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According to the Wall Street Journal, Canonical is claiming that its new Ubuntu OS will be with developers by late February — ready for phones to launch in “two geographically large markets” this October.
The Wall Street Journal doesn’t explain which company will be making the first Ubuntu phones, but Canonical claims that it will be easy for Android phone manufacturers to hop across to the new platform. The Journal sadly doesn’t hint at where those large markets, targeted by the initial launch, are.
If you want to know more about what we can expect from Ubuntu’s mobile OS, you can read our hands-off — but expect no buttons, a gesture-heavy interface, and straightforward compatibility with external displays and keyboards. In fact, Canonical’s also spoken to Fast Co. Design about its design philosophy for the new OS. The interview makes for a pretty wacky read, with Canonical citing traditional Japanese architecture as an inspiration for the new design.
While gesture-based mobile interfaces are yet to prove their mettle, Ubuntu insists that its OS is actually “a leap from where mobile user interfaces were.” Let’s wait and see what October brings. [WSJ, Fast Co. Design]
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am looking forward to seeing these in real life, as I do like how they have designed the OS
am not sure i could give up android for it though as the Google integration works so well for me across multiple devices
but having said that, from watching the video, its very impressive
the cool thing is that it seems very gesture based, but that could be bad too, as i find clicking on stuff makes it easier to use
and gestures are much harder when i am on the motorway doing 92.3mph whilst texting, playing angry birds and eating soup with chopsticks
OK, so add to this the possibility of a Firefox based phone and a resurgent Blackberry and it would seem that users will be spoilt for choice.
the sound of a firefox phone just doesn’t appeal to me, and no matter how good it was, i would still have a nagging thing in my head
I agree. I don’t think every company needs to jump on the bandwagon and create their own O/S, but I guess when nearly everyone is carrying a smartphone of some sort or another, it’s a good space to own or at least, have a chunk of.
ANdroid, IOS and Windows phone OS will eat them alive, people are happy with the choices they have right now, mozilla phone and ubuntu phone will flop. they are entering a tough market with most people not caring for a nerdy OS. Ubuntu, I think need to work on their OS first before thinking about moving to phone market. look at BlackBerry OS and web OS they where forced out. thi is going to be an expensive lesson for them.
This thing is doomed to fail, commercially.
I agree, a name like Ubuntu doesn’t exactly help;
“I remember when I got my first Ubuntu, ahh those were the days”
mmmm command line phone dialing
/call -r -d -x3 08001234567
They should have released it open source for every phone.
Open source huh? Just like android, they need manufacturer & carrier adoption for any sort of market success and manufacturers & carriers do like to lock their own s**t into it. Unless the hardware manufacturer and carrier licence fees make up for that, I can’t see much embracing going on.