11 ms·

DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

138 points by ashitlerferad 10y ago

rtpg 10y ago
Surprised at how good this phone sounds! Though I am not sure I have the courage to move from Android, it does sound like Ubuntu Phone could be a decent 4th player in the market now that FFOS is DOA. I imagine you have a lot more flexibility for the software you write? Like, could I easily use Python + Tkinter to set up a quick "app" for my phone? Basically, is this phone more of a small computer with Ubuntu, or a different beast?
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I keep hearing it's supposed to be pretty much stock ubuntu with a slick front-end and phone drivers. I haven't been able to try it yet though. I hope it is, because I've been dying to get an actual linux phone for a long time. Unfortunately this review was a little skimpy on what went on underneath the hood.
  - Brakenshire 10y ago
    It's not quite stock Ubuntu in the sense that the core system is read only, in order to allow for OTA updates. So at present you can only apt-get by going into a dev mode which means you can't get the OTA's.
- rihegher 10y ago
  It's out of stock anyway with no plan for new ones to get sold
anilgulecha 10y ago
I hope the ubuntu phone fulfills the promise that FirefoxOS had. FFOS was killed due to a spiral of very low spec hardware and no real third-party development. Being able to hack on the phone using scripts at a moment's notice is not something any phone currently provides.
- rtpg 10y ago
  I wonder if we could put FFOS on this phone. I still think the FF model of "everything is a web page" would lead to a pretty magical end goal, first set out by Smalltalk VMs. But I am not using a phone with a laggy keyboard.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Smalltalk used "everything is native". As someone that used Smalltalk, HTML/CSS with JavaScript glue surely isn't what Smalltalk had for its GUI.
    - rtpg 10y ago
      Oh, did it? I thought it was in its own universe. Maybe I'm thinking of some other system (Scratch??).
jaimex2 10y ago
I do miss my Nokia n900 running Maemo, this might be as close to a replacement as it'll get. Just need a phone with a good built in keyboard.
- forvelin 10y ago
  Have you checked Jolla [1] with a keyboard other half ? [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2028347278/tohkbd-the-other-half-keyboard-for-your-jolla https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2028347278/tohkbd-the-o...
  - dingaling 10y ago
    Seemed lke a good idea, but unfortunately: FAQs to which the answer is no: Can I order? Can I get TOHKBD? Are you sad to close the store? ... TOHKBD? Can I buy? I'm also in the market for a high-spec smartphone with hardware keyboard but the only realy candidate was the Blackberry PRIV. However it has an encrypted bootloader with no ability to bypass, so not an option.
    - skykooler 10y ago
      TOHKBDs do occasionally show up on eBay, though. It took me about two months to be able to get my hands on one.
- ashitlerferad 10y ago
  https://neo900.org/ https://neo900.org/
  - luxpir 10y ago
    The €480 quoted on the site covers 40% of the final price. I paid ~€130 for the Ubuntu phone and I don't intend to ever pay more than 2x that for a smartphone. But it'd have to be special. Truly converge PC/phone, then I may pay closer to PC prices. EDIT: I had and thoroughly enjoyed my N900 for many years.
- 10y ago
Scarbutt 10y ago
How does distrowatch gets the "page hits" for all the distros's websites? or are those "page hits" initiated from within distrowatch? (surprised to see Mint at the top)
- unixhero 10y ago
  Tried Mint lately? It's been mighty fine distribution the last years.
  - mappu 10y ago
    It seems to have a poor reputation for security, though.
    - Sylos 10y ago
      It does, I don't think that affects it much, though, because it's still so much less likely to catch a virus on Mint than it is on Windows, that it's still an upgrade for people switching over from Windows, which is sort of Mint's target user-base anyways. They've also done some work on security with their latest release, mainly making kernel-updates more accessible...
      - mavhc 10y ago
        Do they support upgrading yet though? If I wanted to reinstall my OS every year I'd go back to using Windows 95
        Sylos 10y ago
        You can manually edit the APT-sources to point to the new release and then let it perform a dist-upgrade, which is, as far as I understand it, the same as Ubuntu or Fedora do automatically. The Linux Mint devs just don't think that's a good way of handling upgrades, so they don't have a button for it. You can read their reasoning here in section E : https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2 https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2
lake99 10y ago
> About 1GB of memory is required to run the phone with its default scopes and settings, leaving us about 2GB of space for applications and other features. I did not see this coming. I was under the impression that moving away from a JVM would have lowered the memory requirements. A comparison of the two versions of Meizu Pro 5, Android and Ubuntu, would have been useful too. I am curious if the move away from the Android architecture has changed the responsiveness of apps, or affected battery life.
- tangue 10y ago
  According to the Verge [1] : "The most powerful Ubuntu phone is still not good enough, The Meizu Pro 5 has the Galaxy S6's processor, but not its performance" [1] : http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11097126/meizu-pro-5-ubuntu-edition-specs-price-release-date-mwc-2016 http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11097126/meizu-pro-5-ubunt...
- pjmlp 10y ago
