
Ubuntu smartphone offers alternative to apps - AndrewDucker
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31148661
======
bryanlarsen
I certainly hope that Ubuntu is ready with software that provides a phone
interface on a phone and a desktop interface when plugged into a monitor.

Because unlike a year and a half ago when they tried the Edge, hardware is
(almost) ready for it.

The next generation of monitors, PC's, phones and tablets will all have USB
3.1 Type C ports. These are true docking ports, able to supply 100W of power,
and transmit DisplayPort, PCIExpress and USB simultaneously.

You'll only have a single cable connected between your laptop and your
monitor, with power, keyboard, mouse, network, printer, et cetera plugged into
the monitor.

We've been able to do that before, but it's always been expensive and/or
proprietary.

But what's really new is that this same cable will also be able to plug into
your phone, letting you replace the laptop with a phone.

~~~
Grazester
The article states "Unlike the original proposal, the handset does not become
a desktop PC when plugged into a monitor." There is no need for a PC interface
therefore.

~~~
totalrobe
So, functionally just a low end mobile phone with a quirky interface feature?
This seems like a dead end to me...

------
vidarh
The ability for it to "become a desktop PC when plugged into a monitor" was
90% of the appeal to me when they first talked about an Ubuntu powered
smartphone. That they've stripped that out makes it relatively uninteresting.

~~~
Roboprog
Exactly - it's worthless now (listening, Ubuntu?).

My recent experience with the Android 5 "upgrade" on my Nexus tablet, which
broke things I was using, really drove home to me that I really just want a
Linux, like Raspbian or something, that runs on a phone or small tablet.
Entertainment apps are nice and all, but I really want a general purpose
computer, which happens to have a keyboard emulation on screen when not docked
via USB or Bluetooth with keyboards, monitors and such.

... aside: the Android 5 Lollipop experience really made me appreciate RMS's
stance on proprietary software. My command line tool app? gone. My Quickoffice
notes? gone. Easy access to frequent peripheral settings? not gone, but buried
deeper in the menus. More advertising noise ("notices") on the home screen.
Scroogled!

I want an open mobile device, even if I realize not everybody wants the power
and responsibility to maintain and/or break their own device.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
This is why I have high hopes for Windows, especially for the Surface line.
I'm up for a new laptop in a year or so, and I'll very much be seeing what
Win10 will be doing. Only MS seems to have a vision of a all-in-one device.
Some of the Yoga-style Win8 machines are interesting and tempting, but I still
think they're too thick and the price point isn't terribly appealing. To be
fair, there are Yoga-style Dell inspirons at very cheap price points. My wife
is interested in an 11" or 12" $349 one that folds back into a tablet form-
factor with a touch-screen. Performance wasn't hot but I was pretty impressed
that these kinds of things aren't $899 anymore.

I also have no idea what is going on in the mobile space right now. My N5 can
barely handle Android 5 and the iPhones I've played with are not much better.
My old ipad 3 can barely run iOS8 and Apple does not allow me to go back to 7.
The specs on these devices are at the point where they exceed computers
running XP and Office not too long ago. There's something very wrong with
mobile today. The bloat is here to stay and Google and Apple just seem to be
re-inventing PCs, but in the worst way imaginable - tacking on random crap
every update and throwing more and more handware at the problem.

I'm more than willing to forgive a lot of the Win8 missteps if Win10 is good
out of the gate. Especially if MS finally gets its security act together. I
still dont understand why in this day and age my email or browser will deliver
an unsigned exe to me, at least without explicitly allowing that. Or why my
internet-facing apps aren't strictly sandboxed. Or why there isn't a built-in
IPS system that can stop attacks as patches are pending.

>RMS's stance on proprietary software.

I think its unfair to peg this as a FOSS vs proprietary battle, especially
considering AOSP is open source. I think the chasing of the mighty mobile buck
is sending these systems into the toilet. When your main motivator is pushing
out viral apps to low information and low attention users, then the product
will of course be sub-par. MS has the incentive to produce a ecosystem that is
more based on production than consumption and that's why I think they'll win
in the end. Consumption devices really won't satifsy my use cases. Its a real
shame Shuttleworth has moved towards the consumption model.

~~~
na85
Windows might be okay if you're comfortable being part of the Windows
ecosystems. I for one am not eager to get back into Microsoft's walled garden
again. Their user-hostile baked-in DRM is not something I'm interested in
supporting.

