Ubuntu phones to ship this year from two manufacturers

Platform will be the "open alternative to Android."


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[JohnnyTheGeek]

I expect these phones will be more popular in lower income Countries then the US. Even grade school kids in the US want iPhones and Samsung Galaxy's. I have never been a fan of Ubuntu since they began their quest to become more commercial.

 

[jdale]

Terminalmancer[/url]":trx243ah]

jdale[/url]":trx243ah]

Terminalmancer[/url]":trx243ah]There are multiple levels of UI obfuscation.

(stuff)

I would argue that the third category is fine for functionality you use frequently. These things should be covered in start-up tutorials to introduce new users. You use them often, so they don't get forgotten. Less-used functionality needs to be discoverable because it may be beyond the range of what can be covered by a tutorial or the range of what a new user can actually learn and remember all at once.

Swipe up to minimize the app is something you'll use frequently, so it should be fine. Also, it's exactly the same as WebOS was, and it was easy there.

Android has plenty of these things too. It's not at all obvious, for example, that the ... button is where all the menus are hiding. Once you learn that detail, it's fine.

There are arguments about whether someone totally unfamiliar with your phone can immediately start using it when they take it from you, but frankly I don't think that's necessarily an advantage. Phones are personal.

I don't disagree in principal with anything you're saying. There are certainly cases where things don't work that way, though, for any number of reasons--humans are complex, confusing, and often kind of confused creatures.

Look at Windows 8, for example. Using the corners drives a lot of habitual Windows <8 users wild--even though you would expect that, as frequently-used functionality, you'd get used to it over time. Some people do, and some people have not. Why is this different from WebOS or Ubuntu Mobile? Is it because of the built-in Windows habits that suddenly got changed? Is it because there's no visible indicator? Is it because Windows is exposed to a far wider audience than WebOS and Ubuntu Mobile ever did, and so you have a much larger number of users who are only marginally computer-literate?

I haven't run any usability studies on any of those three platforms so I don't really have a conclusion. I do have anecdotal evidence--when we added notes to each of the active corners of a Windows 8 machine, my wife, myself, and my wife's relative all found Win8 much easier to use.

For what it's worth, the menu button (...) commonly used on Android would be an example of the second case, not the third. There is a visible indicator, hinting that some functionality is provided. Interactions in the third category have no visible indicator--there is no discoverability there, meaning access to the interaction is entirely reliant on functional memory. (This usually isn't absolutely true, because you could discover the functionality by accidentally triggering it. But these categories aren't absolute categories anyway.)

I can't speak for everyone, but personally what bothers me about the hot corner for Start is not that there is no visible cue, but that I tend to reflexively hit the closest button over (which is IE).

On the other hand, the rarely-used hot corner in the upper left is harder to discover and also relates to an annoying design feature (that there is no easy way to close Metro apps). The hot corner in the lower right was linked to a badly designed menu. And neither of these two were even mentioned by the grossly inadequate tutorial in the slightest.

 

[Mitlov]

jdale[/url]":1ith7aui]I can't speak for everyone, but personally what bothers me about the hot corner for Start is not that there is no visible cue, but that I tend to reflexively hit the closest button over (which is IE).

On the other hand, the rarely-used hot corner in the upper left is harder to discover and also relates to an annoying design feature (that there is no easy way to close Metro apps). The hot corner in the lower right was linked to a badly designed menu. And neither of these two were even mentioned by the grossly inadequate tutorial in the slightest.

I couldn't agree more about the ridiculous lack of a quality tutorial, but FYI, there are now (well-hidden) ways to address all of these things in 8.1.

The addition of a start button gives enough space so that you don't accidentally trigger the bottom-left hotcorner anymore.

Charms (the hotcorners on the top-right and bottom-right) can be disabled entirely. Right-click on taskbar, select "properties," and in the navigation tab, you can turn off Charms. You can now get to "shut down" and stuff like that by right-clicking the start button.

You can also turn off the previews of open metro apps in the same taskbar navigation menu. FYI, if you open a metro app, you can close it with alt-F4, or by dragging from the top of the screen to the bottom (with finger or with a mouse cursor) and holding it there for a second until the preview image flips over.

Sorry for the tangent, but until Microsoft gives us a proper tutorial, it's up to users to help educate other users...

 

[rgaa]

Ubuntu, unfortunately, can't argue a privacy advantage over Android because it ships all user data off to third-party servers like Amazon. Anybody who wants privacy will go with Cyanogenmod.

I also find it humorous how Ubuntu markets itself as the open-source choice, yet CLAs everything it creates.

