Canonical | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Thu, 06 Apr 2017 19:34:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.11 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Canonical | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Canonical drops Ubuntu phones, tablets. The future is in the Cloud https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/paul-taylor/canonical-drops-ubuntu-phones-tablets-the-future-is-in-the-cloud/ https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/paul-taylor/canonical-drops-ubuntu-phones-tablets-the-future-is-in-the-cloud/#comments Thu, 06 Apr 2017 19:34:26 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=329149 Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, introspectively announced on the Ubuntu insights blog that his company is facing a change of direction, despite highlighting how great a quarter the company has just had. Six years after adopting Ubuntu Unity (not to be confused with the open-source graphics engine), the project that proposed a single graphical shell …

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Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, introspectively announced on the Ubuntu insights blog that his company is facing a change of direction, despite highlighting how great a quarter the company has just had.

Six years after adopting Ubuntu Unity (not to be confused with the open-source graphics engine), the project that proposed a single graphical shell for all Ubuntu platforms – from smartphone to server – has come to an end. The company has announced it will be turning back the clock and reverting to GNOME starting April 2018 (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS). As of right now Unity (8) investment has stopped, with the company now refocusing on IoT, Desktop, Server and Cloud environments, more suited to Ubuntu’s user ecosystem and growth plan.

Where “phone & convergence” were the order of the day, Canonical will now refocus on IoT and Cloud. This could already be clearly felt at Mobile World Congress this year.

Apart from a sigh of relief by many GNOME fans and developers, Shuttleworth, in a very personal and quasi-apologetic tone for a CEO, underlined that the change in path is dictated by market forces and that he held Unity as a very personal project.

“This has been, personally, a very difficult decision, because of the force of my conviction in the convergence future, and my personal engagement with the people and the product, both of which are amazing. We feel like a family, but this choice is shaped by commercial constraints, and those two are hard to reconcile.”

KitGuru Says: Unity, despite its lengthy development, did not achieve the “convergence” it claimed – much like Microsoft’s Continuum has not taken off. Confronted with the reality of things, Ubuntu faced an uphill battle against iOS and Android in the smartphone/tablet arena, and with hints that Microsoft would soon be joining the fray with Windows on ARM, then the market was just too crowded. 

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Aquaris E4.5 will be the first Ubuntu phone to market https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/brendan-morgan/aquaris-e4-5-will-be-the-first-ubuntu-phone-to-market/ https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/brendan-morgan/aquaris-e4-5-will-be-the-first-ubuntu-phone-to-market/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2015 19:48:52 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=234510 Spanish mobile phone manufacturer BQ will soon be selling the first Ubuntu smartphone on the market, the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition. Almost the same as the regular Aquaris E4.5 that runs Android, the Ubuntu version of the phone will cost €170 (about $190), but in a strange move, at first it will only be available to buy in several flash …

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Spanish mobile phone manufacturer BQ will soon be selling the first Ubuntu smartphone on the market, the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition. Almost the same as the regular Aquaris E4.5 that runs Android, the Ubuntu version of the phone will cost €170 (about $190), but in a strange move, at first it will only be available to buy in several flash sales over the next few weeks that will be announced on Twitter and Facebook by Canonical.

It is hardly a flagship phone, but the BQ device is packing a MediaTek Quad Core Cortex A7 processor running at up to 1.3 GHz, 1GB RAM, 8GB of on-board NAND storage, dual SIM support and a qHD 540×960 screen. This makes it decidedly average in a world full of similarly specd Android phones and because of this the operating system inside will really have to shine to make this worth a try.
Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition
Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu and the Ubuntu mobile OS have released a short video, giving an overview of how the OS works and you can see this below. One of the main features of the mobile OS are “Scopes”, which essentially seem to be customisable, categorized home pages, rather than just having rows and rows of apps à la iOS. Unfortunately there is no sign of one of the originally announced features, that let you connect your phone to your monitor and run desktop Ubuntu.[yframe url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TShKZLeZzWE']

Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical said “The launch of the first Ubuntu smartphones is a significant milestone.  The new experience we deliver for users, as well as the opportunities for differentiation for manufacturers and operators, are a compelling and much-needed change from what is available today.” But is a reasonably priced mid range phone with a totally new operating system really the “compelling and much-needed change” we need?

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: I cannot imagine this phone having much impact on the market at all and I'm pretty sure it will fall quite far from a “compelling and much-needed change” when I think most people are pretty happy with their mobile OS of choice these days. I imagine this will probably be in the same boat as Firefox OS.

Source: Ubuntu
Via: ArsTechnica

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Canonical CEO: Apple ‘snapped up’ all the sapphire screens! https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/apple/anton-shilov/canonical-ceo-apple-snapped-up-all-the-sapphire-screens/ https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/apple/anton-shilov/canonical-ceo-apple-snapped-up-all-the-sapphire-screens/#comments Thu, 20 Feb 2014 23:55:17 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=178331 Chief executive officer of Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu operating system, confirmed at a meeting that Apple had acquired boat load of sapphire glass made by GT Advanced. He complained that last year Canonical intended to use sapphire glass for one of the first premium Ubuntu-based smartphones called Edge, but now it is impossible. “Apple …

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Chief executive officer of Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu operating system, confirmed at a meeting that Apple had acquired boat load of sapphire glass made by GT Advanced. He complained that last year Canonical intended to use sapphire glass for one of the first premium Ubuntu-based smartphones called Edge, but now it is impossible.

