
Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition - znpy
http://www.bq.com/gb/ubuntu.html
======
jacquesm
Ok, ordered. Crappy ordering process though, you have to pick a password
without any particular reason to (don't ask your customers to make an account
if you don't actually need one...), the certificate they use is invalid and
they drop you on a page in Spanish after an English language ordering process
that does not even bother to confirm you just made a purchase.

Let's hope the phone shows up :)

~~~
vram22
Haven't tried the one you mention, but this is a huge problem with many sites
these days. Some don't even bother to have a logical sequence of page
transitions (like the examples you give) - and many other issues, which are
easily avoidable. I think it's partly due to the mad rush for startups to be
first to market and cash out soon as possible.

------
nirvanis
I hate to be that guy, but I believe I need to share this. I was amongst the
"lucky" ones who managed to get one of the phones of the first batch they sold
(my Serial Number is lower than 1500). After using the phone for 20 minutes, I
realized that the OS is _very_ far from being usable. I was able to spot more
than 10 bugs that would prevent any regular smartphone user to use Ubuntu
Phone as a replacement of a rudimentary smart phone.

I guess we will have to wait/help/contribute a lot to get it closer to an
acceptable quality level.

In the meantime, I wonder if there is any way to install Android on the Ubuntu
Edition E4.5.

~~~
jbeja
"I hate to be that guy"

No, you really don't. Because if that was the case, instead commenting here,
why won't you go to Ubuntu phone bug tracking or whatever and give your
feedback there where would be actually useful? Just a though.

~~~
collyw
Hey its useful to me. I am looking for a new phone in around that price range.
This is the first I have heard of an Ubuntu phone being available, and useful
to get an opinion from others even if it does seem negative.

------
AlphaGeekZulu
I have this phone since around 20th of March and like it really very much. The
Terminal app is hilarious. I was pleased to find much more stuff in the Ubuntu
store than expected. Telephony is perfect.

The one thing I do not like is the runtime of the battery. 44 hours was the
absolute maximum I had this phone running before it went black (just turning
it on, entering the SIM-PIN, having Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi turned off and
doing nothing else). In my typical usage pattern, a runtime of 24 hours is the
more realistic value. Have to load it every day :-(

~~~
IkmoIkmo
I literally don't know anyone who doesn't charge daily (wake up, take it off
charger, put it on the charger around 11:30 PM same day), except my dad and me
as we use our phones on stand-by and just for calls, and a little bit of
messaging. I work from home so I do all my smartphone stuff on my computer,
and when I go out I'm with friends, not on my phone. And even then, we tend to
charge every 2-3 days.

~~~
collyw
My LG L5 used to average 2 days before the battery started going crap. I am
not an especially heavy user though.

------
leaveyou
I got burned once with a windows phone Omnia 7 as an early adopter and it was
beyond useless (lack of apps/configurability) so I will definitely not rush
again on unproven phones despite my interest in Ubuntu. Also the price/specs
on this phone is horrible compared to Xiaomi Note 4G (190euro) which I own and
can recommend to anyone. I hope Ubuntu phone catches on though. Competition is
good.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
The specs on that Xiaomi are really nice value. I'd been looking at the 2nd
gen Moto E or G for my parents, but the Xiaomi beats it, although at a higher
cost.

It just amazes me how cheap tech has become. The other day I was looking
through the Microsoft Store, saw a $90 ish tablet that had various discounts
at times bringing it down to an absolutely ridiculous $60-70 range. I checked
out some reviews and they were glowing (in terms of value), it actually runs
windows 8 and comes with a year of Office 365 and an hour of Skype minutes
every month. I can hardly imagine anyone buying Office 365 for a year at $70,
instead of just buying this tablet instead haha. Of course it's no Mac Pro,
but it surprised me.

HP stream 7 was the name. I just sat there grinning while watching the reviews
on this device, computing is truly becoming completely and totally ubiquitous
this decade, even consumer computing is becoming a cheap commodity.

