I certainly hope that Ubuntu is ready with software that provides a phone interface on a phone and a desktop interface when plugged into a monitor.
Because unlike a year and a half ago when they tried the Edge, hardware is (almost) ready for it.
The next generation of monitors, PC's, phones and tablets will all have USB 3.1 Type C ports. These are true docking ports, able to supply 100W of power, and transmit DisplayPort, PCIExpress and USB simultaneously.
You'll only have a single cable connected between your laptop and your monitor, with power, keyboard, mouse, network, printer, et cetera plugged into the monitor.
We've been able to do that before, but it's always been expensive and/or proprietary.
But what's really new is that this same cable will also be able to plug into your phone, letting you replace the laptop with a phone.
I desperately want an all-in-one device like that which I can clip onto my belt, with my phone or desktop or tablet serving as a thin client. Makes me wonder if that could be the future of mobile gaming.
Can the USB3.1 port both host peripherals and receive charge at the same time? Because I know that's always the challenge with USB2 that you're either functioning as host or client, and hosts control peripherals while clients receive power... when a "docking-station" scenario involves the host receiving power from the client (impossible with USB2). USB2 ports can switch between host and client, but they can't do both at once like that.
The article states
"Unlike the original proposal, the handset does not become a desktop PC when plugged into a monitor."
There is no need for a PC interface therefore.
I agree that the future could be phones that can be docked to have full desktop environment. And I think it can happen soon with phones using the newer Intel Atom processors, because there are already tablets that can dual boot Android and full Windows 8.1 with good performance, and there are already a few phones with Intel CPU and new ones are announced. Also Microsoft said that Windows 10 will unify desktop with Windows Phone OS.
The ability for it to "become a desktop PC when plugged into a monitor" was 90% of the appeal to me when they first talked about an Ubuntu powered smartphone. That they've stripped that out makes it relatively uninteresting.
Exactly - it's worthless now (listening, Ubuntu?).
My recent experience with the Android 5 "upgrade" on my Nexus tablet, which broke things I was using, really drove home to me that I really just want a Linux, like Raspbian or something, that runs on a phone or small tablet. Entertainment apps are nice and all, but I really want a general purpose computer, which happens to have a keyboard emulation on screen when not docked via USB or Bluetooth with keyboards, monitors and such.
... aside: the Android 5 Lollipop experience really made me appreciate RMS's stance on proprietary software. My command line tool app? gone. My Quickoffice notes? gone. Easy access to frequent peripheral settings? not gone, but buried deeper in the menus. More advertising noise ("notices") on the home screen. Scroogled!
I want an open mobile device, even if I realize not everybody wants the power and responsibility to maintain and/or break their own device.
This phone is some Mediatek garbage SoC with a horrible OpenGL blob. It is probably reapportioned Android hardware.
It is certainly not the kind of tech one wants or needs to drive a converged device.
Hopefully Canonical gets less stupid in the coming months and finds a higher end hardware partner to ship that converged experience, because early adopters have been able to do it on their Nexus phones running Ubuntu Touch for over a year.
Yeah. I never much saw the value of that, myself -- PCs are relatively cheap these days. But it's the only feature that the Ubuntu phone was offering that made it stand out from Android/iOS/Windows Phone/Blackberry/FirefoxOS/Sailfish. It's launching far later than most of its competitors, with fewer features and a less developed ecosystem to support it -- without some kind of killer app (which this might have been) it's probably DOA.
They lost the one factor that was truly differentiating. Arguably, it was the reason we got so excited the first time around.
I feel as though the entire market is screaming for something obvious to exist. It's so obvious, so compelling, so useful...
And so far away.
Why do we even have "desktops" and "laptops" and "phones" and "tablets" and "wearable watches" and so forth? Actually, the rise of the wearable watch gives us the biggest clue: it's because we care about form factors.
