5 ms·

Ubuntu Smartphone Shipping in October

76 points by ergo14 14y ago

Apocryphon 14y ago
Between this, Windows Phone 8, Firefox OS, Open webOS, and a resurgent BBOS, 2013 is going to be a race for third place on mobile.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bsimpson 14y ago
  I'd love to see a good showing by any of them, but so far they've all launched with a thud.
- spinchange 14y ago
  I look for this to be the year of cross platform portability even for native apps. The only entity not playing along is Apple.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- bsimpson 14y ago
  http://androidandme.com/2013/01/smartphones-2/first-ubuntu-phone-os-download-for-galaxy-nexus-to-be-available-in-february/ http://androidandme.com/2013/01/smartphones-2/first-ubuntu-p...
vy8vWJlco 14y ago
So to summarize, the Wall Street Journal and two talking heads (apart from Mark Shuttleworth) are skeptical of Ubuntu ("a Linux-based operating system used to run servers and other infrastructure in many corporate IT departments") on phones for the following reasons: 1) Ubuntu's "popularity among open source developers" 2) Ubuntu is all-or-nothing and "switching to an all-Ubuntu-based environment wouldn't make sense for many organizations", unless you "employ large numbers of Linux developers" (see 1). 3) "[T]he real challenge is overcoming this very large BYOD phenomenon" since bringing your own device precludes bringing an Ubuntu phone. 4) "It seems overly complicated to me"
- facorreia 14y ago
  That says more about WSJ than it says about Ubuntu on mobile...
codex 14y ago
Mark my words: this phone will be an utter failure. "Linux" or "Ubuntu" aren't some magic talismans you can apply to any product and make it great; in fact, it takes a lot of hard work, design talent, and money to make a phone, and Canonical does not have the last two, possibly the last three.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  What do you consider failure? eg would you count 10 million units as a failure? I do agree with your sentiments and would be surprised if they even managed to sell 100k units. The problem is I can't see who would want it to actually succeed. There isn't anything in it for hardware manufacturers unless they have a large guaranteed order. And since Ubuntu uses the Android kernel, the manufacturer will have to do an Android bring up no matter what. For the carriers it might be a useful bargaining chip but they can already play Android, Windows, Blackberry etc against each other. A retailer would need to make sufficient additional revenue to justify the costs of additional training of its staff. App developers would ultimately need to get paid, and a large installed base is very conducive to that. Canonical have approximately zero credit cards on file. Google also do kickbacks to carriers when someone on their network purchases from the Play store.
  - dscrd 14y ago
    >And since Ubuntu uses the Android kernel, The Android kernel?
    - rogerbinns 14y ago
      It is Linux but with various things done the Android way and including device drivers not in the standard kernel tree, as well as binary blobs depending on hardware. The important point is that Ubuntu will not be using their regular kernel and changing options to make it work for the phones, but instead will be using the Android flavoured kernel and drivers. Some links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Linux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Linu... http://elinux.org/Android_Kernel_Features http://elinux.org/Android_Kernel_Features http://lwn.net/Articles/472984/ http://lwn.net/Articles/472984/ There is also Documentation/android.txt in some kernel trees.
dylangs1030 14y ago
This is way too ambitious, way too soon for Canonical. I don't think it will fail. I'm sure Canonical's done a lot of market research and, if nothing else, knows it will sell on geek appeal to a lot of people, hackers included. But it will be laughably unable to compete with iOS and Android. Apple is decades old as a company and designed a phone after it had hit something of a plateau between OS X and revolutionizing music (by that I mean they had fully established themselves and could spend time on another project, not that they were beyond further innovation). Canonical has not hit a plateau with Ubuntu, and tackling smartphones is more ambitious than the droves of companies looking to do it now would have you think. I think this will be similar to what happened with Windows 8 - tweaking the desktop version of software to fit a tablet/phone until neither is a complete package anymore.
- Swannie 14y ago
  Android was made by a company far smaller then Canonical. Canonical's OS and Android share the same Linux heritage. Canonical has proved it is able of writing a window manager. Linux is pretty advanced to support low power mobile devices. I'd say that Canonical stand a very good chance, as they stand on top of all the Android work done so far. Edit: Anyway, Smartphone is the new desktop for 80% of users
- Shorel 14y ago
  Except that Windows 8 did no tweaking, MS decided that tablets and phones need a new WinRT API and tried to make Win32 obsolete.
olenhad 14y ago
I can't predict whether the phone would sell to a mainstream audience, but as a developer I can't wait to get my hands on this and hack on it. If command line access is a first class citizen, and I produce my own scripts to control the phone's IO devices, I'll be more than happy.
- lucb1e 14y ago
  You speak my thoughts sir. I wonder if there are enough developers that would buy the phone to make it profitable... hmm or do we need that? Perhaps if it's not profitable for Caronical, the open source community can continue on it. Probably only pretty dedicated developers will buy it though, most will still go with the mainstream option because it's the easiest. I mean, how many devs carry iPhones?