~~~
untog
Just looked it up. Currently $79, with a $25 Windows Store voucher and
$69-worth of Office 365. Extremely tempted but I really need to stop buying
random tablet-y devices I'll never use.

~~~
vram22
Hehe, that really is a temptation. I wish there was one all-purpose device
(maybe modular, like the earlier Modu phone [1] and now Google's Project Ara
(still to come).

[1] Read about Modu in TechCrunch some years ago. An Israeli startup backed by
Yossi Vardi, IIRC. Not sure what happened to it. But the idea seemed
promising.

------
volent
Took me some time to find the english version, here it is if anybody wants it
: [http://www.bq.com/gb/ubuntu.html](http://www.bq.com/gb/ubuntu.html)

~~~
azinman2
It was English for me from the start

~~~
zo1
Admins changed the URL from "Es" to "Gb". OP's comment was 3 hours earlier
than yours...

------
whyagainyc
Look like they have resolved the licensing issues [1]. Code is on github [2]

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9225691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9225691)

2\.
[https://github.com/bq/aquaris-E4.5/commit/34cf494bca625acad0...](https://github.com/bq/aquaris-E4.5/commit/34cf494bca625acad06274c3cba10aca148813c0)

------
Brakenshire
Interesting price strategy. They're obviously not aiming what you'd think of
as the professional developer / early adopter market, otherwise they would
have reduced the bezel, switched to a higher resolution screen, increased the
specifications, and at least doubled the price. Are they hoping for this to be
stocked in retail stores, and directly compete with Android at the Moto G sort
of level?

That does sound fairly crazy, but it may well be that's more sensible than it
sounds in parts of Europe, for instance Spain, where the early adopters won't
have the same money as they do in the US, and the iPhone is expensive enough
as to be almost nowhere to be seen.

Seems quite different from FirefoxOS, who have a much more pointed strategy of
radically undercutting price, and targeting markets in the developing world.

~~~
cosarara97
bq is already a very popular brand here in Spain, so I suppose they will be
targeting their current market (and if they get devs in the process, better).

------
fasteo
BQ main office is just 50 meters away from my office. They are like 70-80
people, all very young (<30 years)

Pretty useless comment, I know.

~~~
mbrock
They also make an e-reader [1] with open source software. I'm somewhat
obsessed with the idea of using it for ssh/mosh as a portable terminal. It
would be very cool to hear if someone has tried this, before ordering one. I
mailed some random guy at BQ and he said he never tried it, but also found it
interesting. If you find it interesting too, maybe you could run down and ask
around! :)

[1]:
[http://www.bq.com/gb/products/cervantes-2013.html](http://www.bq.com/gb/products/cervantes-2013.html)

~~~
hyperpallium
(I don't know but...) I like the idea of an e-ink terminal, however I fear the
slow refresh rate would make editing difficult. I guess someone somewhere has
tried it though...

The specs of that particular one show no bluetooth (and no OTG usb), so can't
connect a keyboard.

It also has no wireless apart from wifi; and only 512MB (though that's plenty
for ssh!)

~~~
mbrock
Ah, I didn't realize the Micro-USB port wouldn't accept a keyboard. There are
Android e-ink tablets with Bluetooth; I'll probably end up trying that.

Also, difficult schmifficult! I bet ed, the standard editor, will work just
fine. Shouldn't be much worse than, say, a 300 baud terminal!

~~~
hyperpallium
Yeah, it has to be "OTG" (on the go), aka "usb host". Seems relatively
uncommon.

Beats a line printer! Can relate - I'm ecstatic that (70s era) unix utilities
are blazing instant on a phone. I'm sure vim would also work on an e-reader,
if you don't need to find the cursor.

I should research this. Working on e-ink/e-paper would be so much better on
the eyes - and incredible battery life (they claim 2 _months_ for the Kindle).

------
bnastic
Well, that was an impulse purchase. "Delivered in 3-4 days", I've no idea what
to expect.

~~~
M8
Either something groundbreaking or a future rare collectible.

~~~
duiker101
Or a doorstopper.

------
chainsaw10
Anyone know whether there's an easy way to get root?

Is there a Terminal app with a local shell?

I'm in the US, so I can't get this one, but these are what I'm hoping for when
it gets here.

~~~
bitg
Can we install regular Ubuntu packages on this phone? If we can then I guess
you could install terminator, gnome-terminal or something.

~~~
paufernandez
I saw a video in Spanish of Obijuan installing stuff with apt-get after some
configuration, so you can install Ubuntu packages. He showed python.

~~~
jefurii
The Force is strong in that one.

~~~
tutuca
La Fuerza es fuerte en él.

~~~
blockross
The force is strong in this Juan.

------
swalsh
I want to be able to hook a keyboard and monitor to my phone, and then have a
full ubuntu desktop experience.

