Top 5 reasons the Ubuntu Linux phone might make it
Summary: True, Ubuntu on the phone has many obstacles in its way, but it also has many things going for it as well.
Las Vegas - Yes, I've just been arguing that Ubuntu isn't likely to beat Android on smartphones. But, you know what? Even with Ubuntu Linux on phones very late start I think it has a real shot to make a mark in the smartphone market. Here's why.
Over the last few days I've talked with Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu's community manager Jono Bacon at CES about their plans and and I've gotten a look at an early version of Ubuntu for phones From this I've come up with my list of the top five things Ubuntu for phones has going for it.
5) Ubuntu Unity interface
Even at its very early stages Unity on the phone is the sweetest smartphone interface I'd ever seen. I've always known Ubuntu's default interface, Unity, was really meant for touch interfaces, now that I've seen it on a phone it really shows to its best advantage.
According to Bacon, you'll have the chance to install it and see it for yourself on Galaxy Nexus phones beginning in March. There have been other reports that the first Ubuntu for phones installation images will appear in February, but March is much more likely.
4) Easy Smartphone OS Upgradability
Shuttleworth pointed out to me, unlike Android, where the version you get is what you usually are stuck with for forever and a day, Ubuntu on phones, just like on the desktop, will be constantly upgraded. For frustrated Android smartphone geeks who always want the newest version they'll feel like they died and went to heaven.
Bacon added though that Ubuntu for phone won't be using same release model as Ubuntu desktop. There won't be one universal image that can be used on all phones. Each phone model will need its own image to make the best possible use of its hardware.
3) Easy Carrier Customization
At the same time, however, carriers will be able to easily customize the phone interface and add their own apps. So, how can it be both easy for end-users to upgrade to the latest version and at the same time let carriers add in their applications and particular look and feel? Easy. By keeping the carrier optimizations in user space, where it's easy to change things, and out of the core operating system itself. This could be the best of both world for end-users and carriers.
2) Linux Desktop Software Compatibility
I had been worried about getting software developers to give Ubuntu a try. I mean there's already so much money to be made in Android and iOS and there's only so many embedded programmers to go around. Bacon made me realize though that all existing Ubuntu applications—LibreOffice, Gimp, Rhythmbox, etc.--will all run on Ubuntu phones. Now getting them to display properly on the phone's interface will take some work, but that's the easy part. The core functionality of tens of thousands of Linux apps will already be available. Of course, if you use your Ubuntu smartphone to power up a PC display you won't even need that.
To make it easier for existing Linux programmers to bring their desktop apps to the phone, Bacon said Ubuntu is working on providing programmers with QML (Qt Meta Language) widgets for quick interface development. QML, along with HTML5 and OpenGL, is native to Ubuntu on phones. These, and the software development kit (SDK), said Bacon, should be out in March.
What all this means is that every Linux programmer out there can also be a smartphone programmer. Almost a thousand developers, said Bacon, are already working on Ubuntu phone apps. Bottom line: Ubuntu is going to have thousands of apps. ready to go before it ships.
1) Green Fields and High End Markets
Shuttleworth also observed that Ubuntu gives carriers two models. In the first, they can cheaply add Ubuntu to low-end phones. This may not matter much in the power-hungry first-world countries, but Shuttleworth believes this makes Ubuntu ideal for second and third-world countries.
In the second high-end model, users will be able to use top-of-the-line Ubuntu smartphones both as a phone and as a desktop. Does the idea of using a smartphone to power your desktop sound silly to you? It shouldn't.
Tablets are already doing it and, as Shawn Dubravac, CEA's Chief Economist and Senior. Director of Research observed at CES said, "65% of the time we spend on mobile phones is not communications. Even adding in e-mail, texting, and so on, smartphones are no longer about communication." Shuttleworth and company are just taking the smartphone to its next natural evolutionary step.
Finally, Bacon observed that "No one loves their Android phone, we want to build a phone that users will love: One that will be more beautiful than Apple and as powerful as Android but with the open -source legacy of Ubuntu." I like that vision of Ubuntu on phones. I like it a lot. I really hope it comes to fruition and, for all the reasons I give above, I think it just might make it.
Related Stories:
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
Top 5 Reasons the Ubuntu Linux phone might make it
Wrong, Lovecock, as usual.
Android..
android is not linux
Haha
Android uses a Linux kernel,
Loverock-Davidson is a spammer
Btw nobody wants Microsoft cr*p anymore. Ubuntu Phone is here to stay and there is nothing you can do about it.
Nobody?
Agreed.
The scenario is going to change completely by the next decade or so though as the world transitions to alternate operating systems.
Corporate market is where Microsoft is very strong at the moment and I don't except to see that change for atleast a decade.
You did a search for me
Cyberslammer/sc007/tb7
Grow up
Now back to the real topic here. I am an Android user and love the versatility of it and assume Ubuntu will be even more versatile? I am not a Ubuntu user, so I have a lot to learn. Starting off a mobile phone platform with 1000s of apps already there is a great move!
Your right and its rediculous. Its insanity.
Its the price we now have to pay for years of stupid Mac users claiming Windows is swiss cheese that now vengeful Windows users are now trying to start the same stupidity about OSX and/or iOS being swiss cheese simply because exactly what Windows users said would happen to Apple when/if they sold popular products would happen. They would be targeted as well and broken into in measure with their popularity. And of course, as all Windows users expected, now its starting to happen.
Being right in one respect dosnt justify idiot talk in another. It kills me how both Windows and Apple users feel so free in hurling ridiculous and false accusations about the opposing products. Im just waiting for an absolute complete catastrophe for one or the both of them that will at least shut one side up for a while. But, I don’t expect such a catastrophe to befall either one because while neither is perfect, they both have plenty enough security to ensure a catastrophe is unlikely.
Far too often people around ZDNet feel absolutely free to lose their mind and make it very public in the process.
Try Linux and see if you still say that.
And put it on a USB drive using a tool from here: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/
You can also search for another distro if you like. (Fuduntu looks like mac.)
There's our Lovey....
Top 5 reasons the Ubuntu Linux phone might make it
It sounds like it has been quite a long while since you have used a modern Linux distro. Those issues that you bring up haven't been true for many years. To watch videos, flash, well, just about anything you'd want to do on A Windows or Mac, you can do on a Linux based machine. There are a lot of people who are die hard Linux fans who dislike the Unity GUI for UBUNTU, mostly because it *is* quite obvious it's designed for a touch screen Tablet or phone. Personally I love it. I have been using Linux for four years on my main desktop PC, and haven't had to "compile" anything, in fact, I had to configure Windows to do more than I have with Linux. Mint is a distro that "out of the box" offers everything a windows user is used to and more. I have been using UBUNTU for over a year now on my Media/ Home Theatre PC and it's brilliant. I don't dislike Android, but it could be SO much better. I think UBUNTU is more than poised to give IOS and especially ANdriod a run for their money.
Couple of last factiods; Android spawned from Linux, and still, although has changed dramatically, has it's roots there. And UBUNTU is the 3rd most widely used O.S. in the world, that has to say something for it. To talk about command line, and compiling things in 2013 about Linux, is a bit outdated thinking.
Not just Unity
This is precisely the reason why I detest Windows 8. Hopefully, Microsoft will come to their senses before they release Windows 9. A PC is not a phone.
About L-D...
absurd and not relevant
Compiling from source is a very rare event, usually reserved for testing beta programs from sourceforge.
Ubuntu has a bunch of codecs to download from its software centre, and with VLC, there is nearly nothing you can't play.
Your criticism is a tired and banal caricature of Linux.
Talking out of turn