UK-based privately held computer software company, Canonical Ltd, had announced in the month of January that they will be releasing Smartphones with Ubuntu Operating System. Though they had declared that these phones will be releasing only by the end of this year or by early next year, new reports indicate that the device is most likely to launch on this October. Recently, the Wall Street journal has reported the famous Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth saying that device will be available in “two geographically large markets". But he didn’t mention the markets which he was targeting at. Neither did he talk about the date of release, nor did he mention the carrier partner.
According to the reports, the company is likely to launch its flagship smartphone as an entry level one with mere basic features of a smartphone. The device is most likely to be powered by a 1GHz Cortex A9. It might be having a 512-1024MB of RAM, and 4 to 8GB of internal memory storage. There are higher chance for an another high end phone along with this entry level one. The latter is expected to have a quad-core A9 or Intel Atom APU, 1GB or more RAM and pack 32GB of internal storage.
As per the reports, these phones will be having a fully developed desktop level software. This shows that the developers can make same software for both the PC and the Smartphone. This gives a new way of shifting the smartphone to a PC easily by just docking it with a monitor, key board and mouse. Canonical also talked about the possibility of having Windows-based applications streamed to Ubuntu phones from corporate servers. In late February, a desktop version of Ubuntu is likely to be launched for the developers to start with.
The Ubuntu software for smartphones were first showed off at the CES 2013. Though they were using another hardware, the software had gained attraction. They had promised that they will bring their own hardware soon, which they are doing in coming October. The Ubuntu smartphone OS is built for touch screens and has gesture inputs on all edges of the screen. Some features of the OS were showed off at the CES2013. They are mostly about the home screen. All the favourite applications are tucked under the left of the screen, which can be activated with a gentle swipe. The great looking lock screen resembles that of an Android OS phone. The application list which is tucked on the left side gets updated by time automatically. On a swipe from the top to bottom, you will get the Universal Search bar. You can switch between various pages with the normal swipe. On the top of the screen, the notifications panel lets you individually select a setting for each status. The bottom swipe gives you the contextual controls.
One of the major advantages of Ubuntu Smartphones is that it can be easily shifted to Desktop and vice versa. It will be quite useful for you if you are a business man with lot of travels, meetings and presentations. All your works can be saved in your phone. No need to carry a Laptop or Tablet along with you. A single phone can act as a fully functioning Desktop. It is widely believed that Ubuntu will be the show stopper OS for the year and there are thousands who believe that it can dethrone the Androids and iOS.