~~~
Brakenshire
Doesn't seem to be quite there, but it's close. Someone posted this below:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3PUYoa1c9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3PUYoa1c9M)

------
gbl08ma
The technical specs look very, very similar to the Zopo ZP910 I own and which
I bought about two years ago, for about 200€. The CPU unfortunately isn't the
same (MTK 6589 versus MTK 6582), otherwise it would be easy to port Ubuntu to
it based on bq's builds. I don't really have much dependency on Android apps
(just give me a browser, a media player and a way to make phone
calls/texting), so Ubuntu Phone fits my bill. I would not buy a new phone just
to run it, but I'd happily "upgrade" my current phone to it, because the new
versions of Google's apps are quite heavy (material design and all that) and
the hardware is starting not to cut it.

------
unwind
Nice touch that the clock on the screen shows "14:10", which is of course
similar to the latest released Ubuntu version (14.10, from October last year).
Coincidence? :)

Not sure how the phone version of Ubuntu is versioned
([http://www.ubuntu.com/phone](http://www.ubuntu.com/phone) didn't help),
though.

~~~
popey
Not a coincidence. :)

~~~
shadeslayer
Isn't the ubuntu phone using the RTM archive which has a different version
number? :P

------
maelito
What is the status of connecting the ubuntu phone to a screen to get a
personal computer running ubuntu desktop ?

~~~
eloisant
Even if it's possible with this device (which I don't know) that's still an
ARM processor you have. It's a Cortex A7 a bit faster from what you get in a
Raspberry Pi 2 but not much.

Anyway, those phones or tablets that turn into supposed regular computers are
cool, but at the end of the day when I have access to a screen and keyboard
there is usually a computer not far. Since my data is in the cloud anyway, I'd
rather use that separate computer than my phone.

~~~
vidarh
There are plenty of situations where I don't want to trust the available
computer with my data.

And I very frequently find myself in situations where the network connection
is so poor that streaming my data over the network is an exercise in
frustration.

When I then walk around with more and more powerful computers in my pocket,
it's great to be able to make use of it.

------
pjmlp
This is great, specially as it can give some help to Qt on mobile phones.

EDIT: Just noticed that the sale is only available in the Spanish store. The
German one still shows "It will be available shortly".

------
mayneack
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcqy4p4z1brpgt9/Screenshot%202015-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/qcqy4p4z1brpgt9/Screenshot%202015-04-10%2007.26.17.png?dl=0)

> Compatible formats

> Text format .txt/ .pdf/ .xls/ .doc/ .ppt

No .odt?

------
aqzman
Wow! The bezels on that phone are huge. I personally find that very
unappealing, it makes the phone hardware look very outdated.

That said, I'd love to sit down and play with the OS on the phone to see what
it does different from other mobile OSes today.

------
beagle3
I'm holding off until the Meizu MX4 Ubuntu goes on sale -- but perhaps I
shouldn't - does anyone know if it is exactly the same as the one being sold
now running Android?

If so, I might get that one and install Ubuntu myself.

~~~
dharma1
I think it'll be the same but I don't think installing is straightforward
until official the Meizu MX4 Ubuntu images are released

------
malkia
Being burned by two FirefoxOS phones (mostly burned by not being to upgrade to
anything latest and stuck to some version). So I'll be careful this time...
But I so much wanted to try it out...

~~~
bildung
_> Being burned by two FirefoxOS phones (mostly burned by not being to upgrade
to anything latest and stuck to some version)._

Which ones? I had the same experience with the ZTE Open C but found great
community updates for this and other phones. Open C updates are this way:
[http://builds.firefoxos.mozfr.org/doc/en/devices/zte-
open-c](http://builds.firefoxos.mozfr.org/doc/en/devices/zte-open-c)

~~~
malkia
I can't thank you enough! I haven't looked deeply into other sources, and used
the phone as a normal user (I've borrowed it to a friend of ours, when they
went to Italy for vacation (we are US based)), and then I used them again when
travelling to Bulgaria.

Why FirefoxOS phones there? Because they don't draw much attention, they are
cheap, and reliable for basic phone needs - calling, texting, even some
browsing. Also the battery life is pretty good.

They are bit sluggish, but still much faster than other cheap phones.