  As of Android 5, there is only ART, which is no different than using Go, D, or any other AOT compiled language with a GC enabled runtime. Also many Scopes are actually written in either JavaScript, or QML with C++ and Go as possible code-behind languages. https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/scopes/ https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/scopes/ So overall the runtime requirements aren't much different, unless you are writing a pure Qt/C++ scope (without QML).
  - lake99 10y ago
    Ah well, I guess I'll stay with Android for the time being then. I hope they meant to introduce Scopes as a stopgap measure to bridge the app divide to Android and iOS. I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      > I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do. Most of those apps are actually written in Qt, PhoneGap, Xamarin, or whatever portable flavour of the month. Applications written in Java just with the Android Frameworks, are hardly above 10MB in application code, usually the rest are image/audio resources or a collection of the "Java framework of the month" for Android.
kogepathic 10y ago
> Over the past year and a half I have become accustomed to the idea that I get to run free applications on my phone in exchange for being shown semi-frequent ads. This tended not to bother me most of the time, except when Android apps would suddenly show me full screen videos at high volume. Really? I installed AdAway [1] on my Android phone and since then I have seen no ads. Zero. The only issue is that some legitimate apps don't work, because they pull content from sits which are blacklisted (mostly stock ticker apps). I feel that's a small price to pay for not having battery and data sucking ads during my phone experience. Yes, it requires root to install the hosts file. That's basically a one time event (I rarely update the list and still never see ads) and the battery impact is none because the ad blocking works at DNS level (as opposed to say, a system-wide proxy) [1] https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=Adaway&fdid=org.adaway https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=Adaway&fdid=...
- lambda 10y ago
  Huh. I've just never installed any ad-based applications. If there's a no-ad paid version for a buck or two I'll buy it, otherwise, I just don't use it.
  - rplnt 10y ago
    How did you know which apps have ads? Until recently it was not shown anywhere I think?
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      Play Store comments, magazines and web sites that review applications? I never install anything that hasn't been reviewed.
    - lambda 10y ago
      If it's a gateway to a paid service (music stores, Uber, Lyft, etc), it generally won't have ads. If it's free, but not a gateway to a paid service, I check to see if source is available; if source is available, it generally doesn't have ads (and if it does, I can just build it myself and remove them). If the above checks fail, I check for a paid, ad-free version. If such a version exists, that implies the free version has ads. If the price is reasonable, I'll buy it, otherwise I'll skip it. Finally you have free-as-in-beer but not as in freedom apps, that don't have paid alternative or any other way of generating revenue. I just assume those apps are either encrusted in ads or scams, so I don't install them.
twblalock 10y ago
> When I first started using the phone I noticed the Today scope showed temperatures in the weather forecast in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. This can be adjusted by changing our selected language in the device's settings panel and restarting the phone. Really? You have to restart to change the temperature units? What a joke.
- legulere 10y ago
  Restarting is also required for iOS when changing the language.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    No, it isn't. I just did it on my iPhone 6S, and it did not require a restart.
    - legulere 10y ago
      Just checked again, it restarts all applications and everything with a GUI, but it's not a full restart.
- wvh 10y ago
  I guess setting the locale requires all applications using it to restart to pick up the changes in their environment, just like on regular Linux/Unix systems – processes inherit the environment from their parent. I don't know how iOS works, but it might also have to restart processes if it uses system locales for such settings.
- darklajid 10y ago
  The real issue is "You have to change your language to change the temperature units". There's no correlation between those. That is one broken scope/widget if the author is correct.
  - allendoerfer 10y ago
    While I agree, that it should be changeable independently, there is a very strong correlation between language and temperature units.
benbristow 10y ago
Distrowatch is definitely looking dated nowadays. Could do with a re-design at some point or another.
- pauljohncleary 10y ago
  it's almost unreadable on a widescreen monitor
- yAnonymous 10y ago
  They rank distros by popularity based on how many clicks they get, so I always viewed it as a kind of parody/entertainment website.
  - type0 10y ago
    It is web 1.0 clicking game for linux enthusiasts. Linux Mint users have been most avid clickers for a while now it seems.
- shafiqissani 10y ago
  naah its fine as is.
- frou_dh 10y ago
  Brazen bikeshedding.
Freak_NL 10y ago