------
breckinloggins
They lost the one factor that was truly differentiating. Arguably, it was the
reason we got so excited the first time around.

I feel as though the entire market is screaming for something obvious to
exist. It's so obvious, so compelling, so useful...

And so far away.

Why do we even have "desktops" and "laptops" and "phones" and "tablets" and
"wearable watches" and so forth? Actually, the rise of the wearable watch
gives us the biggest clue: it's because we care about form factors.

When I'm on the subway, I want something to hold in my hand. When I'm in a big
hurry or on a jog, I want to glance at something on my wrist. When I'm in bed
but don't want to disturb my partner, I want to interact with a larger yet
personal tablet. When I want to type something (including code) or interact
with content in more involved ways, I want something with a mouse and a
keyboard. When I want to have a state of the art immersion experience, I want
something with a lot of horsepower (and preferably a head mounted display of
some sort).

Why do I have to have different computers for all of this when all I want is
different I/O modalities (and related computing expansion devices)? Why do we
keep ignoring the fact that what we want is the ability to experience our
virtual world in the input / output environment that suits us at this moment?
Everything else is secondary.

I was so excited when the original Ubuntu Edge was announced, because I felt
that FINALLY someone had figured out how to make the thing we've all been
screaming for. But now I'm not so sure Canonical really "got it" after all. If
they did, it would have been the first feature they kept, not the first one
they cut. To even call it a "feature" is diminutive. It's a paradigm that
wants to exist.

We've seen already with the Motorola Atrix that it's harder than it sounds to
get this right. But why is it THIS hard? Why can't we start with a phone that
can be the CPU for wearables and tablets, and that can dock into a higher
horsepower "GPU station" with a mouse and a keyboard and a monitor when we
need it? You don't have to nail the performance profile as much as you have to
nail why the experience is obviously better. I argue that you don't need a
supercomputer in your pocket to pull that off.

Is it just me on this, or what?

~~~
untog
_But why is it THIS hard?_

Batteries. Running a full Ubuntu OS on a smartphone battery would result in
the battery draining quickly. So instead you'd need some sort of dual boot
phone OS and desktop OS system that shares data... it's far from simple.

~~~
breckinloggins
One OS should suffice. Driving a desktop monitor and powering desktop app
features while still on battery would certainly drain battery life, so don't
do that. Plug it in. The OS and apps will morph to the I/O and power class it
has access to (we already have power-stepping processors... it can't be that
far-fetched).

Also, from this whole argument it simply doesn't follow that one OS can't
scale from IoT to mega-servers. It's just code. Not all of it has to be
running all the time. Not all services have to be proffered at the same time.
We can do that. It may not look like "Ubuntu desktop OS on a phone", but maybe
it shouldn't. That's probably the wrong direction.

~~~
spiralpolitik
Wasn't that one of the selling points of micro kernels ? Small Kernel that
starts and stops servers as needed depending on the circumstances.

~~~
breckinloggins
Yes. Turns out the cost of context switches quickly overran the benefits of
this approach, but things are slowly getting better. L4 is one approach. The
library-OS approach (where apps run directly on virtualized hardware with a
minimal OS) are another.

------
emehrkay
"Unlike the original proposal, the handset does not become a desktop PC when
plugged into a monitor."

This is what I found most interesting about the device. I loved the idea of
how the OS transformed when other things were attached to the phone. There
were questions about background tasks and apps running, but your phone turning
into your computer via a dock did make sense and seemed like the future.

~~~
olla
That was actually the only thing i was really interested in. I guess if they
would have done just that and added some text and data and image manipulation
apps to the bunch that could downscale nicely to phone, it would have been a
crowd magnet. I am not even expecting all features of apps to be present on
mobile. Just preview would be often ok too.

------
weavie
When I first heard about an Ubuntu smart phone I got excited because I thought
it would mean that finally after all this talk of having a computer in my
pocket, I would actually get a proper computer (read laptop replacement) in my
pocket. By that I mean something where I can install whatever software I
want.. any linux executable.. and it would run fine. I had dreams of running
XMonad and firing up Emacs and doing a bit of node development, or perhaps
spending a bit of time learning Rust, all while waiting for the bus. Stick it
on some hardware that had a physical keyboard and I would be sold.

It seems it was not to be, and the Ubuntu phone is going to be another device
that can only run programs created specifically for it and running in some
sandboxed environment.

------
vinceguidry
I am eagerly awaiting this. I've been wanting to write my own smartphone apps
for a long time. I don't care about writing games, what I want to write is my
own music player. I want it to replace the stock music player. I want access
to the Bluetooth chipset so I can actually know why the damn thing doesn't
just play when my car starts up. I want the music player given priority over
all other apps so I get no stutters instead of 4+ per song with my Nexus 5. I
want to order my phone's interface around it. I want all other apps shut down
when it goes into standby, standby time is the difference between me having to
charge my phone before I go out for the night and not having to worry about
it.

The music player is 95% of what my phone is doing for me, yet the Nexus treats
it as a second-rate concern.

I want Linux on everything, even (especially!) my toaster.

------
untog
It's a really interesting idea, but I suspect it will fail - The market is too
ingrained in the idea of "apps" to do anything else.

When it first came out, Windows Phone had one of the most interesting UIs out
there. It combined all of your social networks into one single messaging hub,
had a novel concept in tiles and the sliding panes (or whatever they were
called). Unfortunately, every app maker wanted to more or less port what they
were already doing on Android/iOS to Windows Phone, so few ever used the
functionality MS provided. As of Windows Phone 10, it all seems to be gone.

