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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.
Will Ubuntu Touch for Phones include spyware, like the shopping lens that they ship with the desktop version of Ubuntu?
Ubuntu phones don't have to battle with anybody, just like Linux doesn't need to conquer the desktop. All it needs to provide is an open source Linux based phone that respects users' privacy (Android is spyware so it doesn't count) and sells just enough to give them reason to produce future phones.
True. And! Luckily Canonical has a really stellar track record with users privacy issues. ... yeah, not really
No doubt the GUI will be optimised for a machine with a keyboard & mouse.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ubuntu phones don't have to battle with anybody[..] All it needs to provide is an open source Linux based phone that respects users' privacy
Sooo ... It just needs to battle Jolla?
All it needs to provide is an open source Linux based phone that respects users' privacy
Apple has been the leader in that space with their announcement of strong encryption enough to even frustrate law enforcement, and they aren't in the business of selling your data like Google is.
The stupidest thing is that nobody even really uses tablets.
I guess I'm a nobody, but I do use my tablet quite a lot for reading stuff. It's great for that, much more comfortable than reading from a laptop or desktop screen.
Ubuntu phones don't have to battle with anybody
They do if they want mindshare of application developers. Otherwise, who is going to buy a phone that can't run the apps on which he depends?
Firstly, there's no such thing as a Final Fantasy OS.
Then what's this I keep hearing about Cloud computing?
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.
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop compton
If you follow all the links (I know, this is slashdot, who reads the summary, never mind the links from the articles to their sources). the Meizu MX4 will be shipping with Android 4.4 (Kitkat). The whole "RTM" hype from Canonical is just that - hype, same as the "Ubuntu TV", the "Ubuntu EDGE Smartphone", the "Ubuntu Cloud", whatever. This phone will come stock with Android. The vendors will be stocking the Android version, because that's what's going to sell. The carriers sure as heck don't want to be stuck customizing and servicing an odd-ball OS. And the customers ... it comes with Android, so except for a few zealots, it's going to be sold with Android.
Hence why the "Ubuntu" version will only be sold over the web - which is the kiss of death in terms of reaching new users. When you have a choice between buying the phone you're seeing in the store, holding in your hand, and others already have, or waiting to get something that nobody else has used (and plunking down more than an iPhone 6+ on top of that), guess what people are going to do?
So what if you will be able to eventually order the same phone with Ubuntu as an option? At that price point, nobody's going to be the guinea pig.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
My understanding is that the converged desktop won't be available on these phones. Sucks...
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The stupidest thing is that nobody even really uses tablets.
People do use tablets. I use my nexus 7 quite a lot. With Android, which I think is best for phones and tablets. As Ubuntu is the best for desktops, or at least used to be.
no, I don't have a sig
Considering that you can install ubuntu touch in several of the existing android phones, it is already battling with Android on the installed base.
It runs in different fronts. With WP8 is battling against an unified desktop/mobile OS (something that iOS and Android aren't doing). With Sailfish/Tizen is battling for developers of QT/linux environments (and getting enough developers will be good for all 3 platforms),
And as any race, your immediate objective is to catch the ones that are right infront of you, not the ones that are on top, To be the 3rd mobile platform is a good near term objective.
Ubuntu for Android (http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android) was a hybrid Ubuntu/Android OS that promised to allow you to use Android as the phone OS, then plug your phone into HDMI and a Bluetooth mouse/keyboard and have a full Ubuntu experience running alongside. It was announced with a lot of splash and got a lot of people excited. The ability to use a phone as a desktop computer on the road was very enticing. But it never materialized, and the source code was never opened (even though it is supposedly "open source", where the heck are you supposed to get the source, or download a build? I can't find one anywhere).
Ubuntu says the reason it never launched is because they need a partner with whom to launch since it needs modifications to Android... er, has Ubuntu ever heard of CyanogenMod?