76 points by ergo14 14y ago

Between this, Windows Phone 8, Firefox OS, Open webOS, and a resurgent BBOS, 2013 is going to be a race for third place on mobile.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
bsimpson 14y ago
I'd love to see a good showing by any of them, but so far they've all launched with a thud.
spinchange 14y ago
I look for this to be the year of cross platform portability even for native apps. The only entity not playing along is Apple.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

bsimpson 14y ago
http://androidandme.com/2013/01/smartphones-2/first-ubuntu-phone-os-download-for-galaxy-nexus-to-be-available-in-february/ http://androidandme.com/2013/01/smartphones-2/first-ubuntu-p...

vy8vWJlco 14y ago

So to summarize, the Wall Street Journal and two talking heads (apart from Mark Shuttleworth) are skeptical of Ubuntu ("a Linux-based operating system used to run servers and other infrastructure in many corporate IT departments") on phones for the following reasons: 1) Ubuntu's "popularity among open source developers" 2) Ubuntu is all-or-nothing and "switching to an all-Ubuntu-based environment wouldn't make sense for many organizations", unless you "employ large numbers of Linux developers" (see 1). 3) "[T]he real challenge is overcoming this very large BYOD phenomenon" since bringing your own device precludes bringing an Ubuntu phone. 4) "It seems overly complicated to me"

facorreia 14y ago
That says more about WSJ than it says about Ubuntu on mobile...

codex 14y ago

Mark my words: this phone will be an utter failure. "Linux" or "Ubuntu" aren't some magic talismans you can apply to any product and make it great; in fact, it takes a lot of hard work, design talent, and money to make a phone, and Canonical does not have the last two, possibly the last three.

rogerbinns 14y ago
What do you consider failure? eg would you count 10 million units as a failure? I do agree with your sentiments and would be surprised if they even managed to sell 100k units. The problem is I can't see who would want it to actually succeed. There isn't anything in it for hardware manufacturers unless they have a large guaranteed order. And since Ubuntu uses the Android kernel, the manufacturer will have to do an Android bring up no matter what. For the carriers it might be a useful bargaining chip but they can already play Android, Windows, Blackberry etc against each other. A retailer would need to make sufficient additional revenue to justify the costs of additional training of its staff. App developers would ultimately need to get paid, and a large installed base is very conducive to that. Canonical have approximately zero credit cards on file. Google also do kickbacks to carriers when someone on their network purchases from the Play store.
- dscrd 14y ago
  >And since Ubuntu uses the Android kernel, The Android kernel?
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    It is Linux but with various things done the Android way and including device drivers not in the standard kernel tree, as well as binary blobs depending on hardware. The important point is that Ubuntu will not be using their regular kernel and changing options to make it work for the phones, but instead will be using the Android flavoured kernel and drivers. Some links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Linux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Linu... http://elinux.org/Android_Kernel_Features http://elinux.org/Android_Kernel_Features http://lwn.net/Articles/472984/ http://lwn.net/Articles/472984/ There is also Documentation/android.txt in some kernel trees.

dylangs1030 14y ago

This is way too ambitious, way too soon for Canonical. I don't think it will fail. I'm sure Canonical's done a lot of market research and, if nothing else, knows it will sell on geek appeal to a lot of people, hackers included. But it will be laughably unable to compete with iOS and Android. Apple is decades old as a company and designed a phone after it had hit something of a plateau between OS X and revolutionizing music (by that I mean they had fully established themselves and could spend time on another project, not that they were beyond further innovation). Canonical has not hit a plateau with Ubuntu, and tackling smartphones is more ambitious than the droves of companies looking to do it now would have you think. I think this will be similar to what happened with Windows 8 - tweaking the desktop version of software to fit a tablet/phone until neither is a complete package anymore.

Swannie 14y ago
Android was made by a company far smaller then Canonical. Canonical's OS and Android share the same Linux heritage. Canonical has proved it is able of writing a window manager. Linux is pretty advanced to support low power mobile devices. I'd say that Canonical stand a very good chance, as they stand on top of all the Android work done so far. Edit: Anyway, Smartphone is the new desktop for 80% of users
Shorel 14y ago
Except that Windows 8 did no tweaking, MS decided that tablets and phones need a new WinRT API and tried to make Win32 obsolete.

olenhad 14y ago

I can't predict whether the phone would sell to a mainstream audience, but as a developer I can't wait to get my hands on this and hack on it. If command line access is a first class citizen, and I produce my own scripts to control the phone's IO devices, I'll be more than happy.

lucb1e 14y ago
You speak my thoughts sir. I wonder if there are enough developers that would buy the phone to make it profitable... hmm or do we need that? Perhaps if it's not profitable for Caronical, the open source community can continue on it. Probably only pretty dedicated developers will buy it though, most will still go with the mainstream option because it's the easiest. I mean, how many devs carry iPhones?