Hello Linux Geeksters. As you may know, the Ubuntu developers have worked a lot lately at creating new scopes for Unity 8, which now runs only on Ubuntu Touch. For now, the latest Ubuntu Touch images do not include all the new scopes developed, but they will be added most likely, until the 17th of April, when a new Ubuntu Touch stable image will be released (along with Ubuntu 14.04).
For those who don’t know, the Unity Scopes are a bunch of functions that enable the users to use different online services directly via the interface. Each service has its own scope. (example: Amazon scope, Ebay scope, 8tracks scope, now 500px scope).
Canonical has started work at a scope for 500px, enabling the users to search for 500px photos directly from the Unity Dash, and filter their output. While the 500px Scope is under development, it may be added by default soon.
While all the new scopes are available only for Ubuntu Touch (for now), they will be most likely implemented for the desktop versions of Ubuntu, along with Unity 8 for desktop.
The story so far:
Canonical has been working a lot at Ubuntu Touch, the mobile version of Ubuntu. While the initial plan was to make it available for all the Google Nexus smartphones and tablets, the developers have dropped the support for Galaxy Nexus, Google Nexus 7 2012 and Google Nexus 10, Ubuntu Touch being officially available only for the Google Nexus 4 smartphone and the Google Nexus 7 2013 tablet.
Until now, there aren’t a lot of applications for Ubuntu Touch available, Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth hopes that by the time the first Ubuntu Touch powered phones hit the market, the top 50 Android/iOS apps will be available for Ubuntu Touch.
While Canonical is working its own email client for Ubuntu Touch (based on Trojita), a Telegram client specially optimized for Ubuntu Touch and Unity 8 is on the way, so the Ubuntu Touch app ecosystem is still growing.
Also worth mentioning, Mark’s Shuttleworth big dream is to reach full desktop-mobile convergence somewhere between the releases of Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04 (between October 2014 and April 2015).
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