Canonical Announces New Ubuntu Mobile OS for Tablets
Ubuntu today introduced a brand new mobile interface aimed at tablets.
At CES 2013, we got our first look at Ubuntu's smartphone OS. However, it seems the company isn't going to draw the line at phones. Today, Canonical introduced its Ubuntu Tablet OS.
Tailored for a range of screen sizes, the Ubuntu tablet OS allows for multiple password protected user accounts. This means you can share one tablet amount multiple family members. It also has a guest mode that allows anyone to borrow the tablet or pick it up for quick use. Similar to the phone operating system, favorite applications appear on a dock-like bar on the left edge. The home page displays commonly used apps, frequently contacted people, and recently played music.
We're waiting to go hands on with the Ubuntu tablet OS on an HTC tablet, so keep an eye out of that in the afternoon. We were extremely impressed with the polish of the phone OS when we tried it out at CES. It manages to do something different from both iOS and Android, and while those systems are tried and true, there's still plenty of room for innovation.
Check the video below for an overview of the tablet OS.
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freggo It is always nice to have options; especially open source ones.Reply
Keeps the big boys on their feet.
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myromance123 Looks cool, and the feature to dock it and get the standard Ubuntu desktop experience is what I'm really interested in. Hopefully, this will mean greater optimizations to Compiz and Ubuntu as a whole.Reply -
victorintelr Looks very interesting. Now we'll see how are they going to convince people to switch from one ecosystem to another. The unified experience includes phone, tablet & tv and the only business that I've seen convincing people to switch almost everything has been Apple with their costumers (some call them isheeps). Now, based on the video it seems that the tablet has enough power which doesn't have to be that much anyways for most people nowadays.Reply -
loudenvier It really seems more of a unified interface than Windows Phone!!! This amazed me! Microsoft is researching this lead for years... I didn't got my hands on a Surface Pro, but I believe Ubunto Tablets will be like the Surface Pro but at half the price!!!Reply -
Niva What are they running this on? Looks like a nexus 7?Reply
I use Ubuntu at home for my living room pc for music mostly. They seem to be serious in terms of covering the tablet and smartphone market. Ubuntu phones should be coming by end of the year.
And no, Ubuntu tablets won't cost half of surface pro for the same hardware. Anyone hoping for that will be very disappointed. That being said Ubuntu should run fine on arm architecture so getting it as an option on a Surface RT tablet sounds interesting. -
loudenvier NivaAnd no, Ubuntu tablets won't cost half of surface pro for the same hardware. Anyone hoping for that will be very disappointed. That being said Ubuntu should run fine on arm architecture so getting it as an option on a Surface RT tablet sounds interesting.Reply
I was refering to the multitude of processors Ubuntu runs on... Windows 8 doesn't run on arm, only the stripped down version on RT. That's why it should cost half as much of a pro and still offer desktop applications at reasonable (not as fast) speeds. -
digitalvampire I'm an older Linux developer and Free Software enthusiast, so, obviously, I'm not a fan of Ubuntu. However, I would like to see another player in the Mobile OS field. As long as they can get some partners and not keep it as locked down as the dominant mobile Linux OS (Android), then I'm sure they'll be fine.Reply