“Apple just snapped up three years’ worth of the supply of sapphire screens from the company that we had engaged to make the screens for the Edge,” said Mark Shuttleworth, chief executive of Canonical, during a conference call, reports Cnet News.

In general, Mr. Shuttleworth confirmed Apple’s plans to widely use the sapphire crystal glass produced by GT Advanced later this year.

Earlier this month it was reported that GT advanced Technologies, a Mesa, Arizona-based company producing advanced materials and innovative crystal growth equipment for electronics, solar and LED industries, has either ordered or acquired a significant amount of equipment used to manufacture sapphire-crystal glass. The tools that are already installed and which will be installed later this year are expected to be capable of producing s many as 187 million to 210 million 5” display covers a year.

apple_iphone_5_1

It was also reported that Apple last year signed a deal with GT Advanced under which the latter will be unable to produce sapphire crystal glass for other makers of consumer electronics (CE). As a result, Apple will get an exclusive advantage over other makers of smartphones, provided that it uses the sapphire covers for its iPhone devices. As a consequence, Canonical will be unable to use the crystal glass for the Edge smartphone.

At present Apple uses artificial sapphire-crystal glass for its touch ID fingerprint scanners and iSight cameras on its iPhone smartphones. The sapphire-crystal class has been used for decades for various consumer and industrial devices, including watches, luxurious mobile phones and multiple other types of products. Sapphire glass is considerably more rugged than traditional glass and is even tougher than Corning’s Gorilla Glass substrates. Regrettably, up to recently sapphire glass was much more expensive. According to analyst Matt Margolis, GT Advanced has managed to reduce the cost of their sapphire cover screens from $13 – $18 each to around $3 – $5 per screen (Gorilla Glass costs around $3).

KitGuru Says: We can now be completely confident that Apple will use the sapphire glass in large quantities. The only thing that remains to be unconfirmed is whether the glass will be used for the iPhone or something else.

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Bq and Meizu to release smartphones based on Ubuntu https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/anton-shilov/bq-and-meizu-to-release-smartphones-based-on-ubuntu/ https://www.kitguru.net/lifestyle/mobile/anton-shilov/bq-and-meizu-to-release-smartphones-based-on-ubuntu/#comments Thu, 20 Feb 2014 21:28:03 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=178250 Canonical, the developer of Ubuntu Linux operating system and mobile platform, has announced that Bq and Meizu, handset vendors from Spain and China, will use Ubuntu for their upcoming smartphones. The devices will be available later this year and at present not a lot of information is known about them. The main idea behind Canonical’s …

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Canonical, the developer of Ubuntu Linux operating system and mobile platform, has announced that Bq and Meizu, handset vendors from Spain and China, will use Ubuntu for their upcoming smartphones. The devices will be available later this year and at present not a lot of information is known about them.

The main idea behind Canonical’s Ubuntu platform is to provide unified experience across the whole continuum of devices: from TVs to PCs, to tablets, to smartphones. The icon-based graphics user interface looks consistent on all types of computing devices, but can be customized by manufacturers and operators to better suite the needs of their customers. According to Ubuntu, a common UI toolkit gives devices their own unique footprint and without fragmenting the platform.

canonical_ubuntu_devices

Canonical first introduced its Ubuntu Touch version of its OS for mobile devices early in 2013. According to Wikipedia, the GUI of the operating system is very similar to Apple iOS and Google Android, but has a number of differences: from the Welcome screen, the user could swipe to any of the four directions: up for notifications, left for the app menu, swipe from the right to launch the previous app, and swipe from the bottom to display the operations menu. According to reports, Ubuntu for tablets worked “fine” on the first-gen Google Nexus 7 (Nvidia Tegra 3 with four ARM Cortex-A9) and Google Nexus 10 (Samsung Exynos 5250 with two ARM Cortex-A15). The Ubuntu operating system for smartphones can be downloaded from the company’s web-site.

canonical_ubuntu_smartphones_1

Nothing particular is known about smartphones from Bq and Meizu, which will be available globally from online stores. The only thing that Canonical has revealed so far is that development programmes had begun with the partners to provide smartphones “with a superior user experience on mid to high end hardware for consumers around the world”.
“Ubuntu’s intuitive and visually stunning user interface aligns with our own ethos of producing simple, innovative mobile experiences,” said Li Nan, Meizu’s vice president of sales and marketing. “This partnership gives us an opportunity to develop a truly different and compelling offering that will support our strategy to deliver devices to both China as well as internationally.”

Carriers and industry players that Canonical has engaged with have also shown their support for Ubuntu and an alternative operating system for the mobile market. To date, Ubuntu’s carrier advisory group has 16 members including Vodafone, EE, T-Mobile USA, Three Group, Deutsche Telekom, Verizon, Telstra and Portugal Telecom. Canonical is also working with a breadth of ISV partners, including The Weather Channel, GrooveShark, Evernote and more, to bring applications and services to Ubuntu.

KitGuru Says: While the support for Ubuntu mobile OS seems to be growing, it should be noted that many big companies support virtually all market players who have any chance to become popular even on niche markets. Actual plans of hardware makers show different picture: Ubuntu will only be used by Bq and Meizu, which barely have any significant market share. None of the network carriers have adopted Ubuntu for custom smartphones which could be made by contract manufacturers. Moreover, there are no TVs or tablets based on Ubuntu, whereas laptops featuring the OS are rare. Without a family of devices on the market, Ubuntu OS just becomes considerably less competitive compared to Apple iOS/Mac OS X, Google Android/ChromeOS and Microsoft Windows.

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