I like Ubuntu. I like the Unity interface. But I grow more and more disgusted with Canonical.

 

[Mitlov]

Vying for third place: Ubuntu phones to ship this year from two manufacturers

Wouldn't that be vying for fourth place? The third-place phone OS has 10% of sales in most of western Europe, Mexico, and Australia, is trending upward in most markets, and has the financial titan that is Microsoft funding it. Even if Ubuntu Phone starts to build momentum--and at this point that's a big "if"--I don't see it overtaking WP8 for third place in the near future.

 

[sonicmerlin]

It sailfish OS already an open alternative to android?

 

[Caffarius]

rgaa[/url]":xn4mqqxq]Ubuntu, unfortunately, can't argue a privacy advantage over Android because it ships all user data off to third-party servers like Amazon. Anybody who wants privacy will go with Cyanogenmod.

Cyanogenmod? All I need to fix this is a root terminal and apt-get iptables. This is why I want an Ubuntu Phone.

 

[rgaa]

Caffarius[/url]":3iseujk4]

rgaa[/url]":3iseujk4]Ubuntu, unfortunately, can't argue a privacy advantage over Android because it ships all user data off to third-party servers like Amazon. Anybody who wants privacy will go with Cyanogenmod.

Cyanogenmod? All I need to fix this is a root terminal and apt-get iptables. This is why I want an Ubuntu Phone.

iptables can't filter at the application level. How exactly would you stop 3rd party transmissions? if you open a port (80, 443), anything can outgo on that port. And with each Canonical release, the packages are becoming more and more embedded with other stuff. So you can't uninstall offending stuff as easily as you could in the past. Besides, you're stuck watching lsof all day looking for offending processes. Stuff can outgo that you never see.

 

[RAOF]

rgaa[/url]":35rgext3]

Caffarius[/url]":35rgext3]

rgaa[/url]":35rgext3]Ubuntu, unfortunately, can't argue a privacy advantage over Android because it ships all user data off to third-party servers like Amazon. Anybody who wants privacy will go with Cyanogenmod.

Cyanogenmod? All I need to fix this is a root terminal and apt-get iptables. This is why I want an Ubuntu Phone.

iptables can't filter at the application level. How exactly would you stop 3rd party transmissions? if you open a port (80, 443), anything can outgo on that port.

Well, if you really wanted you could use the funky Apparmour confinement we have to disable network access for all the scopes.

rgaa[/url]":35rgext3]
And with each Canonical release, the packages are becoming more and more embedded with other stuff. So you can't uninstall offending stuff as easily as you could in the past. Besides, you're stuck watching lsof all day looking for offending processes. Stuff can outgo that you never see.

Or you could use the provided configuration GUI to turn off those remote searches, of course.

And the scopes don't actually send any information to Amazon (unless you consider ‘an Ubuntu user somewhere is searching for $X’); they're sent to Canonical servers which then do the query. You're trusting Canonical with what you put into the non-local search box, but only Canonical.

 

[Sajuuk]

sonicmerlin[/url]":1vkuc1yk]It sailfish OS already an open alternative to android?

I'm not sure how open Sailfish is (even though it's built upon a linux kernel + wayland), but regardless, it hasn't gotten very much coverage in the US outside of "yeah, these gestures are hard, and android apps don't run so hot"

 

[Caffarius]

rgaa[/url]":1iaz9dtd]

Caffarius[/url]":1iaz9dtd]

rgaa[/url]":1iaz9dtd]Ubuntu, unfortunately, can't argue a privacy advantage over Android because it ships all user data off to third-party servers like Amazon. Anybody who wants privacy will go with Cyanogenmod.

Cyanogenmod? All I need to fix this is a root terminal and apt-get iptables. This is why I want an Ubuntu Phone.

iptables can't filter at the application level. How exactly would you stop 3rd party transmissions? if you open a port (80, 443), anything can outgo on that port. And with each Canonical release, the packages are becoming more and more embedded with other stuff. So you can't uninstall offending stuff as easily as you could in the past. Besides, you're stuck watching lsof all day looking for offending processes. Stuff can outgo that you never see.

Less by port, more by all traffic to specific servers. Of course that's not completely foolproof, as a future update could include a larger set of IPs. I'd be willing to wager that more intrepid phone users than I would even keep track of such changes or offer a more ingenious solution. That's the beauty of a standard Linux platform.

RAOF[/url]":1iaz9dtd]Or you could use the provided configuration GUI to turn off those remote searches, of course.

Preferably this is the way the situation would be handled. I'd like to monitor what the phone platform does for a few days though to see what it requests. I have high hopes, not high trust.

