4 ms·

I spent years working on the Ubuntu phone. It was a fully convergent device: by default it would present a phone UI, but plugin an a keyboard and screen and it

by bregma 6y ago

I spent years working on the Ubuntu phone. It was a fully convergent device: by default it would present a phone UI, but plugin an a keyboard and screen and it presents a full desktop UI. The UI was designed by a team of brilliant professional designers and it was a technical success. Why isn't it around any more? (1) The carriers. Many people get a free or heavily subsidized phone from their carrier, who makes money from the data charges. Carriers were just not interested in phones from smaller manufacturers, and it's not entirely clear that there is no backflow of cash involved at higher levels. There is also the issue of controlling access to user metadata, always a profitable exercise. (2) The manufacturers: why would they put a third-party OS on their phone when they control the entire stack from the silicon to the end-user's metadata through their in-house Android fork? They can sell hardware at a negative margin if they can profit from selling access to metadata, or possibly data. (3) The apps. Developers want to target the biggest, most lucrative markets so they target Android and iPhone which already have a critical mass. You could provide a container to run Android apps on Ubuntu, but then you end up with no differentiating factor except your Android apps look like crap in desktop mode. Running in a container can also restrict the kind of data collection many apps rely on for monetization. Another problem with apps is that many web services check to see whether the device is iPhone or Android and respond accordingly. Like the browser checks of yore ("you need at least IE 6 to use this site, try updating to a newer browser!") this gives a less satisfactory experience to end users.

pabs3 6y ago
Is the UBPorts community continuing the Ubuntu Phone convergence vision, or did the code get thrown away?
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  From my limited perspective as a former user who still keeps up with some of it: they seem to be continuing down that path, just slower as they don't have Canonical's paid dev team to work on it.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  AFAIK PostMarketOS seems to be working on something similar - my PostMarketOS edition PinePhone even shipped with a convergence hub: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/buy-pinephone-postmarketos https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/buy-pinephone-postmarket... BTW, I think the convergence concept is totally valid and actually available now (although in a proprietary form) as Dex on Samsung Galaxy series devices. Just plug the thing into a USB-C HDMI dongle and it shows a desktop interface on the display & has decent mouse and keyboard support. Really nice for simple stuff like looking at photos you just took outside but on a big screen. And also a killer combo with the Wacom One pen display as you have your Clip Studio or Krita files all available on the big Wacom One screen yet can work on them on the regular device screen while on the go. :) So now we just need that, but open source. :) It could be a separate wayland session outputting to the external display with app GUI getting data from a backend via DBus. That way you could run the same up on both device and external screen at the same time while keeping the data model consistent. :)
  - seba_dos1 6y ago
    > So now we just need that, but open source. :) That's the whole idea behind Librem 5 and PureOS and it already works well. All the phone apps there are just regular desktop apps made convergent to fit and work well on the phone. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onxBw5Pd45w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onxBw5Pd45w and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qB_5g2ZJYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qB_5g2ZJYk
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dm319 6y ago
I do feel if canonical were to attempt another crowd-funding attempt at an Ubuntu phone, they might well be successful this time. That phone was a terrific concept. I feel the market has changed since then, with carriers accepting less control over our phones, and the fad of installing every random app has somewhat distilled itself to a smaller number that is widely used.
- windthrown 6y ago
  Development does continue as a community effort, so hopefully it can break through!: https://ubports.com/ https://ubports.com/
chrisseaton 6y ago
> Many people get a free or heavily subsidized phone from their carrier Is this really the case anymore? Why would you buy a phone from a third party like that? Most people I know buy their phone direct from Apple or an Android device from Amazon retail.
- wjertyj 6y ago
  Most people you know are wealthy then.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    The phones are the same price, you know. The carriers don’t literally ‘subsidise’ or give you a ‘free’ phone - it’s built into the contract price. It’s nothing to do with how wealthy you are because it’s the same price!
    - wjertyj 6y ago
      Yes, and wealthy people are in the position to plunk down that money up front. People who are less privileged frequently have to take advantage of that form of "financing" offered by the carrier. Remember, by being wealthy, we frequently have to pay a lot less than people who get by month to month. There should be no shock here.
      - nondeveloper 6y ago
        Yes, to your point I was at T Mobile a month or so ago waiting to buy a SIM card in line behind someone who was evaluating their “free” (i.e., carrier-financed) options. They had a choice of a number of Android handsets I’d never heard of. On the other end of the scale, though, are the subsidies carriers pay to anyone who switches and trades in a quality device. When my partner joined my plan T Mobile paid a $700+ subsidy for his iPhone 11 in exchange for an iPhone 8. So customers across the entire income scale finance. It’s just a matter of how lucrative that financing is for the customer. At the higher end of the scale where the customer has more choice it’s usually a much better deal.
sajithdilshan 6y ago
I think Apple is already on its way for a convergent device with the Apple silicone. They've already unveiled an iPad with an M1 chip and in the near future we would get iPhones with powerful chips which is able to act as a fully functional MacBook once the phone is connected to an external monitor/TV, of course with a bluetooth keyboard and a mouse.
Forbo 6y ago
> browser checks of yore The same shit is happening today, except it's Chrome instead of IE6. We have an entire generation of webdevs who learned fuck-all from the previous round of the browser wars.
- matthew_kuiash 6y ago
  TBF 1/2 of them weren't even born...
  - belval 6y ago
    Not sure why your comment is being downvoted, most of my friends think I am paranoid when I say we shouldn't only support chrome. To them it's the browser that always works whereas the others are a PITA to support.
    - username90 6y ago
      Which is why the current situation is stable and the IE6 situation got fixed. Nobody liked developing for IE6, it was a pain in the ass since it was so shit. But people are perfectly happy developing for chrome.
  - selfhoster11 6y ago
    So what? We've had writing for thousands of years, and it's a perfect way to preserve historical lessons for the future ~losslessly. I'm a fairly young person but I've had a bit of interest in the history of computing from Unix onwards. It's all documented and out there in public archives, accessible by anyone. It ignited an interest and let me identify more deeply with my profession, plus it highlighted just how much the history of computing is cyclical (especially the mainframe->thin client->mainf^Wcloud cycle), and therefore shown me how much of the old history we can dust off and put into good use again in the modern times. History is context. One is doing themselves a disservice by not doing some cursory reading around it.
- username90 6y ago
  IE6 was far behind the curve on features, Chrome is way ahead. The situation isn't comparable at all.
moksly 6y ago
> Carriers were just not interested in phones from smaller manufacturers, and it's not entirely clear that there is no backflow of cash involved at higher levels. I really doubt it’s something sinister in enterprise sized logistics. Mainly because the big guys don’t need to be al 90’ies Microsoft about it in the modern world of leaned up Enterprise. The service the big global brands come with do save the carriers a lot of money, but it’s done perfectly legal. First there is the logistics. As a smaller carrier, you won’t really have to worry about doing BI on sales projections and what not, because Apple, Samsung and so on will simply tell you how many phones you can expect to sell, which is basically how many they’ve already produced for your region. They’ll handle everything from warehousing to shipping to your local stores pretty much without you having to do anything but sign the extremely “take it or leave it” sort of B2B contract, that also includes the big companies not charging you for products that don’t sell. What this translates to is that you can basically run your company without a logistics department or any BI related to the actual phone hardware. This saves you money both on manpower but also on not having too much inventory. Then there the support side of things. By carrying big well known brands with a very low degree of user freedom for modifications you cut the non-carrier related support you need to offer to almost nothing. You could probably offer good money to get carriers to sell, even a well known brand like the fairphone, and they’d still turn you down because it would cost them too much money to do so.
zepto 6y ago
This comment is predicated on a lack of differentiation between a Linux phone and Android/iOS. ‘It runs Linux’ is not sufficient differentiation for people to be interested outside of hobbyists and highly specified niches. If we can change that, then a low end disruption strategy could work. Unfortunately the work on Linux desktops and phones mostly seems to be about making an iOS-alike experience.
collyw 6y ago
I bought an ubuntu phone. The phone was nice, but it lacked apps, and the apps were pretty much all web based - so the map app wouldn't even load without an internet connection - pretty useless in a foreign country. And the version that was released to the public didn't have the option to plug in a keyboard and screen for a full desktop.