When I'm on the subway, I want something to hold in my hand. When I'm in a big hurry or on a jog, I want to glance at something on my wrist. When I'm in bed but don't want to disturb my partner, I want to interact with a larger yet personal tablet. When I want to type something (including code) or interact with content in more involved ways, I want something with a mouse and a keyboard. When I want to have a state of the art immersion experience, I want something with a lot of horsepower (and preferably a head mounted display of some sort).
Why do I have to have different computers for all of this when all I want is different I/O modalities (and related computing expansion devices)? Why do we keep ignoring the fact that what we want is the ability to experience our virtual world in the input / output environment that suits us at this moment? Everything else is secondary.
I was so excited when the original Ubuntu Edge was announced, because I felt that FINALLY someone had figured out how to make the thing we've all been screaming for. But now I'm not so sure Canonical really "got it" after all. If they did, it would have been the first feature they kept, not the first one they cut. To even call it a "feature" is diminutive. It's a paradigm that wants to exist.
We've seen already with the Motorola Atrix that it's harder than it sounds to get this right. But why is it THIS hard? Why can't we start with a phone that can be the CPU for wearables and tablets, and that can dock into a higher horsepower "GPU station" with a mouse and a keyboard and a monitor when we need it? You don't have to nail the performance profile as much as you have to nail why the experience is obviously better. I argue that you don't need a supercomputer in your pocket to pull that off.
I think you might be mixing together the problem and one possible solution.
People definitely want to be able to use different form factors in different places. One way to do that would be to carry around a central GPU+Memory store. Another would be different devices interconnected through a network - and the world that's being made is the latter.
Right now I can leave off in the middle of an ebook on my tablet and pick up at the same spot on my phone (Kindle). Same with videos from my TV to my phone/tablet/computer (Plex).
It gets a little trickier with development environments, but if I was sufficiently motivated I could do everything in a VPS that I accessed remotely, or use Nitrous.io to get a web accessible IDE (though I'm not sure about using a watch for programming).
I think this is mostly prompted by the fact that on the hardware side - everything is very custom and tailored to that form factor (to keep size and weight down, we've got all these systems on a chip and custom shaped batteries).
I'm sure it's not just you, and people approve, but I do not. In fact, all I want is actual GNU/Linux on the mobile device, which boils down to native DM, which is usable with touchscreen and having nice API + drivers. Everything else will come. Something like that Nokia N900 with updated hardware would do just fine. (Well, almost). I don't need it to be "one environment for all devices" — in fact, I think it's pretty horrible idea, because what I need with keyboard and a couple of 24" monitors is far from what I need on 4.3" touchscreen (and neither is "Unity", btw). I just want my familiar OS with standard messaging services and daemons, that I can make do what I want by writing plain shellscript, and not some Java-framework with half-proprietary firmware on most devices, developed by some evil corporation, which makes money by advertising and spying on its users.
So, well, what I need is not complicated (pretty much the opposite), but it requires "doing things right" and this is always incredibly hard. Essentially, to make proper DM it would require to hire someone, who already has written a couple of DMs which were used widely enough for mistakes made while inventing its API to become obvious. Unlikely that somebody, who isn't spying on his users would want to invest in something that big. And, furthermore, obviously there is much more people, who need Angry Birds, than people, who need transparent process interoperation.
"Why can't we start with a phone that can be the CPU for wearables and tablets, and that can dock into a higher horsepower 'GPU station' with a mouse and a keyboard and a monitor when we need it?"
Because a full-on SoC costs somewhere between $20 and $30? It costs almost nothing to add a full computer to any tablet/laptop form factor phone dock.
The capabilities for converged devices are getting closer. Will's video (lower down) shows some of the latest software developments. You shouldn't be discouraged - it's on the way - but there is a reason that the major players have two OS platforms! It's a hard software problem to solve. You have to create a full stack that will work across both device form-factors and the variety of use-cases that both supports.
The Ubuntu Edge campaign was aimed at trying to accelerate hardware innovation for those that wanted convergence faster. We didn't make it - but it will still happen.