I own the Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu smartphone. And I like it. This is actually my first smartphone, so my perspective may be somewhat different from that of the reviews of it out there. I am a software engineer, and I greatly value the freedom to do whatever I want with computing devices I own, and to be able to tweak things and contribute any enhancements back to the community. If something irks me and I can fix it, I will submit a patch (i.e., as a drive-by contributor), otherwise I will file a bug report and help reproduce the issue. Nothing major, no huge time-sink; just being able to help shape the software that surrounds us, and having a feeling of contributing to something bigger than a single corporation. So naturally I use a flavour of GNU/Linux on my computer. I already use Ubuntu on my desktop and laptop computers (both professionally and private), so the Ubuntu smartphone seems like a good shot at getting something that can potentially near the freedom I have on desktop Linux, and thus far I am not disappointed. A smartphone for me is a way to get information on-the-go. For things like public transport itineraries, weather forecasts, and navigation Ubuntu Touch already suffices. The big 'issue' of course is apps. Ubuntu Touch has its own store with a growing number of free software apps, and some proprietary stuff. Most of the basic apps I expect are there, mostly pre-installed. Big name apps are missing though — there is no WhatsApp for instance. Now for my opinion on this topic, which may very well be an unpopular minority view: To me, this lack of big name proprietary apps is just fine and exactly what I want. The term 'app' is ambiguous at best and I feel that it is a threat to software freedom. To illustrate: A simple stand-alone off-line calculator is called an 'app', but so i a web-service accessible exclusively with proprietary software like WhatsApp. That is, an 'app' in common parlance is not just the piece of software you install on your device, it is also the infrastructure backing it. In the case of the extremely popular WhatsApp, you need their software to be able to access their service. It appears to be illegal to create a free software client that can talk to their service, unlike, say, email (SMTP, IMAP, etc.). That's fine, its their service, their rules, I prefer to make due without. I don't want a computing device filled with a bunch of proprietary clients for day-to-day tasks. If you offer a great service, offer a great web-app to use it with (I already have a capable browser installed), or (re)use or create an open protocol anyone can use. Otherwise, I'll just do without. If your business model depends on me installing a piece of proprietary software, I am not interested. Other than that, there is still plenty of rough edges. It is not trivial (though possible) to install the normal software packages from Ubuntu's repositories, but on the other hand, I have not had the need yet. I do sorely miss Firefox with uBlock Origin though! Ads on websites seem even more intrusive than on the desktop. If I had to summarize the threats to Ubuntu Touch's future I would say that it sometimes feels as if there are not enough core developers working on the product, but that may be just the impression I got from the issues I have reported. Canonical seems to bet on being able to get Ubuntu Touch entrenched in developing countries, but I doubt that that strategy will pay off (although I am not knowledgeable enough on that topic to make a firm statement about this). If they can manage to make Ubuntu Touch synonymous with the easy to use and obtain free operating system for smartphones (the way Ubuntu is for desktop computers) they may have a good chance at winning the hearts of software developers with a preference for free software — that is the niche I would bet on. The lack of apps in the way of Android and IOS is of course problematic in the current app-economy driven smartphone world, and will prevent major adoption of Ubuntu Touch for some time to come, but it may be that I am not alone in my dismissal of this reliance on proprietary apps.
teekert 10y ago
I bought a OnePlus 3 for the reason that it will be a well supported Ubuntu Touch phone [0]. It allows me dip the toe into the water with Ubuntu Touch while keeping Android as a backup. The 6 GB RAM of the OnePlus3 may well prove to be useful after all ;) [0] http://techpp.com/2016/06/17/oneplus-3-ubuntu-touch-os/ http://techpp.com/2016/06/17/oneplus-3-ubuntu-touch-os/
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
Specs and pics of the hardware, if anyone else is curious: http://www.gsmarena.com/meizu_pro_5-7573.php http://www.gsmarena.com/meizu_pro_5-7573.php
rglullis 10y ago
I got the BQ Aquarius 5 a few months ago, after my Moto G2 SIM card stopped working. So when comparing two budget-but-capable-phones, I can say that the hardware on the Ubuntu phone is not the problem. The software they have is great, and I haven't seen any half-backed features. The updates are consistent and always bring something interesting. The idea of lenses and scopes are great as an alternative to the lack of common apps. I didn't miss not having a weather app or yelp, or youtube or whatever. The one thing that is lacking on Ubuntu Touch are the things that are core to mobile use cases. For example: - I understand that I won't get a decent Google Maps app, but there is no real alternative. Here Maps comes installed, but I could not find a way to get public transportation data. uNav seems to do the turn-by-turn navigation, but they don't have voice, which is useless when I am on a bike. - There is no decent story for messaging/VoIP: You can have Telegram, but also is just a webview wrapper. Messenger, Whatsapp? Nothing. And if at least they had half-decent XMPP/SIP clients, I could try to drop the closed services and try to switch my friends and family with me. But what good is a smartphone that I can't use to talk or chat? Because of these things, I was basically forced to always be walking around with two phones: the Ubuntu one for connectivity and basic media and as a hotspot for my broken Android, which I would then use when I needed to look into maps or call/message someone. The hassle was enough for me to find a replacement board for the SIM card and go back to use only Android for everything. The Ubuntu phone now is in a drawer, waiting for me to get some time to play with application development for Ubuntu Touch. All-in-all, my feeling is that Canonical is close to get its break and make Ubuntu a compelling alternative. It is just not there yet. I also hope that this Moto G was my last Android phone.