~~~
bildung
You're welcome! They are quite hard to find. I accidently stumbled over the
mozfr community builds while figuring out how to compile a current version
myself :)

------
cs702
Love it. Only one missing feature prevents me from buying it: Ubuntu Phone
doesn't seem to have _easy, painless, over-the-air syncing of calendars and
contacts_ with third-party applications/services like Google Apps and
Microsoft Exchange, for snappy access to that data whether I'm online or
offline.

~~~
chipaca
Calendar syncing to google should work (but i haven't checked, and i don't
know whether it would meet your other qualifiers).

~~~
Brakenshire
It really should have full CalDav and CardDav support out of the box.

------
gradstudent
Can't wait to be rid of Android. Its endless insistence on upgrading me to the
latest version is driving me batty.

~~~
moystard
How can something like that make you batty? For sure Ubuntu phone will never
invite you to upgrade ...

~~~
bitL
I guess he meant that once an OS update is downloaded, it cannot be swept
right and forgotten, but it stays in notifications forever. I have one Moto G
I use as a bike navigation, don't plan to ever update it to Lollipop as I run
only OsmAnd on it and it always insists on getting upgraded to 5.0.x.

------
konradb
Anyone know if you can do stuff like use emacs, cc, make, install a JVM etc?

~~~
popey
Yes and no. The phone image is read-only by default, with RW areas for user
data / tmp / logs etc. You can easily make the RO portion RW, and then apt-get
or dpkg install random packages. However the caveat is we never test that
scenario, so if you break it, you get to keep the pieces. You can then re-
flash it to get out of this of course.

~~~
vidarh
That still sounds far nicer than Android...

Shame that this phone has such a low res screen or I'd be tempted.

~~~
dharma1
If you want higher res/better specs, check out the Meizu MX4

------
bontoJR
This phone made me think a lot about the future of mobile in emerging markets.
I was reading a lot of great feedbacks about Mozilla with Firefox OS in Africa
and some South American countries, they are very happy about the price/value
of devices and the fact that these countries have a very basic (or even no)
infrastructure, makes them very interesting for these systems, because you can
actually build from scratch, using pretty recent technologies.

All this introduction is to try to understand the Ubuntu Phone world, I don't
think it can emerge against Android or iPhone, so it should definitely compete
against Mozilla in emerging markets, but it looks like is coming a little bit
late. I am also curious about how developers will react to the platform, with
a native or HTML5 approach, looks similar to the Microsoft strategy. Firefox
was able to get devs easily because the HTML5/Javascript is an easy combo and
is widely known, native development requires more efforts and has a steeper
learning curve. A smartphone is 20% platform and 80% ecosystem, no apps means
no users.

I am honestly interested in trying it, I did it for Firefox, writing a simple
weather app for it, so I would like to do the same. At the moment, I am not
sure the system will be able to compete, but happy to be proven wrong!

------
lauriswtf
The phone itself looks great, but the "game" [0] doesn't do a very good job
showcasing the usability of the OS.

Also shipping comes around 25€ in Europe. Quite steep for a phone priced at
169€.

[0] [http://www.bq.com/gb/game-ubuntu](http://www.bq.com/gb/game-ubuntu)

~~~
metafex
Free shipping to Austria with 0,99€ for express. Looks like they have vastly
different shipping rates.

~~~
psykovsky
Same shipping options/prices to Portugal.

------
tummybug
The battery being a LiPo (lithium polymer) could be a concern (they are quite
unstable and explode on contact with water) and IIRC are not allowed to be
brought on planes. They can also be permanently damaged if you allow the
voltage per cell to get too low and do not have a huge amount of recharge
cycles.

~~~
carlob
I couldn't find any indication that there is any difference in terms of
regulations between lithium polymer and lithium ion batteries. Are you sure?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_polymer_battery#Safety](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_polymer_battery#Safety)

[http://www.airsafe.com/issues/baggage/batteries.htm](http://www.airsafe.com/issues/baggage/batteries.htm)

~~~
digi_owl
Never underestimate the ability of manufacturers to screw up a perfectly good
label...

------
agumonkey
I'm uber curious about the technical aspect of it. Software side, how it
compares to other OSes in terms of cpu and ram usage, battery life etc. How
different is the distribution from the desktop/server images (libc, compile
flags, ...).

------
rihegher
Too bad, LTE 4G not supported :(

~~~
lucb1e
Honest question here: what does anyone need 4g for?

