Canonical made Ubuntu for phones official today, a great progress for Linux enthusiasts all over the world. The platform is actually launching in 2014 and there’s hope that we’ll someday see Ubuntu for tablets turning into a real product. Just like BB 10 OS, Windows 8 and other new products, this platform involves swipe gestures to get around it.
Ubuntu is the most popular Debian Linux distribution and turning it into a special release for tablets was expected, since we’re in the post PC era after all. On the phone each of the 4 corners of the screen can be used for a specific gesture. The same can be applied from the tablet easily. On the handset if you do a short swipe from the left you access your favourite apps, while a long swipe makes you reach all of the apps. A swipe from the right makes you access the latest app you used and you can reach menu controls with a swipe from the bottom.
Hitting the notification area and messages is done like on other OSes, by swiping down from the top. Ubuntu is all HTML5 web apps and in the phone version and probably the tablet too it won’t support running Android apps, since the two platforms are incompatible. Canonical also ofers a different lockscreen, with all the gestures available from the homescreen, without an intermediary screen. Details in the video below and we hope for the best for Ubuntu on mobile.