- dmca 10y ago
  I can't speak for this OS but I use OsmAnd (http://osmand.net http://osmand.net) in place of google maps on cyanogenmod and it does do a reasonable job of voice navigation (using the same OpenStreetMap data as uNav). It's open source so it should be able to work in principle.
  - Brakenshire 10y ago
    I agree there are good applications available, but OSMAnd is an Android app, you'd need some sort of compatibility layer for it to run on stock Linux. I think there is work going on for that happen, but it's not there yet. The project I can recall is Shashlik, there are one or two others as well. I think Android app compatibility is necessary for a Linux phone. You won't be able to use Play Services, but a lot of apps do not require that. Android compatibility would for instance give you WhatsApp. It also gives you access to hardware like activity monitors (Garmin and Withings apps don't require play services), which otherwise is very unlikely to be supported. And also sophisticated public transport apps like Moovit.
IshKebab 10y ago
It seems kind of mad to think Ubuntu could succeed where Microsoft failed. I just can't see any way they will convince third party developers to write apps for it.
- wvh 10y ago
  Well they might count on a great deal of open-source development and related good-will, not to mention they are probably already using a lot of standard libraries and applications to provide expected functionality. I wouldn't mind not having many "commercial" apps available if I could just use almost any already existing open-source application, not unlike on Linux desktop systems. I know it doesn't look easy for Jolla and Ubuntu Phone, but I hope at least one of them prevails so we can have a reasonably open Linux system running on phones.
  - IshKebab 10y ago
    Few existing open source apps are touchscreen apps though. Enjoy your stylus!
- Sylos 10y ago
  Well, a few things which might help: - There's going to be developers who will develop for Ubuntu Touch in their free time, just because they want the platform to succeed, similar to desktop Linux. And essentially no one will do that for Windows Phone, meaning that Windows Phone depends much more on developers to be able to make a profit off of it, and therefore much more on having market share to begin with. - Ubuntu Touch appeals more to developers than Windows Phone does. And if a developer already uses a platform, it's much more likely that they write an app for it in their free time. - Because Ubuntu Touch is open-source, it can be ported to existing phones. You can for example dual-boot it on a few of the Nexus devices already, which again, makes it easier to develop for. Also means there's another way for people to try it out.
  - benbristow 10y ago
    > And essentially no one will do that for Windows Phone, meaning that Windows Phone depends much more on developers to be able to make a profit off of it, and therefore much more on having market share to begin with. Totally incorrect. There's loads of developers making Windows Phone apps that are compatible with services that don't have an decent official app yet (See, for example, Rudy Huyn).
owly 10y ago
If you're willing to leave vanilla Android or Apple and experiment with a new OS project, you should check out the security focused Android fork of Copperhead. https://copperhead.co/android/ https://copperhead.co/android/ Why go through all of the grief of switching without a security focused purpose?
oDot 10y ago
See http://ubports.com/ http://ubports.com/ for ports to some Android devices
tluyben2 10y ago
I would like this phone because, I assume, I can inspect and change the kernel and all other OSS software on it. What I don't get is, with their focus on emerging markets, why it needs to be so expensive. If they would focus more on performance they could have one for $100. I recently bought some iPhone clone in China, and besides the software, it's a fine phone; most people who see me with it immediately want one. It was $65 and works fine for most things I use smartphones for, even, to my surprise, taking great pictures. Battery life is around 8 hours/day with quite heavy use, the GPS performance is total crap (I think this is a software issue), but for $65 this is a nice device (it feels great as it's a 6s+ ripoff casing wise). But proprietary software in as much that I can't swap out the kernel and the rip off iOS on-top-of-Android is quite painful. If someone would just equip these phones with something fully OSS (minus a few drivers possibly) I don't think I would buy anything else.
jstanley 10y ago
I run Ubuntu Touch on a Nexus 4, and have done for about 6 months now. It is slow and the mail client often crashes. And it doesn't have Snapchat. And the camera app is rubbish. Apart from that, it is a lot less stressful to use than Android. I got fed up with it being slow at one point and reinstalled Android, and it had so many nag screens about reporting data to Google, and so many privacy options that I had to be sure to configure correctly, that I put Ubuntu back on it the same day. I carry a second phone to run Snapchat and take photos. EDIT: They do make you sign up for an account before you can download apps from the store, which completely boggles my mind. Their singular advantage over Android is that they don't hassle you for information, yet they almost throw that away by making you sign up to download apps. I just used a fake account, but I wish they didn't make you sign up.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