Separate to convergence, the "next billion" devices are mobile in some form. Ubuntu's goal is to be the free software platform available to everyone [0]. That's why we're creating a first-class phone experience. And there's still lots of room for innovation in what phones can do and how they can be central to people's lives.
So the point of today is shipping the first Ubuntu phones to users. I'm really looking forward to how people use, enjoy and develop with them.
Not just you. I'm on the same waiting list.
I'll take it a step further. I want like you said, my mobile device to also be my main and only computer. When I place it near a monitor, I want it to spark into 'computer' mode. When I pull out a keyboard from my bag and place it near the phone - it should work. Same with the mouse. And it should function and operate with comparable performance to a regular laptop. I don't think this is too much to ask for. After all, I'm not asking for a battery that lasts all day am I?
We're getting close to this - you can buy graphics cards that plug into a PCI Express port on a laptop, for example. But the hardware's not quite there yet.
Batteries. Running a full Ubuntu OS on a smartphone battery would result in the battery draining quickly. So instead you'd need some sort of dual boot phone OS and desktop OS system that shares data... it's far from simple.
>Why do I have to have different computers for all of this when all I want is different I/O modalities (and related computing expansion devices)? Why do we keep ignoring the fact that what we want is the ability to experience our virtual world in the input / output environment that suits us at this moment? Everything else is secondary.
AFAICT, because hardware makers determine the operating-system market rather than the other way around. I dreamed of a more modernized, Plan 9-like OS to ~~tie all devices together~~ RULE THEM ALL back in freshman year of college. It's simply the obvious thing to do if you're a user and enough of an OS geek to understand the idea.
But, well, we softies don't drive those markets. We could never get the effort together to produce an operating system that would both support (via hardware drivers) and be supported by (in the sense of not having to crack open your phone with a screwdriver to install the thing) all the necessary hardware platforms.
"Unlike the original proposal, the handset does not become a desktop PC when plugged into a monitor."
This is what I found most interesting about the device. I loved the idea of how the OS transformed when other things were attached to the phone. There were questions about background tasks and apps running, but your phone turning into your computer via a dock did make sense and seemed like the future.
That was actually the only thing i was really interested in. I guess if they would have done just that and added some text and data and image manipulation apps to the bunch that could downscale nicely to phone, it would have been a crowd magnet. I am not even expecting all features of apps to be present on mobile. Just preview would be often ok too.
When I first heard about an Ubuntu smart phone I got excited because I thought it would mean that finally after all this talk of having a computer in my pocket, I would actually get a proper computer (read laptop replacement) in my pocket. By that I mean something where I can install whatever software I want.. any linux executable.. and it would run fine. I had dreams of running XMonad and firing up Emacs and doing a bit of node development, or perhaps spending a bit of time learning Rust, all while waiting for the bus. Stick it on some hardware that had a physical keyboard and I would be sold.
It seems it was not to be, and the Ubuntu phone is going to be another device that can only run programs created specifically for it and running in some sandboxed environment.
I am eagerly awaiting this. I've been wanting to write my own smartphone apps for a long time. I don't care about writing games, what I want to write is my own music player. I want it to replace the stock music player. I want access to the Bluetooth chipset so I can actually know why the damn thing doesn't just play when my car starts up. I want the music player given priority over all other apps so I get no stutters instead of 4+ per song with my Nexus 5. I want to order my phone's interface around it. I want all other apps shut down when it goes into standby, standby time is the difference between me having to charge my phone before I go out for the night and not having to worry about it.
The music player is 95% of what my phone is doing for me, yet the Nexus treats it as a second-rate concern.
I want Linux on everything, even (especially!) my toaster.
It's a really interesting idea, but I suspect it will fail - The market is too ingrained in the idea of "apps" to do anything else.
