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Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
101–110 of 221 posts
Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#102Edit: Here's the keynote video. Skip to about 6:35 sec for the new bits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpWHJDLsqTU Direct link to 6:35 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpWHJDLsqTU&feature=play... First thoughts: 2014 is a long way away and a whole year is an eternity in mobile space. It kind of looks like Unity in portrait mode but without the dock. What does it bring new to developers that isn't there in Android? F…
>What does it bring new to developers that isn't there in Android? Firefox OS's USP is web apps with native bindings
Connect a display and you have full ubuntu. With today's smartphones already computationally competitive with your standard netbook, that alone is a massive value proposition to me. Add something like motorola's lapdock and there is 95% of all my computing needs met, all with a single, central data storage.
Hopefully porting from linux will be fairly straightforward too.. just a new UI support?, giving apps that work from desktop to mobile. Not to mention that is has most of the FFOS advantage too.
Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#103Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why the hell do I need manufacturer blessing?? I own the phone. Give me a ROM, Canonical.
It would be an impossible task to do that for all phones. But the community can make ROM's for different phones like they do it for Android.
Canonical must have at least one ROM that they use for their own testing. Why won't they even release that?
Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#105I really wish Canonical would focus on making the Linux Desktop/Laptop experience better but perhaps this will play out like Apple: bootstrap the company's growth on the success of a mobile device (iPod in Apple's case). Plus, Canonical can offer something Google really can't: a common interface across all devices (Chromebook hasn't really worked out).
The chromebook was the biggest selling laptop this Christmas on amazon. http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/chromebook-christmas-be... Definitely far from not working out! I think it's pretty darn proven as a consumer product.
Amazon is the main channel for Chromebooks but not Macbooks. Amazon may not be a great sample of the laptop market percentage. I see way more Apple laptops than Chromebooks day to day. It'd be great if that changed in the future (and perhaps it will after this holiday shopping season via your link).
Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
The golden handcuffs are your ability to ship Android's userland (including access to use of trademarks and Play Store). If Google shuts you out, you're out. Ship all the linux kernels you want. Technically, you can probably ship something based on pure AOSP, but your competitors will have had pre-AOSP access to the code for multiple months and there are no guarantees that AOSP even works without Google's magic propr…
> there are no guarantees that AOSP even works without Google's magic proprietary mojo What do you mean by this? If you mean in the market, it can work. Amazon's devices are proof. If a manufacturer is shipping just AOSP, it needs to have a working complement to Google's suite of apps or it needs to have a different value proposition altogether. > CyanogenMod had to develop the missing pieces when Google sent their C…
Once Google's proprietary stuff was deleted, it was not possible to provision a phone (until the FOSS alternates for things like Provision.apk were developed). I can't remember if you got bootloops or what. There were other problems, too. I think AOSP has been friendly toward patches for that sort of thing... ensuring AOSP without gapps works just wasn't one of Google's requirements (at least early on--it may be now for all I know). Not that you can really fault them for having different priorities.
Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#107Edit: Here's the keynote video. Skip to about 6:35 sec for the new bits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpWHJDLsqTU Direct link to 6:35 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpWHJDLsqTU&feature=play... First thoughts: 2014 is a long way away and a whole year is an eternity in mobile space. It kind of looks like Unity in portrait mode but without the dock. What does it bring new to developers that isn't there in Android? F…
I wonder if they use libhybris or something similar to pull that trick and to use bionic drivers. I hope they'll push for regular glibc drivers as well though.
Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#108This is a good thing, but having known Canonical and Ubuntu since the start (2004), I would really love to see them succeed in the desktop market first. This initiative will de-focus their efforts. I admire them, and wish them good luck anyway.
I've come to conclude (as a home-and-office Linux user for nigh on 15 years now) that the standard Unix gui environment of X + widget toolkits + desktop environment is just too multilayered and complex to work for non-boffins. Too many moving parts that can go subtly wrong. You can succeed as an end-user Unix, but you have to burn down the gui architecture and start over. Apple ditched X. Android ditched X. But no "d…
It's too bad that X11 is still the only GUI that really works remotely (for an individual application, not a full desktop).
Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bullshit, people still need to make things. Make emails, edit videos, edit photos, write documents. These aren't business class activities, but touch screens are insufficient for that function. I don't see people lugging around a laptop anymore, but I easily see people plugging their phone into a display, throwing a bluetooth or usb keyboard + mouse on, and expecting a productivity environment from that device. The h…
> edit videos, edit photos, write documents Canonical doesnt produce video, photo and document editing software. The market's refusal to port that software to Linux has essentially killed it on the desktop for a majority of users. If they dont want to port, there is absolutely nothing Canonical can do about it. A new player cannot simply enter a new market and without effort get a significant part of it. The only thi…
> Canonical doesnt produce video, photo and document editing software.
I think, by that argument, Canonical isn't making any software, not even a GNU/Linux distribution. They might not be much involved in developing non-linear video editing software, but they are involved in the various free software projects for everything else on that list?
Re: Canonical announces Ubuntu for smartphones
#110awesome! now i can look forward to upgrades that will kill my phone as effectively as they do my desktop.
Haven't had that for years on Ubuntu, including beta releases (alpha or pre-alpha, yes you get breakage).
Like others here I'm hoping for a phone with desktop device when plugged into a dock driving a monitor and keyboard. I can dream...