
Canonical announces first partners to ship Ubuntu phones around the globe - daker
http://insights.ubuntu.com/news/canonical-announces-first-partners-to-ship-ubuntu-phones-around-the-globe/
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Danieru
Congratulations! I heard rumors about Meizu and I cannot think of a better
manufacturer! Meizu has design, engineering, and branding. I wish Canonical
well.

~~~
nnkh
I had a look at their site, but the MX[1,2,3] phone doesn't seem too special
in design; it's an iPhone clone like so many others at first glance. Is that
just the English market, maybe they have other phones as well?

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aroch
Interesting, Meizu makes some pretty beautiful hardware. I got one of the MX3
on the cheap to play around with. I only wish they would stop using Samsung
crappy Exynos SoC

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Thiz
Cordova. Love it.

[http://developer.ubuntu.com/apps/](http://developer.ubuntu.com/apps/)

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rjzzleep
is that going to be your an arm processor with baseband integrated?

the cool thing, you now have your laptop with you on your phone, and it's not
just an android, but something with a real package management system. see
windows 8 convertibles...

the not so cool thing, your laptop is now a nice backdoor where you have no
idea whatever the hell it's doing.

~~~
pekk
Do you really have such a clear idea what your Android phone is doing?

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gtirloni
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Touch#Target_market](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Touch#Target_market)

 _Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the company behind the Linux distribution
believes that Ubuntu for phones will first find a niche in countries where
Ubuntu is well known_

Linux is barely well known to the general population. Let alone getting them
to differentiate the Ubuntu brand.

 _Ubuntu strives to be “the smartphone that’s also a full PC”.[26] Canonical
reports that software for the mobile version of Ubuntu is also compatible with
versions for PCs and televisions. This is a feature not currently offered by
other operating system companies, and aims to simplify both the use and
development of the product_

Pundits tell me nobody wants that, see Windows PCs, tablets, phones are
servers. Right? </sarcasm>

 _The aforementioned PC and mobile synergy may also be attractive to corporate
IT departments currently using Ubuntu to run their servers_

Totally different environments that share only the fact they are powered by
electricity.

 _Mobile devices can be connected to larger displays and other peripherals
such as wireless keyboards. Windows applications can also be accessed from
corporate servers onto a mobile device, which makes the transferring of data
more efficient_

While I think we'll get there, we are far away from our smartphones having the
power to run a full PC OS with our current workloads. Perhaps Ubuntu is
looking too much into the future... personally I think they need the revenue
of today's reality.

I won't even comment the phrase about Windows applications as it makes no
sense.

\--

If the Wikipedia article accurately reflects what Canonical thinks are the
selling points for their Ubuntu phones, then I believe this is going to be a
sad disappointment.

Another point is that Microsoft, with all its power, can barely break the
iOS/Android dominance in mind share... how Canonical plans to do that with
such weak selling points?

Openness is rarely a worry for smartphone users and developers alike (only a
minority of them care and the impact on revenue is probably irrelevant). So is
it price alone? Cheaper than Android? If so, we are back to the ecosystem that
is nonexistent yet.

I'd love a really open alternative, and things have to start somewhere, but
Canonical doesn't seem positioned well enough to take on the competitors.

~~~
sebular
> Linux is barely well known to the general population. Let alone getting them
> to differentiate the Ubuntu brand.

I think that story changes somewhat on a country-by-country basis. India, for
example, has a relatively high Ubuntu adoption rate. Of course, the numbers
aren't huge anywhere, and I agree that relying on the Ubuntu brand name alone
isn't going to move products.

> Totally different environments that share only the fact they are powered by
> electricity.

At least in tech companies, specifically web development, that isn't an
irrelevant thing. If your personal dev machine is running the same environment
as the server where your app is running, that greatly simplifies package
dependencies and deployment. If your personal dev machine is also your
company-issued phone, that's very convenient.

> While I think we'll get there, we are far away from our smartphones having
> the power to run a full PC OS with our current workloads. Perhaps Ubuntu is
> looking too much into the future... personally I think they need the revenue
> of today's reality.

I think we're already there. With smartphone tech running rich 3D applications
and powering 4K displays, I don't think any more horsepower is required for
your average word processing/email/web scenario. And if we're not there yet,
we certainly will be in under 5 years, and planning for a future that will
soon exist is exactly how tech companies get the jump on competition (See:
iPhone).

> I won't even comment the phrase about Windows applications as it makes no
> sense.

It makes perfect sense. Many companies now deliver the standard MS Office
suite to employees via cloud solutions like Citrix
([http://www.citrix.com/](http://www.citrix.com/)). And with MS and Office
heading even further in that direction with native cloud implementations,
having a Windows OS is becoming increasingly unnecessary. Having a DESKTOP OS
is mandatory, but it doesn't need to be Windows anymore.

If these Ubuntu phones are powerful enough to run a browser smoothly in the
desktop configuration, they'll be incredibly useful.

Another potential boon for Ubuntu phones is Steam on Linux. As history shows,
the platform with the most games is usually the most successful. As Steamboxes
begin to roll out and the platform gains more developer support, owners of
Ubuntu phones will find that the device they're already carrying around is
also a microconsole.