 

[Panama]

KDE is in the process of being completely modularized and will be treated as any other Qt module (although with a more complex dependency chain as any tiered module system would have). There will be no more KDElibs dependency like in KDE4/Qt4 for "KDE5" apps. Qt5 solidified the good things that occurred during the Qt4 cycle while making the experience more modular, flexible, and portable. Qt5 and KDE Frameworks 5 are going to be much better integrated due to Qt switching to a fully open governance model after being dumped by Nokia. KDE, Canonical, Jolla, and Blackberry are also working together to minimize the difference between programming for their platforms when using Qt.

The Ubuntu SDK is more about HTML5 support, Unity8, and Mir integration than some custom version of Qt. While I suppose it is technically a "custom" version of Qt5, it shouldn't take much to have a shared code base between a "standard" Qt5 desktop app for Linux (KDE5 or Unity8) plus SailfishOS plus Blackberry plus Android. (I'm not sure how good the cross-platform support for Android is in a deployed environment as the "full" support is so new.) The Qt5 ecosystem is undergoing rapid development and growth this year as Canonical and KDE switch to Qt5.

In reality, Canonical is moving more toward standardization than it has been recently. Mir is mostly compatible with Wayland. Canonical's engineers have said that they could probably just remake it into a Wayland compositor if necessary. Whether or not they should is a discussion that I will not enter into here as I don't know enough about display compositor and windowing servers to have a valid opinion. Basically Mir could just become something more like KWin or Mutter than its current iteration.

Unity 7 was a strange coding abomination. It was a heavily hacked GNOME3/Compiz Shell environment that causes all sorts of conflicts with upstream and even other Gtk apps. Moving to Qt5 and Unity8 as a completely new DE is actually going to allow them to more easily integrate across the GNU/Linux software stack because they won't have to maintain constant hacks to keep things working. Unity8 should significantly reduce the packaging hell that Unity 7 causes across the entire Linux ecosystem.

Ubuntu is also going to eventually switch to SystemD and abandon Upstart. I'm excited about the things coming from Ubuntu and I look forward to what they are capable of accomplishing as they move themselves and the rest of the open-source software ecosystem forward. Hopefully Canonical and KDE will borrow from one another with their different approaches to mobile and touch, while using the same toolkit and many of the same technologies.

 

[Devin]

Sajuuk[/url]":1wk8ahh8]

Devin[/url]":1wk8ahh8]

Voo42[/url]":1wk8ahh8]

Devin[/url]":1wk8ahh8]

Sajuuk[/url]":1wk8ahh8]As far as I understand their UX, everything (and I mean everything) is gesture based - including switching between apps, going back, and going home. Gesture based UX is really cool to use and really cool to show off (when you're already experienced with it), but it inherently hides essential functions of the OS which is always an iffy proposition. Blackberry learned this the hard way

There is nothing hidden about the "home" or "back" gestures. There just isn't a button mapped to them. This is hardly hidden. Hell, anyone I hand the phone to figures it out after I say "slide up from the bottom". Good for Ubuntu if they use that strategy.

Congratulations, you answered your own question right there.

It is disingenous to say there is no obfuscation with any platform, as I mentioned above, as well as assuming that your phone can just be picked up and used by anyone. I think the only phone that qualifies to that level would be the Windows phone as their visual cues are omnipresent.

I never said other OS UX designs lacked any and all obfuscation or hidden functionality, only that Ubuntu / Jolla / bb10 take this to an obvious extreme

Having never used Jolla, I'll have to take your word for it. All I am saying is that all smartphones have a level of obfuscation that requires some sort of learning curve to overcome. BB10 doesn't have a button, so I'm sure there is some confusion there (just ask my wife!), but it is easily overcome, just as swiping left to right was.

 

[maars]

Very happy to hear the news. Android hegemony should end as soon as possible.

 

[kingp3nguin]

Nobody seems to notice that in the world of Android alternatives apart from Ubuntu Touch and Firefox OS, Jolla (http://www.jolla.com) already has its own handset out running Sailfish OS, a linux distribution just like the one running on your desktop with a really vibrant community on talk.maemo.org.

 

[Otus]

I don't really care about phones, but I'd really appreciate a tablet that docks to become a full Linux desktop, if it had a decent touch interface and a powerful SoC.

An Asus Transformer (-like device) with Ubuntu and 64-bit ARM would be my dream device. The only problem is screen size – I prefer 10" tablets, but even that is a bit little in laptop mode. Would it be possible to get a 12-13" thin bezel screen that turned some of the border pixels/touch off in tablet mode?