138 points by ashitlerferad 10y ago

rtpg 10y ago

Surprised at how good this phone sounds! Though I am not sure I have the courage to move from Android, it does sound like Ubuntu Phone could be a decent 4th player in the market now that FFOS is DOA. I imagine you have a lot more flexibility for the software you write? Like, could I easily use Python + Tkinter to set up a quick "app" for my phone? Basically, is this phone more of a small computer with Ubuntu, or a different beast?

CaptSpify 10y ago
I keep hearing it's supposed to be pretty much stock ubuntu with a slick front-end and phone drivers. I haven't been able to try it yet though. I hope it is, because I've been dying to get an actual linux phone for a long time. Unfortunately this review was a little skimpy on what went on underneath the hood.
- Brakenshire 10y ago
  It's not quite stock Ubuntu in the sense that the core system is read only, in order to allow for OTA updates. So at present you can only apt-get by going into a dev mode which means you can't get the OTA's.
rihegher 10y ago
It's out of stock anyway with no plan for new ones to get sold

anilgulecha 10y ago

I hope the ubuntu phone fulfills the promise that FirefoxOS had. FFOS was killed due to a spiral of very low spec hardware and no real third-party development. Being able to hack on the phone using scripts at a moment's notice is not something any phone currently provides.

rtpg 10y ago
I wonder if we could put FFOS on this phone. I still think the FF model of "everything is a web page" would lead to a pretty magical end goal, first set out by Smalltalk VMs. But I am not using a phone with a laggy keyboard.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Smalltalk used "everything is native". As someone that used Smalltalk, HTML/CSS with JavaScript glue surely isn't what Smalltalk had for its GUI.
  - rtpg 10y ago
    Oh, did it? I thought it was in its own universe. Maybe I'm thinking of some other system (Scratch??).

jaimex2 10y ago

I do miss my Nokia n900 running Maemo, this might be as close to a replacement as it'll get. Just need a phone with a good built in keyboard.

forvelin 10y ago
Have you checked Jolla [1] with a keyboard other half ? [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2028347278/tohkbd-the-other-half-keyboard-for-your-jolla https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2028347278/tohkbd-the-o...
- dingaling 10y ago
  Seemed lke a good idea, but unfortunately: FAQs to which the answer is no: Can I order? Can I get TOHKBD? Are you sad to close the store? ... TOHKBD? Can I buy? I'm also in the market for a high-spec smartphone with hardware keyboard but the only realy candidate was the Blackberry PRIV. However it has an encrypted bootloader with no ability to bypass, so not an option.
  - skykooler 10y ago
    TOHKBDs do occasionally show up on eBay, though. It took me about two months to be able to get my hands on one.
ashitlerferad 10y ago
https://neo900.org/ https://neo900.org/
- luxpir 10y ago
  The €480 quoted on the site covers 40% of the final price. I paid ~€130 for the Ubuntu phone and I don't intend to ever pay more than 2x that for a smartphone. But it'd have to be special. Truly converge PC/phone, then I may pay closer to PC prices. EDIT: I had and thoroughly enjoyed my N900 for many years.
10y ago

Scarbutt 10y ago

How does distrowatch gets the "page hits" for all the distros's websites? or are those "page hits" initiated from within distrowatch? (surprised to see Mint at the top)

unixhero 10y ago
Tried Mint lately? It's been mighty fine distribution the last years.
- mappu 10y ago
  It seems to have a poor reputation for security, though.
  - Sylos 10y ago
    It does, I don't think that affects it much, though, because it's still so much less likely to catch a virus on Mint than it is on Windows, that it's still an upgrade for people switching over from Windows, which is sort of Mint's target user-base anyways. They've also done some work on security with their latest release, mainly making kernel-updates more accessible...
    - mavhc 10y ago
      Do they support upgrading yet though? If I wanted to reinstall my OS every year I'd go back to using Windows 95
      - Sylos 10y ago
        You can manually edit the APT-sources to point to the new release and then let it perform a dist-upgrade, which is, as far as I understand it, the same as Ubuntu or Fedora do automatically. The Linux Mint devs just don't think that's a good way of handling upgrades, so they don't have a button for it. You can read their reasoning here in section E : https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2 https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2

lake99 10y ago

> About 1GB of memory is required to run the phone with its default scopes and settings, leaving us about 2GB of space for applications and other features. I did not see this coming. I was under the impression that moving away from a JVM would have lowered the memory requirements. A comparison of the two versions of Meizu Pro 5, Android and Ubuntu, would have been useful too. I am curious if the move away from the Android architecture has changed the responsiveness of apps, or affected battery life.