When it first came out, Windows Phone had one of the most interesting UIs out there. It combined all of your social networks into one single messaging hub, had a novel concept in tiles and the sliding panes (or whatever they were called). Unfortunately, every app maker wanted to more or less port what they were already doing on Android/iOS to Windows Phone, so few ever used the functionality MS provided. As of Windows Phone 10, it all seems to be gone.
I'm not sure the article is accurate regarding apps, or it might be some Canonical talking point that obscured the issue, but "QML" implies you can write Qt apps that are "native" to the Ubuntu phone environment.
Not sure about the other things you mentioned, but "all of your social networks in one single messaging hub" functionality was removed in 8.1 update (which, apart from that one change, made Windows Phone really so much better), but, MS says, it's gonna be back in Win10.
The desktop mode is compelling enough that I'd be fine if Canonical delayed the Ubuntu Phone further to get it right. It's already been delayed considerably and the buzz it once had has mostly disappeared. The ability to plug it into a monitor and have it function as a desktop, or plug it into an HDTV and have it behave like a Roku would be a massive edge over what's on the market now. Not sure why Canonical is content with releasing an "also ran" phone.
"The Ubuntu fan base will clamour to buy the phone just because they will be curious to see what it is"
Who is this "Ubuntu fan base"?
I connect to ten Ubuntu machines a day, and my parents use Ubuntu laptops. I don't consider myself a "fan", and my parents don't know what their OS is called. Where are these "Ubuntu faithful" the article talks about?
It will be as open as it's possible to be on phone hardware platforms. Which means that some SOC's will have binary drivers. Unless you're currently not using a phone then that's pretty much the same position as with any other phone OS.
I think this is closer to the Windows phone tiles than they're letting on, but still a neat idea. Not convinced about how well it would work with games (which are hilariously second class citizens for all mobile platforms in spite of PR efforts).
One very curious thing about the scope idea is it will need tweaking for different cultures around the world. Gross oversimplification, but generally in the west we categorize by what something is, whereas in the east it's what something is for.
Yes. When I was finally able to articulate what the problem with computing in general is, it was "I like tools better than applications." And everything is an application.
As far as I can see, all that's different about this phone is that it's using "sub-menus in the Start menu" where other stuff is using "icons on the desktop". PDAs already had this, I think.
Slightly off topic, Ubuntu and Redhat are building their own display servers, Mir and Wayland. Why they can't simply use SurfaceFlinger? It should be simpler to add X Server emulation to SurfaceFlinger than to create whole display server from scratch.
I was very impressed with Windows Phone's integration of Facebook, Twitter etc. I could see in one native-styled list all the updates and replies from all my connections on both networks. I could reply and post right there. I didn't have to launch the Facebook app and then the Twitter app and then the LinkedIn app etc. That basic functionality was much more painful on Android. Hopefully these Ubuntu scopes can capture some of that.
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|11 years ago|reply
Because unlike a year and a half ago when they tried the Edge, hardware is (almost) ready for it.
The next generation of monitors, PC's, phones and tablets will all have USB 3.1 Type C ports. These are true docking ports, able to supply 100W of power, and transmit DisplayPort, PCIExpress and USB simultaneously.
You'll only have a single cable connected between your laptop and your monitor, with power, keyboard, mouse, network, printer, et cetera plugged into the monitor.
We've been able to do that before, but it's always been expensive and/or proprietary.
But what's really new is that this same cable will also be able to plug into your phone, letting you replace the laptop with a phone.
[+] [-] thirdtruck|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pxtl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Grazester|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noahl|11 years ago|reply
See https://plus.google.com/108554416426692294217/posts/cokrihiE... for desktop-style window management in Unity 8 (Unity 8 is the Ubuntu Phone shell).
[+] [-] spyder|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reddotX|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] spiralpolitik|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidarh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Roboprog|11 years ago|reply
My recent experience with the Android 5 "upgrade" on my Nexus tablet, which broke things I was using, really drove home to me that I really just want a Linux, like Raspbian or something, that runs on a phone or small tablet. Entertainment apps are nice and all, but I really want a general purpose computer, which happens to have a keyboard emulation on screen when not docked via USB or Bluetooth with keyboards, monitors and such.
