reached "release to manufacturing" status. (Here's the release announcement.) The first phone running Ubuntu Touch, the Meizu MX4, will start shipping in December. "Details are scarce on its hardware, but a leak from iGeek suggests the Pro variant may have a Samsung Exynos 5430 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 2560x1536 resolution screen. ... This more powerful hardware is good news if true, and it bodes well for Ubuntu's vision of computing convergence." Softpedia has a preview of the RTM version of the OS. They say performance has improved significantly, even on old phones, and that the UI has been polished into a much better state.

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Re: battle with Android and iOS first! by tero · 2014-09-28 00:50 · Score: 3, Informative

True. And! Luckily Canonical has a really stellar track record with users privacy issues. ... yeah, not really
Re:Spyware status by Gaygirlie · 2014-09-28 01:32 · Score: 4, Informative

There has been a simple on/off - slider in the settings for a while now, no need to install Kubuntu or uninstall the lens or anything like that.
If the UI morphs when docked by tepples · 2014-09-28 01:41 · Score: 3, Informative

Back when Canonical was trying to push Ubuntu for Android, the idea was that you'd get the normal Android GUI while mobile. But when you plug in an HDMI monitor and pair a Bluetooth keyboard, you'd get an X11 desktop. In theory you wouldn't even need a mouse if you're satisfied with using the device's screen as a trackpad.