tangue 10y ago
According to the Verge [1] : "The most powerful Ubuntu phone is still not good enough, The Meizu Pro 5 has the Galaxy S6's processor, but not its performance" [1] : http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11097126/meizu-pro-5-ubuntu-edition-specs-price-release-date-mwc-2016 http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/23/11097126/meizu-pro-5-ubunt...
pjmlp 10y ago
As of Android 5, there is only ART, which is no different than using Go, D, or any other AOT compiled language with a GC enabled runtime. Also many Scopes are actually written in either JavaScript, or QML with C++ and Go as possible code-behind languages. https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/scopes/ https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/scopes/ So overall the runtime requirements aren't much different, unless you are writing a pure Qt/C++ scope (without QML).
- lake99 10y ago
  Ah well, I guess I'll stay with Android for the time being then. I hope they meant to introduce Scopes as a stopgap measure to bridge the app divide to Android and iOS. I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    > I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do. Most of those apps are actually written in Qt, PhoneGap, Xamarin, or whatever portable flavour of the month. Applications written in Java just with the Android Frameworks, are hardly above 10MB in application code, usually the rest are image/audio resources or a collection of the "Java framework of the month" for Android.

kogepathic 10y ago

> Over the past year and a half I have become accustomed to the idea that I get to run free applications on my phone in exchange for being shown semi-frequent ads. This tended not to bother me most of the time, except when Android apps would suddenly show me full screen videos at high volume. Really? I installed AdAway [1] on my Android phone and since then I have seen no ads. Zero. The only issue is that some legitimate apps don't work, because they pull content from sits which are blacklisted (mostly stock ticker apps). I feel that's a small price to pay for not having battery and data sucking ads during my phone experience. Yes, it requires root to install the hosts file. That's basically a one time event (I rarely update the list and still never see ads) and the battery impact is none because the ad blocking works at DNS level (as opposed to say, a system-wide proxy) [1] https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=Adaway&fdid=org.adaway https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=Adaway&fdid=...

lambda 10y ago
Huh. I've just never installed any ad-based applications. If there's a no-ad paid version for a buck or two I'll buy it, otherwise, I just don't use it.
- rplnt 10y ago
  How did you know which apps have ads? Until recently it was not shown anywhere I think?
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Play Store comments, magazines and web sites that review applications? I never install anything that hasn't been reviewed.
  - lambda 10y ago
    If it's a gateway to a paid service (music stores, Uber, Lyft, etc), it generally won't have ads. If it's free, but not a gateway to a paid service, I check to see if source is available; if source is available, it generally doesn't have ads (and if it does, I can just build it myself and remove them). If the above checks fail, I check for a paid, ad-free version. If such a version exists, that implies the free version has ads. If the price is reasonable, I'll buy it, otherwise I'll skip it. Finally you have free-as-in-beer but not as in freedom apps, that don't have paid alternative or any other way of generating revenue. I just assume those apps are either encrusted in ads or scams, so I don't install them.

twblalock 10y ago

> When I first started using the phone I noticed the Today scope showed temperatures in the weather forecast in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. This can be adjusted by changing our selected language in the device's settings panel and restarting the phone. Really? You have to restart to change the temperature units? What a joke.

legulere 10y ago
Restarting is also required for iOS when changing the language.
- twblalock 10y ago
  No, it isn't. I just did it on my iPhone 6S, and it did not require a restart.
  - legulere 10y ago
    Just checked again, it restarts all applications and everything with a GUI, but it's not a full restart.
wvh 10y ago
I guess setting the locale requires all applications using it to restart to pick up the changes in their environment, just like on regular Linux/Unix systems – processes inherit the environment from their parent. I don't know how iOS works, but it might also have to restart processes if it uses system locales for such settings.
darklajid 10y ago
The real issue is "You have to change your language to change the temperature units". There's no correlation between those. That is one broken scope/widget if the author is correct.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  While I agree, that it should be changeable independently, there is a very strong correlation between language and temperature units.

benbristow 10y ago

Distrowatch is definitely looking dated nowadays. Could do with a re-design at some point or another.

pauljohncleary 10y ago
it's almost unreadable on a widescreen monitor
yAnonymous 10y ago
They rank distros by popularity based on how many clicks they get, so I always viewed it as a kind of parody/entertainment website.
- type0 10y ago
  It is web 1.0 clicking game for linux enthusiasts. Linux Mint users have been most avid clickers for a while now it seems.
shafiqissani 10y ago
naah its fine as is.
frou_dh 10y ago
Brazen bikeshedding.

