[ubuntu-za] Great to see an article about Ubuntu (on smartphones) in the mainstream online news

[Charl Wentzel]

On 03/01/2013 14:40, Alf Stockton wrote:
> On 03/01/2013 12:52, Chris Schoonbee wrote:
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20891868
>>
>>
>>
> Please tell me what the advantage is of having Ubuntu rather than 
> Android on a smartphone.
>
There are two things to consider:

1. The phone itself
For most it's just another phone operating system, but I think Ubuntu 
offers a number of advantages over the rest, something Windows 8 
understands... one Operating System to rule them all! If you have the 
same operating system on your phone, PC and TV, you can run the same 
apps everywhere. You don't have to rely on apps built specifically for a 
phone environment. For the user this might not seem like a big issue, 
but for developers this makes a big difference. It's easy develop one 
app that will work on anything, which means there will be more apps 
available to you, which will benefit the user.

I'm not sure if the phone operating system will also support Android 
apps as Ubuntu for Android does, but if does, it means you'll get the 
benefit from multiple ecosystems.

2. Total convergence
I think this is the real point! Having one device that can do 
everything... a super phone. Plug it into your desktop and it becomes 
Ubuntu Desktop edition for everyday work. Plug it into your TV and it 
becomes Ubuntu TV for enjoying multimedia and games, etc. etc. For the 
privileged that already has TV's, PC's, laptops and smart phones, this 
seems stupid, but in a third world country this makes technology more 
accessible! I believe that this will eventually catch on... carrying 
only one device with you that does everything.


The concept is still very new and will take some time to process, but I 
think Canonical is on to something here.

Charl