As you already know, Ubuntu Touch for tablets debuted last week on Nexus tablets and people have been playing with this OS on the Nexus 10 and Nexus 7 for a few days now. Luckily we managed to get some cozy hands on time with the platform at MWC 2013, as shown below.
Just like the video below proves, the OS feels already finished, so it has no lag and no problems whatsoever. Keep in mind that the Ubuntu release for tablets will be finalized in April 2014, or so I’ve heard. The Touch Preview is version 12.10, so it’s an early build, meaning some of the features may be lacking. On tablets Canonical announced minimal requirements that include a Cortex A15 processor, 2 GB of RAM and in spite of that it runs on the Nexus 7, although with sluggish functioning, from what we’ve heard.
Ubuntu looks and feels like its TV and desktop counterpart. The gestures are very nice to use, with swiping being used to get to the recently used apps, settings area or contextual menus. As you can see there’s a lot of scrolling involved and from what I understood, the concept is pretty much the same as the one on Windows Phone, but the scrolling is more vertical here, rather than horizontal. In the video you can also see some multitasking, as an app is snapped on top of a video player.
Looks promising so far!