by bregma 6y ago

pabs3 6y ago

Is the UBPorts community continuing the Ubuntu Phone convergence vision, or did the code get thrown away?

ryukafalz 6y ago
From my limited perspective as a former user who still keeps up with some of it: they seem to be continuing down that path, just slower as they don't have Canonical's paid dev team to work on it.
m4rtink 6y ago
AFAIK PostMarketOS seems to be working on something similar - my PostMarketOS edition PinePhone even shipped with a convergence hub: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/buy-pinephone-postmarketos https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/buy-pinephone-postmarket... BTW, I think the convergence concept is totally valid and actually available now (although in a proprietary form) as Dex on Samsung Galaxy series devices. Just plug the thing into a USB-C HDMI dongle and it shows a desktop interface on the display & has decent mouse and keyboard support. Really nice for simple stuff like looking at photos you just took outside but on a big screen. And also a killer combo with the Wacom One pen display as you have your Clip Studio or Krita files all available on the big Wacom One screen yet can work on them on the regular device screen while on the go. :) So now we just need that, but open source. :) It could be a separate wayland session outputting to the external display with app GUI getting data from a backend via DBus. That way you could run the same up on both device and external screen at the same time while keeping the data model consistent. :)
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  > So now we just need that, but open source. :) That's the whole idea behind Librem 5 and PureOS and it already works well. All the phone apps there are just regular desktop apps made convergent to fit and work well on the phone. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onxBw5Pd45w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onxBw5Pd45w and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qB_5g2ZJYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qB_5g2ZJYk
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dm319 6y ago

I do feel if canonical were to attempt another crowd-funding attempt at an Ubuntu phone, they might well be successful this time. That phone was a terrific concept. I feel the market has changed since then, with carriers accepting less control over our phones, and the fad of installing every random app has somewhat distilled itself to a smaller number that is widely used.

