Ubuntu for Android demoed in Brazil, looks surprisingly good
Back in February, Canonical announced an interesting project they called Ubuntu for Android. It wasn’t the Ubuntu based mobile OS that many had been waiting for, and was instead an interesting twist on the Atrix-like webdock using a full-on desktop operating system. While the product was supposed to allow users to dock their smartphones and then use a full Ubuntu experience on a regular monitor, it wasn’t released or even demoed very thoroughly.
A few early demonstrations have been showing up, but probably the most detailed comes from the Fórum Internacional Software Livre in Brazil. The 6-minute video, which you can see above, demonstrates many of Ubuntu for Android’s core features and phone integration working quite well. Although the audio is actually in Portuguese, it is fairly easy to follow the demonstrations. Using what appears to be an Atrix 2, the demonstrator shows the docking process, which is fairly simple and quickly results in a desktop version of Ubuntu showing up on the monitor. He then proceeds to show various applications, built both for Ubuntu and Android and including things like LibreOffice, text messaging, and camera use, running smoothly on the OS.
When asked in the video’s comments how one would go about getting Ubuntu for Android for themselves, the response was to wait for a preinstalled phone. Various conferences and announcements have suggested that while Ubuntu for Android will be going open source, Canonical will mainly be pushing for it to be preinstalled on smartphones. Unfortunately, this means users probably won’t be able to get their hands on it anytime soon, but once the source is released developers may be able to port the software to existing phones. If you haven’t heard much about Ubuntu for Android, you can read more at Canonical’s official page or watch the demo to see it in action. I don’t know about anyone else, but after seeing this demo I’m pretty excited about Ubuntu for Android.
[OMGUbuntu]
