[Discuss] Ubuntu Phone

[Jay Kramer]

Speaking of Web OS, The latest version of GTK will make it possible to
run GNU applications on the web browser using HTML5

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/09/gtk-32-released-with-html5-allows.html

2013 should be an interesting year.

Jay



On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 3:31 PM, Tom Metro <tmetro+blu at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jay Kramer wrote:
>> The Ubuntu phone looks interesting
>> http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone
>
> I saw the video. Pretty slick. Always good to see more innovation in UI
> design.
>
> I did notice that it fell into one of the common UI design traps of
> rearranging things in the UI automatically in response to how frequently
> you use them. (Paraphrasing) "Your most frequently used apps will appear
> here, and your most frequently contacted people will appear there."
>
> I get why designers do this. It can be useful when handled properly and
> used sparingly. But generally, dynamically changing navigation is a
> losing approach to learning and efficiently using a UI.
>
>
> I'd be curios to know if anyone has inside knowledge as to how Canonical
> is staffing this endeavor. Did they bring in a whole new team, or have
> the desktop Ubuntu developers been reassigned to this?
>
> If you're a power user of Ubuntu, and were hoping with desktop Unity
> well fleshed out for the novices, that they'd return to their roots and
> do some UI work for the developer community, it seems highly unlikely.
> (Or more so, as it already was highly unlikely.)
>
> http://www.thevarguy.com/2012/12/26/shuttleworth-ubuntu-to-focus-on-cloud-and-mobile-in-2013/
>
>   According to Mark Shuttleworth..."2013 will be all about mobile -
>   bringing Ubuntu to phones and tablets." To do that, he said, Canonical
>   will include more mobile developers in the Ubuntu ecosystem while also
>   further tailoring the Unity interface to work well on mobile hardware.
>   Shuttleworth also wrote about the cloud as a second key area of focus
>   for the Ubuntu community in 2013.
>
>   ... cloud computing based on Ubuntu is simpler because Ubuntu provides
>   (theoretically) a complete ecosystem for developers and
>   administrators: "Having the same core tools and libraries from your
>   phone to your desktop to your server and your cloud instances makes
>   life infinitely easier."
>
> ...except the desktop UI design is driving away developers.
>
> Seen in the comments to that article:
>
>   Vanessa Deagan Says:
>   I have a gut feeling that Canonical are going to neglect Ubuntu on the
>   desktop as a result of its new highly focused efforts targeting
>   mobile. I really hope I'm wrong here, as Microsoft has just released a
>   disaster with Windows 8, leaving a huge vacuum in the desktop OS
>   space. With the likes of Steam and other game developers now taking
>   Linux (in particular, Ubuntu) seriously, Canonical are in a very good
>   position to fill the void.
>
>
> Rich Pieri wrote:
>> I foresee problems with it commercially. Cell phone generational cycles
>> are a study in planned obsolescence. A top of the line device will be
>> trailing edge within 9 months and obsolete within 18 months.
>
> In a recent Debian Newsletter the Debian developers cite the wide
> variety of mobile hardware as an impediment to porting Debian to it:
>
> http://bonedaddy.net/pabs3/log/2012/12/03/debian-mobile/
>   Paul Wise documented how to install Debian on smartphones: while
>   this is technically possible, the process is complicated by the fact
>   that the Linux mainline kernel doesn't run on many mobile devices and
>   the Debian Linux kernel maintainers prefer not to include non-mainline
>   patches. Paul concluded by saying that "the procedures I documented
>   above are not a great way to support mobile devices at all and could
>   break at any moment anyway. So everyone, please become a kernel
>   developer and help merge all of the many many versions of Android
>   Linux into Linux mainline so that you can have your favourite
>   distribution on your devices".
>
> But this is hardly a problem for Canonical. They wouldn't be trying to
> run Ubuntu on all the existing mobile devices. They'll contract out the
> manufacture of a purpose-built device, and will be able to control the
> design and life-cycle of the hardware.
>
> That's the easy part.
>
> The hard part is how do they get the carriers to play along? How do they
> tell a story to them that make Ubuntu on mobile devices sound compelling?
>
> The two most compelling aspects of Ubuntu on mobile devices are:
> 1. the new UI design;
> 2. the ability to plug your phone into a dock and use it as a portable
> desktop environment.
>
> #1 alone will never cut it. People raved about HP's WebOS UI and it went
> nowhere. Lots of people like the Windows Phone UI, and it'll go nowhere.
>
> The reality about UI design is that it isn't defensible intellectual
> property. Despite design patents, the compelling ideas will still get
> copied in some fashion by the other platforms. (Google gets lots of
> blame for copying from iOS, but the reverse has happened as well.)
>
> #2 isn't exactly unique. We've seen a few examples of this already
> (Motorola Atrix). In common with those other examples, the Ubuntu mobile
> environment is going to start by asking most users to switch their
> desktop environment to a new platform, which will be the first big
> barrier to entry.
>
> But more importantly, the end result is a device that appeals to a more
> technically literate audience than the mainstream, and necessitates a
> more open device than the carriers are typically comfortable with.
>
> Would you want your main "desktop" to be an Ubuntu install where you
> have no access to root and have to live with the bloatware installed by
> your carrier? (The people who are OK with this are also the same people
> who don't really care what desktop they are using, and thus care little
> about the ability to "bring it with them." "As long as I can login to
> Gmail, I'm good.")
>
>
> Until the stranglehold that carriers have on the mobile hardware space
> is broken, an Ubuntu smartphone is a non-starter. Canonical doesn't have
> the weight of Apple to bend things to their will.
>
> Their best hope is to see the emergence of wholesale wireless data
> carriers, at which point they can offer a device that isn't locked to a
> carrier. Maybe Canonical plans to approximate this by becoming their own
> MVNO (a carrier that resells service from someone else's physical network).
>
>  -Tom
>
> --
> Tom Metro
> Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
> "Enterprise solutions through open source."
> Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/
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