Ubuntu For Phones To Arrive Next Week On Nexus 4 107
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 could see it. (Score:5, Interesting)
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:i could see it. (Score:3, Interesting)
When has Ubuntu ever been targeted at the "more technically literate"?
The more technically literate are aware you can install (more or less) all the same packages as you can on any distro, including throwing out Unity and using KDE or XFCE or E17. On a phone, Unity might even be a good interface, but you're getting a device that can presumably do both.
A Unity phone will be far more suitable to the technically literate than iOS, and even Android.
Will they be releasing source? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Is the Nexus 4 low-end? (Score:5, Interesting)
I figure the Nexus 4 is a low-end 2014 smartphone, the target for Ubuntu.
Re:Oh, the stupidity! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:no one cares (Score:4, Interesting)
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.