Firefox OS It is already on market, and is probably very used on markets like India and South America
And to understand why it matters you must understand the players. The manufacturers are providing cheap phones where they can run without the restrictions/conditions of WP/Android, same goes for carriers (that are actively pushing Firefox OS phones in emergent markets), and developing apps considering that is Firefox OS around means doing open, multiplatform web apps, not just for one OS/device, that is in the end Mozilla's goal, if Ubuntu touch means more html apps, then it will be something possitive for Mozilla.
You can access and install apps from the Firefox Marketplace on Android, it turned Firefox OS irrelevant, or made it more relevant than before?
Hear, hear, I especially like the part about restoring the FF UI to 3.5. Too bad my moderator points are expired. Hell! Moderators, give these two some positive feedback.
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
It would be more useful to go the opposite way - keep Ubuntu the same, just add QWERTY keyboard to the phone. Otherwise we have to pay for our own phone manufacturing - Neo900.
Except that it only has 2 gig, and comes stock running Android KitKat.
Of course, if this is just going to be thrown onto the MX4-core, an older phone that has been around for a couple of years, and uses the Exynos chipset mentioned in the article, and not the MX4's MediaTek MT6595, then you get 1 gig of ram.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Where as Android users are just passively bending over and taking it from every single company Google is selling your data to. I can see how that's soooo I much better...
Ubuntu phones don't have to battle with anybody
They do if they want mindshare of application developers. Otherwise, who is going to buy a phone that can't run the apps on which he depends?
It seems pretty likely that Ubuntu smartphones would be able to be shimmed to run Android apps, since that's already happening for regular Linux desktops.
A shim to run Android apps might work for apps available from F-Droid or Amazon, not so much for apps that are exclusive to Google Play Store.
Agreed. I'd upvote this if I had any modpoints. But since I don't, commenting is the best I could do.
while
Phone users wants video / music (perhaps no video use unless it's easier to find the stuff on youtube), calendars, messaging etc. and then the killer app is the web.
Who cares if the back end is horrible? It could be perl or Tcl/Tk, doesn't matter much if it gets out of the way. Not having to invest yourself in an "ecosystem" with compatibility concerns like the desktops OSes is good. Horrible slow and bloaty javascript is dealt with bruce force (dual 1.2GHz CPU, 512MB RAM..) like phones did over 10 years ago with Java ME on about 1/20th the specs.
Half-baked.. Why care, have you seen the screenshots?, fonts, typography and color scheme look excellent. That's well-baked. And the resolution is high (800x480 on 4". It's 160x128 on regular phones and it was 160x144 on the Game Boy)
Importantly FF OS is the only one out anyway.
The MX4 Pro version will apparently still only come with 2 gigs. And runs kitkat.
But here's the question ... why would anyone throw on an OS that isn't going to be supported by the carrier or anyone else? Given Canonical's abysmal record of listening to its' users, do you really want to go there with a device that's going to be more expensive than an iPhone 6+?
Problem you can't solve? You'll have to mail it somewhere or other, same as it was shipped to you in the first place, since this is a "web-only" product - no local support.
But that's okay, you can use this phone to replace your Ubuntu EDGE while watching your Ubuntu TV, downloading stuff from Ubuntu ONE, storing stuff on your Ubuntu Cloud, and using your Ubuntu Tablet/smartphone to write letters, and using Ubuntu for Android to run all those Android apps. Or you can see the pattern, and go "No f'ing way" like everyone else.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
To me, the converged desktop would be the killer feature. With it, Ubuntu phone is really the only choice. Without it, the whole thing is a non-starter.
Thing is I consider all the phones unsuitable for gaming (no buttons) and the input or even output is so limited it's a fucking chore to go in the menus, file managers, command line etc.
I can "hack" it? (e.g. tie it to a desktop and do some unsupported crap to enable some features that are just regular ones on usual computers). I can have a "root prompt"? Yeah. I'll do that (if I can peck the keyboard keys in less than a minute) and hope this works : find / -iname '*google*'|xargs rm -rf.