On HSPA+ (H+) my connection is fast enough for any purpose besides downloading
movies, and it's not like I've got unlimited data. Even 3g's theoretical speed
is great if they could get that to work for a change.

I have 4g on a company laptop and the speed is better than many places' WiFi,
but I have yet to find an excuse to use it ( _someone_ has to pay that data
bill). It's not like I don't know how fast it really is, I just don't see the
point of it right now. In 5 years 3g really will be too slow for many
applications, but as it stands...

~~~
morganvachon
> In 5 years 3g really will be too slow for many applications

You answered your own question. It's progress, and the sooner people around
the world adopt 4G, the sooner it becomes the standard, just like 3G before
it.

~~~
lucb1e
> You answered your own question.

But in 5 years, in all reasonableness, you'd have a new phone. Having no lte
on this one doesn't change much. That's what I meant to say.

~~~
morganvachon
You're right, and my Nexus 4 and Lumia 521 are getting along just fine without
LTE as well, and will continue to for the next 1-2 years I hope to get out of
them. It will be at least another 10-15 years before 3G is turned off in favor
of whatever the baseline is then (hell, we still have 2G which by all accounts
should be dead by now).

------
thescrewdriver
"Only available in the European Union"

~~~
reddotX
The EuroPhone!

------
jebblue
I'm hopeful, will be glad to consider it when it's available in the US.

------
igl
I'm Looking forward to get a new Phone. I am however undecided on Firefox OS
and Ubuntu OS. Leaning towards Ubuntu but this device looks like a first-gen
smart phone... once you see the bezel you can not unsee it!

------
teekert
I just set up an Ubuntu 14.04 server on Digital Ocean. One "apt-get install
mail-stack-delivery", and one edited line in /etc/postfix/master.cf later
(just to get 587 submission working) and I have my own mail server including
STARTTLS on smtp and imap. Made me wonder, will we see sync options on Ubuntu
Phone to sync mail/calendar/own-cloud with one (SSH) account? Seems to me the
possibilities are endless and very exciting. Please stay true to FOSS
principles, resist the temptations, give the (mobile) web back to the people!

~~~
abc_lisper
Very interesting. Can I encrypt the disk?

~~~
teekert
Certainly you can encrypt the email part, But I'm not sure how NSA proof it
will be when the whole server is in the RAM of one that you don't control
though.

------
fasteo
These guys started selling branded USB pen drives back in 2007. Their history
is quite interesting. Here is a google translated Spanish article [1]

[1]
[https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.elmundo.es%2Fcronica%2F2014%2F09%2F07%2F540b004922601d4f028b4582.html&edit-
text=)

------
bikamonki
Does it run Whatsapp? No? What is this, a cellphone? Oh, cool, but we stopped
using cellphones a while back, we now use portable computers the size of a
cellphone which run _widely adopted_ social apps. It's for a niche market you
say? Oh, cool.

Sarcasm aside: I am still waiting for an official FFOS Whatsapp version,
meanwhile I am using my ZTE Open as a PC+camera+GCM dongle to run some fun
hacks, kindda like a Tessel Machine.

~~~
cwayne
WhatsApp actively stops people from making apps for new platforms, so keep on
waiting for that FFOS version

~~~
bikamonki
True, although there is a couple of unofficial APIs that have managed to stay
up. Now, the big question, how will FB make its money back? It has to open
Whatsapp to advertizers and/or integrate to its platform of services. Or did
it buy it to take it down while pushing FB chat as a standalone web/native
app?

------
fstephany
I couldn't find a way to introduce my VAT number.

If I'm a business with a valid VAT number outside Spain, I shouldn't pay the
VAT, right?

~~~
touristtam
As far as I know, you need to reclaim VAT; you pay it and claim it back. At
least that was the case last time I have checked.

------
akulbe
There isn't any reason one of these wouldn't work on a GSM network in the US,
right?

~~~
popey
GSM yes, 3G no.

~~~
skykooler
Basically like the Jolla phone then, which only has 2G internet in the US.

~~~
listic
Is the support for all (or nearly all) 3G/4G networks limited to higher-end
chips? I believe at least e.g. the iPhone has identical hardware worldwide?