Freak_NL 10y ago

I own the Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu smartphone. And I like it. This is actually my first smartphone, so my perspective may be somewhat different from that of the reviews of it out there. I am a software engineer, and I greatly value the freedom to do whatever I want with computing devices I own, and to be able to tweak things and contribute any enhancements back to the community. If something irks me and I can fix it, I will submit a patch (i.e., as a drive-by contributor), otherwise I will file a bug report and help reproduce the issue. Nothing major, no huge time-sink; just being able to help shape the software that surrounds us, and having a feeling of contributing to something bigger than a single corporation. So naturally I use a flavour of GNU/Linux on my computer. I already use Ubuntu on my desktop and laptop computers (both professionally and private), so the Ubuntu smartphone seems like a good shot at getting something that can potentially near the freedom I have on desktop Linux, and thus far I am not disappointed. A smartphone for me is a way to get information on-the-go. For things like public transport itineraries, weather forecasts, and navigation Ubuntu Touch already suffices. The big 'issue' of course is apps. Ubuntu Touch has its own store with a growing number of free software apps, and some proprietary stuff. Most of the basic apps I expect are there, mostly pre-installed. Big name apps are missing though — there is no WhatsApp for instance. Now for my opinion on this topic, which may very well be an unpopular minority view: To me, this lack of big name proprietary apps is just fine and exactly what I want. The term 'app' is ambiguous at best and I feel that it is a threat to software freedom. To illustrate: A simple stand-alone off-line calculator is called an 'app', but so i a web-service accessible exclusively with proprietary software like WhatsApp. That is, an 'app' in common parlance is not just the piece of software you install on your device, it is also the infrastructure backing it. In the case of the extremely popular WhatsApp, you need their software to be able to access their service. It appears to be illegal to create a free software client that can talk to their service, unlike, say, email (SMTP, IMAP, etc.). That's fine, its their service, their rules, I prefer to make due without. I don't want a computing device filled with a bunch of proprietary clients for day-to-day tasks. If you offer a great service, offer a great web-app to use it with (I already have a capable browser installed), or (re)use or create an open protocol anyone can use. Otherwise, I'll just do without. If your business model depends on me installing a piece of proprietary software, I am not interested. Other than that, there is still plenty of rough edges. It is not trivial (though possible) to install the normal software packages from Ubuntu's repositories, but on the other hand, I have not had the need yet. I do sorely miss Firefox with uBlock Origin though! Ads on websites seem even more intrusive than on the desktop. If I had to summarize the threats to Ubuntu Touch's future I would say that it sometimes feels as if there are not enough core developers working on the product, but that may be just the impression I got from the issues I have reported. Canonical seems to bet on being able to get Ubuntu Touch entrenched in developing countries, but I doubt that that strategy will pay off (although I am not knowledgeable enough on that topic to make a firm statement about this). If they can manage to make Ubuntu Touch synonymous with the easy to use and obtain free operating system for smartphones (the way Ubuntu is for desktop computers) they may have a good chance at winning the hearts of software developers with a preference for free software — that is the niche I would bet on. The lack of apps in the way of Android and IOS is of course problematic in the current app-economy driven smartphone world, and will prevent major adoption of Ubuntu Touch for some time to come, but it may be that I am not alone in my dismissal of this reliance on proprietary apps.

teekert 10y ago

I bought a OnePlus 3 for the reason that it will be a well supported Ubuntu Touch phone [0]. It allows me dip the toe into the water with Ubuntu Touch while keeping Android as a backup. The 6 GB RAM of the OnePlus3 may well prove to be useful after all ;) [0] http://techpp.com/2016/06/17/oneplus-3-ubuntu-touch-os/ http://techpp.com/2016/06/17/oneplus-3-ubuntu-touch-os/

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago

Specs and pics of the hardware, if anyone else is curious: http://www.gsmarena.com/meizu_pro_5-7573.php http://www.gsmarena.com/meizu_pro_5-7573.php

rglullis 10y ago

I got the BQ Aquarius 5 a few months ago, after my Moto G2 SIM card stopped working. So when comparing two budget-but-capable-phones, I can say that the hardware on the Ubuntu phone is not the problem. The software they have is great, and I haven't seen any half-backed features. The updates are consistent and always bring something interesting. The idea of lenses and scopes are great as an alternative to the lack of common apps. I didn't miss not having a weather app or yelp, or youtube or whatever. The one thing that is lacking on Ubuntu Touch are the things that are core to mobile use cases. For example: - I understand that I won't get a decent Google Maps app, but there is no real alternative. Here Maps comes installed, but I could not find a way to get public transportation data. uNav seems to do the turn-by-turn navigation, but they don't have voice, which is useless when I am on a bike. - There is no decent story for messaging/VoIP: You can have Telegram, but also is just a webview wrapper. Messenger, Whatsapp? Nothing. And if at least they had half-decent XMPP/SIP clients, I could try to drop the closed services and try to switch my friends and family with me. But what good is a smartphone that I can't use to talk or chat? Because of these things, I was basically forced to always be walking around with two phones: the Ubuntu one for connectivity and basic media and as a hotspot for my broken Android, which I would then use when I needed to look into maps or call/message someone. The hassle was enough for me to find a replacement board for the SIM card and go back to use only Android for everything. The Ubuntu phone now is in a drawer, waiting for me to get some time to play with application development for Ubuntu Touch. All-in-all, my feeling is that Canonical is close to get its break and make Ubuntu a compelling alternative. It is just not there yet. I also hope that this Moto G was my last Android phone.