... aside: the Android 5 Lollipop experience really made me appreciate RMS's stance on proprietary software. My command line tool app? gone. My Quickoffice notes? gone. Easy access to frequent peripheral settings? not gone, but buried deeper in the menus. More advertising noise ("notices") on the home screen. Scroogled!
I want an open mobile device, even if I realize not everybody wants the power and responsibility to maintain and/or break their own device.
[+] [-] zanny|11 years ago|reply
It is certainly not the kind of tech one wants or needs to drive a converged device.
Hopefully Canonical gets less stupid in the coming months and finds a higher end hardware partner to ship that converged experience, because early adopters have been able to do it on their Nexus phones running Ubuntu Touch for over a year.
[+] [-] cwyers|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] breckinloggins|11 years ago|reply
I feel as though the entire market is screaming for something obvious to exist. It's so obvious, so compelling, so useful...
And so far away.
Why do we even have "desktops" and "laptops" and "phones" and "tablets" and "wearable watches" and so forth? Actually, the rise of the wearable watch gives us the biggest clue: it's because we care about form factors.
When I'm on the subway, I want something to hold in my hand. When I'm in a big hurry or on a jog, I want to glance at something on my wrist. When I'm in bed but don't want to disturb my partner, I want to interact with a larger yet personal tablet. When I want to type something (including code) or interact with content in more involved ways, I want something with a mouse and a keyboard. When I want to have a state of the art immersion experience, I want something with a lot of horsepower (and preferably a head mounted display of some sort).
Why do I have to have different computers for all of this when all I want is different I/O modalities (and related computing expansion devices)? Why do we keep ignoring the fact that what we want is the ability to experience our virtual world in the input / output environment that suits us at this moment? Everything else is secondary.
I was so excited when the original Ubuntu Edge was announced, because I felt that FINALLY someone had figured out how to make the thing we've all been screaming for. But now I'm not so sure Canonical really "got it" after all. If they did, it would have been the first feature they kept, not the first one they cut. To even call it a "feature" is diminutive. It's a paradigm that wants to exist.
We've seen already with the Motorola Atrix that it's harder than it sounds to get this right. But why is it THIS hard? Why can't we start with a phone that can be the CPU for wearables and tablets, and that can dock into a higher horsepower "GPU station" with a mouse and a keyboard and a monitor when we need it? You don't have to nail the performance profile as much as you have to nail why the experience is obviously better. I argue that you don't need a supercomputer in your pocket to pull that off.
Is it just me on this, or what?
[+] [-] michaelbuckbee|11 years ago|reply
People definitely want to be able to use different form factors in different places. One way to do that would be to carry around a central GPU+Memory store. Another would be different devices interconnected through a network - and the world that's being made is the latter.
Right now I can leave off in the middle of an ebook on my tablet and pick up at the same spot on my phone (Kindle). Same with videos from my TV to my phone/tablet/computer (Plex).
It gets a little trickier with development environments, but if I was sufficiently motivated I could do everything in a VPS that I accessed remotely, or use Nitrous.io to get a web accessible IDE (though I'm not sure about using a watch for programming).
I think this is mostly prompted by the fact that on the hardware side - everything is very custom and tailored to that form factor (to keep size and weight down, we've got all these systems on a chip and custom shaped batteries).
[+] [-] krick|11 years ago|reply
So, well, what I need is not complicated (pretty much the opposite), but it requires "doing things right" and this is always incredibly hard. Essentially, to make proper DM it would require to hire someone, who already has written a couple of DMs which were used widely enough for mistakes made while inventing its API to become obvious. Unlikely that somebody, who isn't spying on his users would want to invest in something that big. And, furthermore, obviously there is much more people, who need Angry Birds, than people, who need transparent process interoperation.