windthrown 6y ago
Development does continue as a community effort, so hopefully it can break through!: https://ubports.com/ https://ubports.com/

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Many people get a free or heavily subsidized phone from their carrier Is this really the case anymore? Why would you buy a phone from a third party like that? Most people I know buy their phone direct from Apple or an Android device from Amazon retail.

wjertyj 6y ago
Most people you know are wealthy then.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  The phones are the same price, you know. The carriers don’t literally ‘subsidise’ or give you a ‘free’ phone - it’s built into the contract price. It’s nothing to do with how wealthy you are because it’s the same price!
  - wjertyj 6y ago
    Yes, and wealthy people are in the position to plunk down that money up front. People who are less privileged frequently have to take advantage of that form of "financing" offered by the carrier. Remember, by being wealthy, we frequently have to pay a lot less than people who get by month to month. There should be no shock here.
    - nondeveloper 6y ago
      Yes, to your point I was at T Mobile a month or so ago waiting to buy a SIM card in line behind someone who was evaluating their “free” (i.e., carrier-financed) options. They had a choice of a number of Android handsets I’d never heard of. On the other end of the scale, though, are the subsidies carriers pay to anyone who switches and trades in a quality device. When my partner joined my plan T Mobile paid a $700+ subsidy for his iPhone 11 in exchange for an iPhone 8. So customers across the entire income scale finance. It’s just a matter of how lucrative that financing is for the customer. At the higher end of the scale where the customer has more choice it’s usually a much better deal.

sajithdilshan 6y ago

I think Apple is already on its way for a convergent device with the Apple silicone. They've already unveiled an iPad with an M1 chip and in the near future we would get iPhones with powerful chips which is able to act as a fully functional MacBook once the phone is connected to an external monitor/TV, of course with a bluetooth keyboard and a mouse.

Forbo 6y ago

> browser checks of yore The same shit is happening today, except it's Chrome instead of IE6. We have an entire generation of webdevs who learned fuck-all from the previous round of the browser wars.

matthew_kuiash 6y ago
TBF 1/2 of them weren't even born...
- belval 6y ago
  Not sure why your comment is being downvoted, most of my friends think I am paranoid when I say we shouldn't only support chrome. To them it's the browser that always works whereas the others are a PITA to support.
  - username90 6y ago
    Which is why the current situation is stable and the IE6 situation got fixed. Nobody liked developing for IE6, it was a pain in the ass since it was so shit. But people are perfectly happy developing for chrome.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  So what? We've had writing for thousands of years, and it's a perfect way to preserve historical lessons for the future ~losslessly. I'm a fairly young person but I've had a bit of interest in the history of computing from Unix onwards. It's all documented and out there in public archives, accessible by anyone. It ignited an interest and let me identify more deeply with my profession, plus it highlighted just how much the history of computing is cyclical (especially the mainframe->thin client->mainf^Wcloud cycle), and therefore shown me how much of the old history we can dust off and put into good use again in the modern times. History is context. One is doing themselves a disservice by not doing some cursory reading around it.
username90 6y ago
IE6 was far behind the curve on features, Chrome is way ahead. The situation isn't comparable at all.

moksly 6y ago

> Carriers were just not interested in phones from smaller manufacturers, and it's not entirely clear that there is no backflow of cash involved at higher levels. I really doubt it’s something sinister in enterprise sized logistics. Mainly because the big guys don’t need to be al 90’ies Microsoft about it in the modern world of leaned up Enterprise. The service the big global brands come with do save the carriers a lot of money, but it’s done perfectly legal. First there is the logistics. As a smaller carrier, you won’t really have to worry about doing BI on sales projections and what not, because Apple, Samsung and so on will simply tell you how many phones you can expect to sell, which is basically how many they’ve already produced for your region. They’ll handle everything from warehousing to shipping to your local stores pretty much without you having to do anything but sign the extremely “take it or leave it” sort of B2B contract, that also includes the big companies not charging you for products that don’t sell. What this translates to is that you can basically run your company without a logistics department or any BI related to the actual phone hardware. This saves you money both on manpower but also on not having too much inventory. Then there the support side of things. By carrying big well known brands with a very low degree of user freedom for modifications you cut the non-carrier related support you need to offer to almost nothing. You could probably offer good money to get carriers to sell, even a well known brand like the fairphone, and they’d still turn you down because it would cost them too much money to do so.

zepto 6y ago

This comment is predicated on a lack of differentiation between a Linux phone and Android/iOS. ‘It runs Linux’ is not sufficient differentiation for people to be interested outside of hobbyists and highly specified niches. If we can change that, then a low end disruption strategy could work. Unfortunately the work on Linux desktops and phones mostly seems to be about making an iOS-alike experience.

collyw 6y ago

I bought an ubuntu phone. The phone was nice, but it lacked apps, and the apps were pretty much all web based - so the map app wouldn't even load without an internet connection - pretty useless in a foreign country. And the version that was released to the public didn't have the option to plug in a keyboard and screen for a full desktop.