dmca 10y ago
I can't speak for this OS but I use OsmAnd (http://osmand.net http://osmand.net) in place of google maps on cyanogenmod and it does do a reasonable job of voice navigation (using the same OpenStreetMap data as uNav). It's open source so it should be able to work in principle.
- Brakenshire 10y ago
  I agree there are good applications available, but OSMAnd is an Android app, you'd need some sort of compatibility layer for it to run on stock Linux. I think there is work going on for that happen, but it's not there yet. The project I can recall is Shashlik, there are one or two others as well. I think Android app compatibility is necessary for a Linux phone. You won't be able to use Play Services, but a lot of apps do not require that. Android compatibility would for instance give you WhatsApp. It also gives you access to hardware like activity monitors (Garmin and Withings apps don't require play services), which otherwise is very unlikely to be supported. And also sophisticated public transport apps like Moovit.

IshKebab 10y ago

It seems kind of mad to think Ubuntu could succeed where Microsoft failed. I just can't see any way they will convince third party developers to write apps for it.

wvh 10y ago
Well they might count on a great deal of open-source development and related good-will, not to mention they are probably already using a lot of standard libraries and applications to provide expected functionality. I wouldn't mind not having many "commercial" apps available if I could just use almost any already existing open-source application, not unlike on Linux desktop systems. I know it doesn't look easy for Jolla and Ubuntu Phone, but I hope at least one of them prevails so we can have a reasonably open Linux system running on phones.
- IshKebab 10y ago
  Few existing open source apps are touchscreen apps though. Enjoy your stylus!
Sylos 10y ago
Well, a few things which might help: - There's going to be developers who will develop for Ubuntu Touch in their free time, just because they want the platform to succeed, similar to desktop Linux. And essentially no one will do that for Windows Phone, meaning that Windows Phone depends much more on developers to be able to make a profit off of it, and therefore much more on having market share to begin with. - Ubuntu Touch appeals more to developers than Windows Phone does. And if a developer already uses a platform, it's much more likely that they write an app for it in their free time. - Because Ubuntu Touch is open-source, it can be ported to existing phones. You can for example dual-boot it on a few of the Nexus devices already, which again, makes it easier to develop for. Also means there's another way for people to try it out.
- benbristow 10y ago
  > And essentially no one will do that for Windows Phone, meaning that Windows Phone depends much more on developers to be able to make a profit off of it, and therefore much more on having market share to begin with. Totally incorrect. There's loads of developers making Windows Phone apps that are compatible with services that don't have an decent official app yet (See, for example, Rudy Huyn).

owly 10y ago

If you're willing to leave vanilla Android or Apple and experiment with a new OS project, you should check out the security focused Android fork of Copperhead. https://copperhead.co/android/ https://copperhead.co/android/ Why go through all of the grief of switching without a security focused purpose?

oDot 10y ago

See http://ubports.com/ http://ubports.com/ for ports to some Android devices

tluyben2 10y ago

I would like this phone because, I assume, I can inspect and change the kernel and all other OSS software on it. What I don't get is, with their focus on emerging markets, why it needs to be so expensive. If they would focus more on performance they could have one for $100. I recently bought some iPhone clone in China, and besides the software, it's a fine phone; most people who see me with it immediately want one. It was $65 and works fine for most things I use smartphones for, even, to my surprise, taking great pictures. Battery life is around 8 hours/day with quite heavy use, the GPS performance is total crap (I think this is a software issue), but for $65 this is a nice device (it feels great as it's a 6s+ ripoff casing wise). But proprietary software in as much that I can't swap out the kernel and the rip off iOS on-top-of-Android is quite painful. If someone would just equip these phones with something fully OSS (minus a few drivers possibly) I don't think I would buy anything else.

jstanley 10y ago

I run Ubuntu Touch on a Nexus 4, and have done for about 6 months now. It is slow and the mail client often crashes. And it doesn't have Snapchat. And the camera app is rubbish. Apart from that, it is a lot less stressful to use than Android. I got fed up with it being slow at one point and reinstalled Android, and it had so many nag screens about reporting data to Google, and so many privacy options that I had to be sure to configure correctly, that I put Ubuntu back on it the same day. I carry a second phone to run Snapchat and take photos. EDIT: They do make you sign up for an account before you can download apps from the store, which completely boggles my mind. Their singular advantage over Android is that they don't hassle you for information, yet they almost throw that away by making you sign up to download apps. I just used a fake account, but I wish they didn't make you sign up.

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