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Ubuntu Touch For Phones Hits RTM, First Phones Coming This Year
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.
I just don't get why Mozilla even bothers with Firefox OS any longer. Now that Ubuntu Touch is available, there's even less need for Firefox OS.
Firefox OS is totally crippled compared to Android, iOS, and now even Ubuntu Touch. All of these other mobile OSes support the same kind of HTML5/JS/CSS "apps" (I'm very hesitant to use this term, since they're basically just web pages) that Firefox OS supports, but unlink Firefox OS these other systems also support real native apps. The native apps ALWAYS give a much, much better experience than the half-baked HTML5/JS/CSS hacks.
Some Mozillians will probably reply to this and start on with their typical idealistic rants about how Firefox OS is more "open" or some nonsense like that. It really isn't any more open. Mozilla controls it and Mozilla calls the shots. After being driven away from the Firefox desktop browser due to the many bad changes that the community vocally said were totally unwanted, yet that Mozilla forced on us anyway, I know that Mozilla won't listen to us any more than Google, Apple or Canonical will.
Ubuntu Touch is the final nail in Firefox OS' coffin, as far as I'm concerned. Ubuntu Touch gives us a viable alternative to Android and iOS. But unlike Firefox OS, it isn't uselessly limited for ideological reasons.
Mozilla, it's time for you to do the only sensible thing: end the Firefox OS project. It is useless, it is unwanted, and it only serves to siphon away resources that could be put toward better uses (like restoring the Firefox browser to its 3.5 UI).
But Android is a stable platform, unlike desktop Linux distros.