------
neuromute
Oh, how I would love this device to be a class leading spec. It's nearly time
for a new phone, and I'd love an Ubuntu handset, but don't think I'd be up for
the technical downgrade by purchasing this mid-(to-low-)range device.

~~~
Narishma
When the first announced Ubuntu for phones they tried to kickstart a phone
with class-leading specs but there wasn't enough interest for it to be
feasible.

------
Kabukks
OT: If anyone from bq.com is reading this: Why can't I select Germany, France,
or Austria as a country to ship to? Why do I have to provide my nationality
(personal information, not part of the shipping address)?

~~~
tobiasu
Looks like at least Germany and Austria have their own shop.

[https://store-de.bq.com/de/](https://store-de.bq.com/de/)

------
waitingkuo
Can I run docker on this?

------
daddykotex
From the animation on the site, I notice that pulling from the top to reach
the notification hides the top bar. What do you think?

There is a lot of relevant information inside that bar.

~~~
psykovsky
Does the same on my Androids. Don't see any problem with it.

------
spacefight
[http://www.bq.com/gb/game-ubuntu](http://www.bq.com/gb/game-ubuntu)

"Telegram is the most secure way to..." or
[http://www.bq.com/flexy_templates/game/assets/en/screen-3.pn...](http://www.bq.com/flexy_templates/game/assets/en/screen-3.png)

If you market your phone towards nerds, don't bullshit us with crypto
marketing.

~~~
0xFFC
Would you mind to explain what you are talking about ? I thought telegram are
more secure than whats app and etc . I would gladly hear what do you think
about these app in general.

~~~
davexunit
Telegram is a proprietary network service, which means that there is no reason
to believe that it is secure.

~~~
talideon
The protocol is published, and the client is open source, but the protocol has
a whole bunch of design issues, and that's the _real_ problem with Telegram.

~~~
davexunit
But the server isn't free software, so it's untrustable, even if the protocol
didn't have known design issues.

~~~
talideon
If the protocol was properly designed, the proprietary nature of the server
wouldn't be an issue as we could write a server implementing the protocol too.
For instance, I don't have to worry about all of tarsnap being open source,
because I know from the way the client is implemented that the server can't do
a damned thing to sniff my data.

However, due to how much of an awful botch job the protocol is, even if the
server was FLOSS, it would still be untrustable.

------
q2
Can anyone share financial details of this company like, is it VC funded or
public enterprise ...etc and sources of funding?

------
sbt
Will order one next week (paycheck).

------
fcanela
More mobile fragmentation. I hope Cordova stacks (phonegap, iconic) are made
compatible soon.

~~~
aikah
[http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/developers](http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/developers)

    
    
        If you’ve created HTML5 apps or mobile websites for 
        other platforms — there’s good news: the path 
        to Ubuntu 
        couldn’t 
        be quicker. We support both the Webkit/Blink and   
        Cordova development standards — and with a separate 
        API that enables
        websites to be quickly converted to run independently 
        of a browser, with full access to phone notifications 
        and 
        settings, the same goes for your web applications.

------
zx2c4
When will they release one with a hardware keyboard? This would be worth
buying.

~~~
chippy
I'd buy any android phone with a hardware keyboard, but those days are long
gone now - with the bigger screens, the manufacturers have given up one them

------
dogma1138
Nice to see it coming to the market, but with those specs nope sorry.

------
coob
Does anyone know if this supports AP mode under WiFi?

------
ck2
Success all comes down to the app store.

Just ask Microsoft.

~~~
tkubacki
WP is dead because of it's restrictions (eg. on WP you can't even install
Webkit/Blink based browser)

~~~
mobiplayer
Yeah, because that's what millions of users out there are asking for.

~~~
psykovsky
Ofcourse they aren't asking for it, they just didn't buy the phones. Why would
they ask for it when they are using Android?

------
reddotX
no more flash sales! \o/

------
dalek2point3
what are the standard apps to replace the google apps?

~~~
sp332
Google has 88 apps in the Android app store. Which ones are you looking to
replace?

Edit: Here's a list of the "core apps".
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/CoreApps](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/CoreApps)
Notably missing are email and SMS apps, so I'm not sure what they're using for
those.