~~~
Zigurd
I'm not sure the article is accurate regarding apps, or it might be some
Canonical talking point that obscured the issue, but "QML" implies you can
write Qt apps that are "native" to the Ubuntu phone environment.

~~~
slgeorge
You can write native or HTML5 apps for the phone. Scopes themselves give you
different ways of looking at content. The first couple of pages of Ubuntu
Developer give the best information
([http://developer.ubuntu.com/en/](http://developer.ubuntu.com/en/))

------
kolanos
The desktop mode is compelling enough that I'd be fine if Canonical delayed
the Ubuntu Phone further to get it right. It's already been delayed
considerably and the buzz it once had has mostly disappeared. The ability to
plug it into a monitor and have it function as a desktop, or plug it into an
HDTV and have it behave like a Roku would be a massive edge over what's on the
market now. Not sure why Canonical is content with releasing an "also ran"
phone.

~~~
notatoad
>Not sure why Canonical is content with releasing an "also ran" phone.

It's a $200 device, off contract. The goal is probably just like the early
firefoxOS devices - a minimal effort step to get out of the emulator and get
the product into the hands of some users who aren't ubuntu enthusiasts. If the
only people trying your product are the ones willing to flash their nexus
devices, you're going to get kind of skewed feedback.

------
maratc
"The Ubuntu fan base will clamour to buy the phone just because they will be
curious to see what it is"

Who is this "Ubuntu fan base"?

I connect to ten Ubuntu machines a day, and my parents use Ubuntu laptops. I
don't consider myself a "fan", and my parents don't know what their OS is
called. Where are these "Ubuntu faithful" the article talks about?

~~~
slgeorge
There are fans of everything out there, it's almost the point of the Internet
- connecting people together from around the world with specialist interests!

You don't have to be a _fan_ to use Ubuntu (as you said) - but there are lots
of people that are interested in Open Source and alternative technology
options who will be excited about a new software launch. I'm sure there are
fans of the colour Orange who'll be excited it's getting more coverage today!
:)

------
arca_vorago
So how open will it really be? Will I be able to compile whatever proprietary
blobs that are bound to be using and install debian instead?

~~~
slgeorge
It will be as open as it's possible to be on phone hardware platforms. Which
means that some SOC's will have binary drivers. Unless you're currently _not_
using a phone then that's pretty much the same position as with any other
phone OS.

~~~
smorrow
Yep. There's nothing stopping you from rooting an Android phone, taking
Android off it (or just preventing it from starting up), and then building
your own thing on top of the underlying Linux.

------
fidotron
I think this is closer to the Windows phone tiles than they're letting on, but
still a neat idea. Not convinced about how well it would work with games
(which are hilariously second class citizens for all mobile platforms in spite
of PR efforts).

One very curious thing about the scope idea is it will need tweaking for
different cultures around the world. Gross oversimplification, but generally
in the west we categorize by what something is, whereas in the east it's what
something is for.