[+] [-] cwyers|11 years ago|reply
Because a full-on SoC costs somewhere between $20 and $30? It costs almost nothing to add a full computer to any tablet/laptop form factor phone dock.
[+] [-] slgeorge|11 years ago|reply
The Ubuntu Edge campaign was aimed at trying to accelerate hardware innovation for those that wanted convergence faster. We didn't make it - but it will still happen.
Separate to convergence, the "next billion" devices are mobile in some form. Ubuntu's goal is to be the free software platform available to everyone [0]. That's why we're creating a first-class phone experience. And there's still lots of room for innovation in what phones can do and how they can be central to people's lives.
So the point of today is shipping the first Ubuntu phones to users. I'm really looking forward to how people use, enjoy and develop with them.
[0] http://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu
[+] [-] harel|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scorponok|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|11 years ago|reply
Batteries. Running a full Ubuntu OS on a smartphone battery would result in the battery draining quickly. So instead you'd need some sort of dual boot phone OS and desktop OS system that shares data... it's far from simple.
[+] [-] asdrty|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] killface|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|11 years ago|reply
AFAICT, because hardware makers determine the operating-system market rather than the other way around. I dreamed of a more modernized, Plan 9-like OS to ~~tie all devices together~~ RULE THEM ALL back in freshman year of college. It's simply the obvious thing to do if you're a user and enough of an OS geek to understand the idea.
But, well, we softies don't drive those markets. We could never get the effort together to produce an operating system that would both support (via hardware drivers) and be supported by (in the sense of not having to crack open your phone with a screwdriver to install the thing) all the necessary hardware platforms.
[+] [-] dharma1|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emehrkay|11 years ago|reply
This is what I found most interesting about the device. I loved the idea of how the OS transformed when other things were attached to the phone. There were questions about background tasks and apps running, but your phone turning into your computer via a dock did make sense and seemed like the future.
[+] [-] olla|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] weavie|11 years ago|reply
It seems it was not to be, and the Ubuntu phone is going to be another device that can only run programs created specifically for it and running in some sandboxed environment.
[+] [-] vinceguidry|11 years ago|reply
The music player is 95% of what my phone is doing for me, yet the Nexus treats it as a second-rate concern.
I want Linux on everything, even (especially!) my toaster.
[+] [-] untog|11 years ago|reply
When it first came out, Windows Phone had one of the most interesting UIs out there. It combined all of your social networks into one single messaging hub, had a novel concept in tiles and the sliding panes (or whatever they were called). Unfortunately, every app maker wanted to more or less port what they were already doing on Android/iOS to Windows Phone, so few ever used the functionality MS provided. As of Windows Phone 10, it all seems to be gone.
[+] [-] Zigurd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drapper|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kolanos|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maratc|11 years ago|reply
Who is this "Ubuntu fan base"?
I connect to ten Ubuntu machines a day, and my parents use Ubuntu laptops. I don't consider myself a "fan", and my parents don't know what their OS is called. Where are these "Ubuntu faithful" the article talks about?
[+] [-] arca_vorago|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slgeorge|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fidotron|11 years ago|reply
One very curious thing about the scope idea is it will need tweaking for different cultures around the world. Gross oversimplification, but generally in the west we categorize by what something is, whereas in the east it's what something is for.
[+] [-] CmonDev|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smorrow|11 years ago|reply
As far as I can see, all that's different about this phone is that it's using "sub-menus in the Start menu" where other stuff is using "icons on the desktop". PDAs already had this, I think.
[+] [-] pastalex|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgregd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] higherpurpose|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bayesianhorse|11 years ago|reply
My guess: Better support for Python. Probably also some kind of Docker support. Nothing to sneeze at.
[+] [-] sp332|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] numbsafari|11 years ago|reply
Hopefully there's a shortcut.
EDIT:
Ahh... looks like there's a slide out shelf of quick-access "apps" from the left side.
[+] [-] drapper|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unimportant|11 years ago|reply
I see another failure in the making...
[+] [-] sdrizo|11 years ago|reply