[Nottingham] Ubuntu Tablet

[neal at tutamail.com]

Looks good. Since the launch of the Ubuntu phones and learning about Google 
being increasingly privacy unfriendly (remember the binary mic listening blob 
that was exposed and subsequently quickly removed from Chromium  browser?) 
I've been interested in having an alternative to Android. Those articles 
don't actually say that it's "Ubuntu Touch" running on the M10 like the 
smartphones, but I found this:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/here-comes-the-first-ubuntu-linux-tablet

In which Jane Silber, Canonical CEO, says "the Aquaris M10 runs the same code 
at the Ubuntu smartphones and desktop operating system"[sic]

I don't know the details of Touch but I gather it's a stripped-down variant 
of the desktop OS and relies on the Mir display server. So it seems a little 
disingenuous to say that this new tablet runs both.

Last year, when I found out that Canonical were shunning Wayland and 
developing Mir instead I was a bit annoyed that they weren't helping upstream 
Linux. I gather that Mir is key to allowing desktop sharing between Touch 
devices and desktop Ubuntu though, so maybe it made business sense for them, 
rather than being aloof to the Wayland cause.

I've read some praise for scopes and the Touch OS in general and it seems 
like it could be a contender with some more apps (or scopes!) and further 
polishing.

I also remember reading last year that Google had a press conference where 
they announced that by 2017 the Android OS and Chrome OS would be aligned as 
one, so a future Chromebook would run exactly the same software as a phone. 
This makes sense when smartphones are getting more and more powerful.

So, to try and reach some sort of conclusion of the above ramblings: umm, 
yeah, interesting things ahead in mobile computing. I actually want Mir to be 
good now instead of pooh-poohing it originally. The next Ubuntu LTS is out in 
two months and I hope that they do as good a job on it as they did with 14.04 
Trusty, which was/is an excellent beginners OS.

Cheers,

Neal.
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5. Feb 2016 10:27 by jasonirwin73 at gmail.com:


> In case you've missed it, Canonical has released a tablet in partnership
> with BQ.
>
> http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/02/bq-m10-ubuntu-tablet-everything-you-need-to-know
> https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/04/canonical-reinvents-the-personal-mobile-computing-experience
>
> Certainly interesting and if the reviews are good when it starts
> shipping in March, I might consider one (been looking for a decent
> tablet for a while now).
> Or maybe the ~£200 could be thrown at a higher spec tablet?
>
> Convergence though which, as much as I don't get on with Unity,
> Canonical seems to be getting right (as opposed to the rather lame
> offering for MS).
>
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