 

[Xiao-zhi]

Yes!

I correctly predicted Ubuntu would be used on a Chinese phone here and explain a little bit about Ubuntu Kylin (Chinese) here.

Meizu is an upstart competing mainly against Xiaomi (the Chinese "Apple") and the rumored Meizu handset targeting Ubuntu is the very good MX3.

If so, this will be success. Ubuntu Kylin is taking off in China and a good quality Ubuntu phone will be perfect companion.

 

[rgaa]

Caffarius[/url]":ne8srpog]

rgaa[/url]":ne8srpog]

Caffarius[/url]":ne8srpog]

rgaa[/url]":ne8srpog]

RAOF[/url]":ne8srpog]Or you could use the provided configuration GUI to turn off those remote searches, of course.

Preferably this is the way the situation would be handled. I'd like to monitor what the phone platform does for a few days though to see what it requests. I have high hopes, not high trust.

The GUI control is less than satisfactory. A bug can make it appear off when it isn't. User config error can result in the same. A software update could re-enable unknowingly. There are so many problems with relying on a simple switch like this. The only thing that would comfort me would be being able to uinstall it. I'd like to see privacy-invasive stuff like this confined to one package. Then user can uninstall that package. But Canonical is not packaging in this way.

I think Ubuntu-Phone could have gained a lot of users for privacy-security reasons without this spyware behavior. It's a shame they abandoned users looking for this feature.

 

[Voo42]

rgaa[/url]":1sdjf4cd]

Caffarius[/url]":1sdjf4cd]

rgaa[/url]":1sdjf4cd]

Caffarius[/url]":1sdjf4cd]

rgaa[/url]":1sdjf4cd]

RAOF[/url]":1sdjf4cd]Or you could use the provided configuration GUI to turn off those remote searches, of course.

Preferably this is the way the situation would be handled. I'd like to monitor what the phone platform does for a few days though to see what it requests. I have high hopes, not high trust.

The GUI control is less than satisfactory. A bug can make it appear off when it isn't. User config error can result in the same. A software update could re-enable unknowingly. There are so many problems with relying on a simple switch like this. The only thing that would comfort me would be being able to uinstall it. I'd like to see privacy-invasive stuff like this confined to one package. Then user can uninstall that package. But Canonical is not packaging in this way.

I don't see how any of your arguments couldn't be just as easily be applied to your "uninstall package" solution.

A bug can make it appear uninstalled when it isn't. User config error can result in the same (I guess you mean clicking the wrong switch? well the equivalent would be uninstalling the wrong package). A software update could reinstall the package unknowingly.

Basically every problem you have with the switch solution also applies to yours - if you don't trust Canonical you're already out of luck.

 

[yannbane]

Can't wait for this!

I just wish Canonical would stop with the stupid shit like Mir and Click.

Wayland is a fine protocol and they should support it because it would benefit the larger community as a whole: Canonical doesn't do any real contribution but they bring in a lot of users and third-party attention.

Let Red Hat develop and Canonical market, I thought it'd be perfect until they screwed it up.

I really don't understand and I don't believe them that creating a whole new graphical stack and ripping the community in two was actually less hassle than simply communicating their technical issues with Wayland devs.

 

[flatrock19]

I'd be happy to see this help push dual-sim phones more. I live in Canada and work in the US and am sick of having to carry around two phones.

 

[cream wobbly]

vnangia[/url]":3ow1hzey]

Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer[/url]":3ow1hzey]I'm very curious to see how this goes. I'm more interested in $100-$300 devices rather than high-end phones, though.

I'm not sure the focus initially is on those devices - or at least the lower end of that range; remember the Ubuntu Edge? I can speculate that this is because running a full Linux stack is probably fairly resource-intensive.

When you say "Linux stack", do you actually mean "GNU stack"? Or do you mean "Linux kernel"? Because this is where it gets important to make that distinction. The full Linux kernel is enormous, and I'd expect it to be trimmed properly to fit the device. That's an obvious move.

Selecting GNU software appropriate to the platform would also be a fairly obvious move, so I simply cannot see how "running a full [GNU] stack is probably fairly resource-intensive", unless you're just wagging your head to get the word "stack" in there somewhere but in reality you haven't the foggiest what in the blazes you're yakking about.

 

[mdporter]

My bet is this phone will be DOA. The current Blackberry models are a better alternative to iOS or Android phones.

 

[jalyst]

sub.

 

[myforwik]

Whatever happend to Ubuntu (desktop) for Andriod (or for Ubuntu phone?). I want a phone that I can dock and use as desktop, not yet another phone operating system.