Also, you won't spend as much time in siloed app experiences on this OS. It's
all about Scopes:
[http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/features](http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/features)

~~~
abrowne
The "Core Apps" have a bad name. They are community-developed apps, that may
be included in the stock image. What you're really looking for are the "System
Apps": [https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-system-
apps](https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-system-apps)

~~~
sp332
Oh, thanks! But I still don't see email or maps in either list?

~~~
abrowne
(I've been following development on and off — lately more off.)

Email is Dekko: [https://launchpad.net/dekko](https://launchpad.net/dekko) (No
idea about the name.) Based on (forked from) Trojitá.

I haven't seen a maps app, but I know they're using Here/Nokia for location
services ([https://insights.ubuntu.com/2014/07/30/nokia-here-maps-
comin...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2014/07/30/nokia-here-maps-coming-to-
ubuntu/)). I think the BQ phone comes with a location "scope". The Here HTML5
app is pretty good on FxOS, so they could be using that.

------
ender89
brb, moving to the EU...

------
mahouse
MediaTek? No, thanks.

~~~
listic
MediaTek is not just a lower-end chip; it potentially has its own unique
advanages. E.g. AFAIK only phones with MediaTek chips potentially can:

\- ring an alarm when in 'off' state

\- change their IMEI

I'm not claiming that everyone needs that or that it will be possible on
Ubuntu; just reminding that MTK chips have some unique advantages, too.

~~~
icebraining
I wonder why you'd need a specific chipset to have an RTC alarm. Couldn't it
be added on the board independently? After having so many Nokias, I'm still
amazed how so many phones miss what should be a basic feature.

~~~
listic
I believe noone bothers to add additional hardware for this, but MTK has the
hardware on-chip. I, too, hold old Nokias as a standard in this regard.

------
spacefight
[http://store.bq.com/en/ubuntu-edition-e-4-5](http://store.bq.com/en/ubuntu-
edition-e-4-5)

No [https://](https://) by default. Again, if you market this as towards the
nerdy audience: Put _everything_ behind HTTPS. I simply do not want to let
others know, what phone I might buy.

Thank you.

~~~
DiabloD3
I don't know why parent is getting downvoted: he is correct, we need to https
all the things to improve https for everyone.

------
arboroia
Perhaps the mods can change the URL to show the English version of the site,
rather than the Spanish version?
[http://www.bq.com/gb/ubuntu.html](http://www.bq.com/gb/ubuntu.html)

~~~
lclarkmichalek
Huh, I tried /en/. Generally people use ISO 639 over ISO 3166 for choosing the
language to represent.

~~~
RobertoG
I think the reason is that they want separate pages by countries, not by
languages. For instance, they have three different pages in Spanish (Spain,
Mexico, Uruguay).

~~~
lsaferite
Things like that always bug me.

What if I live in Spain and only speak English. What if I live in a Catalan
region and want Catalan? What if I live in GB and want to read it in Spanish
as it's my first language?

With the world being as global as it is and people readily moving around,
geographic location does not equal language preference.

Ideally the site would have geographic specific sections but allow all
languages it has translations for in each section. Bonus points if you default
language based on my HTTP headers and allow session based overrides.

~~~
Kurtz79
It would be quite a bit of work, to attend a very limited use case.

Every Catalan (or Galician, Valencian, Basque) speaks Spanish, as do the vast
majority of the expats I know (and I'm one myself).

You can still access the specific site of the language you are interested in.
Or, in the worst case, use Google translate.

~~~
matt_kantor
Obviously it depends on the use case and audience, but language and location
should not be conflated by default. Location allows customization of currency,
measurement units, legal policies, shipping information, tariffs, dates/times,
etc independently of the copy language. There are plenty of countries with
more than one major language (there are almost 40 million Spanish-speaking
citizens of the US and India has 23 official languages), so websites that
guess language based on country alienate a lot of users.

Your browser already tells every website what language(s) you speak in the
Accept-Language header, so it's not like that information isn't available.

~~~
Kurtz79
My (very subjective) guess, is that many of those 40 millions Spanish speakers
in the US speak English as well, and the percentage of those who don't and
would use an e-commerce site is low.

Still, I would imagine major e-commerce websites to add support for a
langugage in the website, if the potential userbase is big enough (for
example, the Apple Store does).

My knowledge of India is very limited , but it always seemed to me that the
unifying language really is English (again, from a very cursory glance,
Amazon, Apple and HP have Indian e-commerce stores in English).

My point is that decoupling language and location as a general feature does
not make much economic sense in the vast majority of cases.

This is especially true for major e-commerce sites: think about Amazon, and
the number of items being sold (millions ?). Many of those are sold only in a
particular store, or have variations between a store and another: how much
would it cost to translate all the articles for all the stores in x languages
?

------
nihalhassan
is it?