~~~
jamesgeck0
> As Steamboxes begin to roll out and the platform gains more developer
> support, owners of Ubuntu phones will find that the device they're already
> carrying around is also a microconsole.

If those phones have x86 processors, that is. Ubuntu phone supports ARM, but
Steamboxes certainly won't.

~~~
taeric
Is an obvious direction to take either option, though. (Phones to x86 or steam
to arm.)

I mean, sure, the heavier lifting of the games probably couldn't dream of
going arm. Not sure on many of what I would presume are emulated games,
though.

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edwardchiapet
Interesting partnership!

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LandonAB
Makes me wonder if Canonical has the manpower to focus on 3 devices (desktop,
tablet and phone).

~~~
rasz_pl
They dont, they merged all three. After all touch is the future ...

~~~
collyw
Unfortunately all the manufacturers seem to think so.

Do you really want to try and type something longer than the average SMS on a
touchscreen device?

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sirkneeland
The market for a "pure Linux phone" (that is, !Android) is only so big.

In that limited size market, we will now further subdivide it between Ubuntu
and Jolla.

I wish the two groups would at least seize on the opportunity to collaborate
where possible (such as Qt apps)

~~~
pekk
MeeGo tried the kind of collaboration you mention and it failed horribly.
Jolla can use some of the leftovers, but the point about the feasibility and
usefulness of this kind of collaboration is already made.

At least one of these platforms needs to become technically viable and then
gain traction. I don't think that imposing a broken MeeGo process in such
early days is going to help either platform, it could well kill both and then
Linux-phone enthusiasts are left with nothing.

It's not a bad thing for "Linux phone" to get multiple chances rather than
just one. If one doesn't turn out well, at least all our eggs were not in that
one basket.

If we are lucky enough that multiple Linux phone vendors get traction, then it
is feasible they could collaborate on interoperability.

If either ever achieves enough market share to make it a zero-sum game between
them (traversing some pretty steep barriers to entry left by incumbents),
that's a good problem to have and the competition can encourage development
for a little while until the issue is settled one way or the other.

Sniping at products which haven't even had a chance yet certainly is not going
to help.

~~~
pessimizer
MeeGo tried that kind of collaboration with whom? There weren't any qualified
partners. Who was shipping Linux phones?

~~~
air
MeeGo was the merge of Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo.

~~~
pessimizer
Merging isn't collaboration.

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gdiocarez
Hmm, Philippines Smart?! That's seems odd?

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chris_mahan
Will I be able to run python 3.3 on it?

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tragic
It's just Ubuntu but (presumably) on ARM so ... yes.

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pjmlp
Portugal Telecom?!?

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gbl08ma
I have known for a long time that they were in Canonical's Carrier Advisory
Group, and I can only wonder what use they have for Ubuntu phones. I think
they didn't have much success in selling Windows Phone handsets on-contract,
so maybe they are planning on offering Ubuntu as the third OS choice in place
of Windows Phone (as in, Android/iOS/Ubuntu instead of Android/iOS/WP).

~~~
pjmlp
Might be. We don't have tradition with contracts in Portugal anyway.

Pity that I moved to Optimus a few years ago.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Me too. Can't beat 6€/month for infinite SMS and 300MB internet.

