Ubuntu - One Year Away from Mobile OS - Thoughts?

[G+_Dominick DeVito]

Ubuntu - One Year Away from Mobile OS - Thoughts?

I heard this brought up on TWiT this week.

And at first, like the folks at TWiT, the announcement and timing seemed a bit bizarre.

 

But here is some food for thought:

Maybe Canonical is courting Amazon?

 

What has me considering this possibility:

Right now Kindle Fire is running Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

That may be OK for now, but clearly by next year, if they stick with Android they are going to have to move into Jelly Bean and forward.

 

But there may be a problem.

Anyone who has used Jelly Bean knows that at it's core is Voice Search and Google Now.  Both of which require tight integration with Google Search.

And both features take you to Google Search results.

 

If you have any Jelly Bean device and speak into the mic, sales on shoes, it will take you to Google shopping results.

This would clearly be a problem for Amazon.

 

Amazon prior to the roll out of the Kindle Fire HD made a point of stating to the press that when you search for a product the results take you to the Amazon Store.

And this is apparently the way Amazon wants to keep it.

 

So, unless Amazon were to rip out the Search and other tightly integrated features of Jelly Bean, might Jelly Bean present a road block for Kindle evolution.

 

Knowing the above, might Canonical be publicly pitching their mobile OS idea before CES in the hopes that someone like Amazon will show an interest?

 

Your thoughts?

[G+_Mario Garcia]

They will be too late to the game. I do like the interface. Seems a lot like Meego. They may gain a small foothold in Europe to replace Symbian. No chance stateside, though. I don't think any of the carriers will bother with it. Just my opinion. 

[G+_John Freeman]

I can't see it being a big hit, but I would love it. Maybe if Amazon is backing it, then I could see it making more of a dent. But since their aren't a whole lot of Ubuntu users (market percentage wise), I can't see why the average user would want it.

[G+_Steve Elsass]

Jonathan Rodgers You make a good point. But think about this. With Kindle Fire already being so heavily skinned by Amazon, and considering many buy Kindle just to read their books and watch videos ... Would those users even know or care the underlying bones switched from Android to Ubuntu?

[G+_John Freeman]

No, they wouldn't.  Which is why I think Ubuntu would need to partner with Amazon to make a dent in sales here in the States.

[G+_Dave Bach]

I saw it on TWiT and they (except Kevin Marks) were like "wow, very responsive" which is a big joke because it was slow as molasses sliding from page to page. Now I'm trying to remember if Leo was one of those guys that has been so critical of Android's responsiveness versus iOS which I don't see. I know Chris Pirillo was one of those clowns.

[G+_Zulhaimi Abdul Hamid]

That UI design should be the next Android upgrade. Widgets (even live wallpaper) is getting old. Ubuntu will not be mainstream unless it has a good app store. OS is primed to be acquired by an ambitious manufacturer though.

 

Btw - no one else thought that side bar looked like the one on Samsung Omnia's win mobile 6.5?

[G+_TRENT PALMER]

With all the different ways that you can program on and for a real GNU Linux, Ubuntu on phones will make the existing smartphones look like half-witted step-children who are only capable of simple things.

 

Android is great and everything, but what if you'd rather write apps and scripts in Python or Lisp or Javascript or Ruby or Bash or PHP or etc, and have a phone os composed of packages that are constantly being updated instead of sitting around waiting for carrier approval?

 

This is not a new phone os.  It is a version of the world's most prevalent operating system, GNU Linux, picking up support for phones.  And why shouldn't it?  There are already several distros running on the extremel low power Raspberri Pi.

[G+_Bjorn Behrendt (EdListe]

I don't think it will be a big success but I do think that they will do a better job than Microsoft did in building a single OS/Tablet combination.

 

The issue I foresee is speed.  The estimated hardware cost was $999 (in one article that I read) which is too much (There is no point in making a tablet that costs more than the iPad).

 

What I expect that the Ubuntu tablet and more-so the MS tablet will do is cause another hardware vs OS race that was present in the late 90's early 2K's, where MS would come out with an OS and the hardware manufacturers would then build faster hardware until the next OS.   For the past 5+ years I have been telling people to buy the cheapest desktop laptop hardware they can get.   For tablets I recommend the higher end hardware. 

[G+_Alan Thornton]

Vapor ware a year away? Next.

[G+_John Freeman]

If it has anything going for it, it will be that it has apps out of the box. As I use Ubuntu on my desktop, I would love it on my phone as well, but objectively, I'm not sure why anyone else would want it. Maybe enterprise would be interested, but I doubt it.

[G+_Steve Elsass]

Amazon already has a ready to go app store.

And if you read some of the news articles they did mention Ubuntu mobile ability to search media on Amazon.

 

Not sure if all the above posters read my whole post or just the headline.

But I still see a strong possible case of Canonical courting Amazon.

 

Amazon can't keep Kindle on Ice Cream Sandwich forever.

[G+_John Freeman]

I'm assuming you can also use apps already written for Ubuntu.  Is that correct?