So you've never heard of Jailbreak. Why bashing on Apple when you don't even know the first thing about it?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
First, let me start off by saying I use to be very "pro-ubuntu". It was a great distro, and one of the few you can just throw the CD in and reboot into a usable system fairly quickly.
Then they seem to flounder around and lack direction so i moved to MINT. Of the 6 desktop PC's in my house, at one point 5 of them ran Ubuntu. Now three are MINT, two remain ubuntu and one is still on windows.
Ubuntu seems to be suffering a bit of the classic "floundering around" you often see in the opensource world. Instead of having a number of people working on a great distro, we have hundreds of "fractured" distro's (many based on Debian, some based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian).
Anyhow, look at some of the past products from the past ideas from Canonical...
Ubuntu TV, Looked promising...
Ubuntu ONE - I liked how you could "sync" the installed apps on one system and use it as a template to build other "similiar" machines...
Now they want to "fracture" it to create a "phone" version?
Much rather have a gentoo phone
"So you've never heard of Jailbreak"
So, make up your mind.. Are apple product secure, or can they be "hacked"?
What is a "jailbreak", If i am not mistaken, that is when you gain "root" access to the device right?
Remember when you could do it just by going to a website?
I can install cyanogenmod on my android devices if i want, and their roms dont come with google play or any google services... Other then "jailbreaking" your apple device, what are your options?
Apple doesn't sell your identity.. good one.. Perhaps they can explain "iAD"?
At first Apples take was 40/60 but then they went with 30/70.
Same thing i posted above. Apple has their iAd service with "customized" ads with apple taking 30% of the revenue and the developer taking the remaining 70%.
So, Google ads = BAD, apple ads = Good because?
Apple actually has a fantastic reputation for respecting user privacy. They don't collect/try to profit off of user data.
Really???
iAd is a mobile advertising platform developed by Apple Inc. for its iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad line of mobile devices allowing third-party developers to directly embed advertisements into their applications.[1][2] Announced on April 8, 2010, iAd is part of Apple's iOS 4, originally slated for release on June 21, 2010, the actual date was changed to July 1, 2010. iAd was announced at Apple's June 7, 2010 keynote, with an iPad version appearing in the fall. Hosted and sold by Apple,[3] the iAd platform is expected to compete with Google's AdMob mobile advertising service.
----- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
strong encryption.
can request password reset over phone or email.
choose one. you can't choose both. no wonder you posted anon, shill.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Same thing i posted above. Apple has their iAd service with "customized" ads with apple taking 30% of the revenue and the developer taking the remaining 70%.
So, Google ads = BAD, apple ads = Good because?
Because nobody ever complained about Google not giving enough private information about their customers (that is people buying their products) to the advertisers while those complaints exist about Apple.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I can install cyanogenmod on my android devices if i want,
No, you can install it if it's supported, officially or as a hack of dubious quality. On the vast majority of Android devices you can't.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
And LuneOS, and Tizen.
Didn't we all hate Microsoft for pursuing the convergence roadmap? (Desktop -> Tablet -> Phone)
So if you carry a Raspberry Pi, what device would you use while riding the bus? A single device that becomes a desktop-like computer when docked to a keyboard and monitor and a mobile device while a passenger in a vehicle has the advantage over a Raspberry Pi that the user isn't shut out for the duration of a transit ride to or from work or wherever.
I ran CentOS 5 with 2G for a while. I have two laptops running Kali with Mate - one has 1G, the other 512M.
Are you the King of Bloatland or something?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I have it running on my Nexus 5, and it has come a long way. Just two or three builds ago (241 I think?), scrolling was slow and choppy, swiping between screens was laggy, and touch sensitivity was way too low. Text was hard for me to read (due to font hinting) and "apps" felt like they took forever to open. But the RTM release turned all of that around. It's actually a pleasure to use, and not only do I use it as my DD, I actually removed my CM backup. I'm not saying it's the best OS ever (there's still plenty of bugs to work out), but it works FOR ME and I like it.