~~~
keithpeter
_"...generally in the west we categorize by what something is, whereas in the
east it's what something is for."_

Interesting comment. Have you got more information or a reference? (I must be
'Eastern' as I characterise my software tools by function).

~~~
fidotron
I'd digested that largely from this:
[http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781439838730](http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781439838730)

That book is slightly out of date, but details a lot of actual studies (of
varying quality) into both variation in priorities of users globally and how
information architecture should vary. The example that stays with me was the
Chinese having a strong preference for stores that group objects based by the
room the object belongs in (imagine how lamps would be sold in a department
store - either all together or lamps for the kitchen in the kitchen section
etc.), whereas either the Koreans or Japanese were the exact opposite, as were
most western nations.

It's not a great book by any stretch, but it did persuade me that successful
localization needs to consider much more than just language. Additionally
working out how to invert the structure of what you're doing proves to be a
useful exercise which can help improve the structure for all users.

Finally, they emphasised that these patterns change with time, and
surprisingly fast. Again in China there are strong generational differences,
which they put down to the economic changes.

~~~
keithpeter
_" It's not a great book by any stretch, but it did persuade me that
successful localization needs to consider much more than just language."_

Nice reference. The _perspective_ is the important thing, the book is just the
vehicle.

------
CmonDev
TL;DR: offering apps + widgety apps, not an actual atlernative.

~~~
smorrow
Yes. When I was finally able to articulate what the problem with computing in
general is, it was "I like tools better than applications." And everything is
an application.

As far as I can see, all that's different about this phone is that it's using
"sub-menus in the Start menu" where other stuff is using "icons on the
desktop". PDAs already had this, I think.

~~~
smorrow
Addendum: Redd about Scopes a bit, it's more than just a different way of
invoking the same apps. A Scope is a frontend to components of apparently any
kind.

------
pastalex
There's a lot to be disappointed about, but Scopes are interesting. More
thoughts on this here: [http://www.fastcompany.com/3041969/ubuntu-phone-
scopes-specs...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3041969/ubuntu-phone-scopes-specs-
release)

------
dgregd
Slightly off topic, Ubuntu and Redhat are building their own display servers,
Mir and Wayland. Why they can't simply use SurfaceFlinger? It should be
simpler to add X Server emulation to SurfaceFlinger than to create whole
display server from scratch.

~~~
higherpurpose
Isn't that what they did for Ubuntu Touch?

------
bayesianhorse
They sort of forgot to mention why this phone is better than Android, IPhone,
Firefox OS and so on...

My guess: Better support for Python. Probably also some kind of Docker
support. Nothing to sneeze at.

------
sp332
I was very impressed with Windows Phone's integration of Facebook, Twitter
etc. I could see in one native-styled list all the updates and replies from
all my connections on both networks. I could reply and post right there. I
didn't have to launch the Facebook app and then the Twitter app and then the
LinkedIn app etc. That basic functionality was much more painful on Android.
Hopefully these Ubuntu scopes can capture some of that.

------
numbsafari
Seven swipes to the right in order to find the camera app?

Hopefully there's a shortcut.

EDIT:

Ahh... looks like there's a slide out shelf of quick-access "apps" from the
left side.

------
drapper
The phone it is based on is probably this:
[http://www.bqmobile.com/products/details/0e5e9019-78e8-4d44-...](http://www.bqmobile.com/products/details/0e5e9019-78e8-4d44-a7dc-e55df54d7489)

~~~
javipas
It's not. It's almost identical to the bq Aquaris E4.5 except for the screen,
that has no virtual/capacitive buttons. I spoke with bq yesterday about the
phone,

[http://www.xataka.com/moviles/ubuntu-en-smartphones-a-por-
to...](http://www.xataka.com/moviles/ubuntu-en-smartphones-a-por-todas-llega-
el-bq-aquaris-e4-5-ubuntu-edition)

And was able to use it for a few hours. Not what anyone that thought about
buying an Ubuntu Edge would have expected, but anyway, a cheap way to see if
that experience is really worthy to you.

I won't say if it's worthy for me yet. I've got to write about it next week :)

------
unimportant
$200 for a phone that relies on new HTML5 apps to be better than a phone at
half of it's cost?

I see another failure in the making...

------
sdrizo
I wish they would put the mic on the front of the device so peole could hear
me when I speak.

------
mdm_
Does anyone know if the QML mentioned is the same QML used to construct
BlackBerry 10 apps?

~~~
towelguy
It is Qt's QML
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnityNextSpec](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnityNextSpec)

~~~
doublec
Blackberry 10 uses Qt's QML as well:
[http://developer.blackberry.com/native/documentation/cascade...](http://developer.blackberry.com/native/documentation/cascades/dev/integrating_cpp_qml/)

------
leke
So will this phone be free from OS updates having to come from the hardware
manufacturer?

------
jrochkind1
I doubt they'll show up in the U.S anytime soon.

