Hello Linux Geeksters. A while ago, Caninical’s Mark Shuttleworth has announced that they have found a hardware partner for Ubuntu Touch, in order to release official Ubuntu high-end smartphones. But for now, the manufacturer’s name remains hidden.
Canonical is in advanced discussions with at least 4 more smartphone manufacturers, but there is no official information yet.
For now, Ubuntu Touch is a nice mobile operating system, but it lacks at providing some basic mobile phone function, like: call waiting, multi-recipient SMS messaging, in-call volume adjustments, emergency calling support, call duration reporting, MMS support or import/export contacts options.
Mark Shuttleworth’s big dream is to create a full convergence between the mobile and the desktop versions of Ubuntu. Ubuntu 14.10, which will be released with Mir and Unity 8 by default may be the first Ubuntu version that may reach the long desired convergence.
Most probably, the Ubuntu phone will be released after April 2014, when Ubuntu Touch 1.5 (based on Ubuntu 14.04) will be released.
For those who don’t know yet, Ubuntu Touch is officially supported only on the Google Nexus smartphones and tablets, despite the fact that it has been experimenally ported on OPPO Find 5, Pantech Vega Iron, Xperia Tablet Z and many other phones/tablets. The first stable version of Ubuntu Touch, based on Ubuntu 13.10, has been officially optimized to work on LG Nexus 4, but it is not mature enough to compete with Android yet. After the latest Mir updates, Ubuntu Touch can be successfully installed on all the existing Google Nexus devices: LG Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10, except Nexus 5.
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