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Ubuntu for Phones: The Good and the Bad

January 22nd, 2013

Khamosh Pathak

Note : This article is the succession of its previous article. In case ,you missed it , click here to read

The Good :

The gestures can be a winner.
People are starting to get bored with the current crop of mobile OS’s. Something different that actually works might be able to catch some of the mainstream success if not not all. Even if Ubuntu is really amazing, it will be a brand new product, which will come with its own set of problems, competing with well acquainted and established platforms like iOS and Android will not be easy.

People want something new, and Ubuntu is offering it to them.
As i said, iOS isn’t necessarily boring, but people are bored of using it. Can you have to same mean for 6 years no matter how good it tastes? yeah, didn’t think so. Ubuntu is giving those people another platform to mess about with.

This can be a cult classic.
Think of Ubuntu for desktop. It has cult fans which are both loyal and awesome developers. I think this can happen for Ubuntu for Phones (UFPs from now on) too. A community of well read developers/users can take this OS a long way. UFPs can be the suitable for the tinkerers. The ones to stalk XDA for a new tweak or mod that will make their phone little faster or give them a more unique experience.

Web app support.
What this means is that if a developer has a web app, they can interact with the phone without having to install a native app. You get all your notifications and an app like experience without a massive app clogging your memory and without having to update apps every week. Fancy that. But there a problem. It is still not clear what will work how and when. That will only be known with we get our hands on with the actual OS. But what we do know is that the functionality will not be as deeply integrated as a native app.

The Bad :

Its new.
It’s so new it’s not even out yet. And when it does, it will have to compete with platform that are already very well established at doing simple tasks like scrolling without any lag, a function in which UFPs under perform drastically if you go by the current demos.

The Lag.
It lags. Like hell. Like it’s the 1990′s. Yes, that bad. But there is hope, Ubuntu will not ship with specifically designed hardware for at least a year. And the early adopters that use it on their Galaxy Nexus will help out a lot in ironing out the bug, Biggest of which is the lag. Don’t believe me? Check out the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXWnMTm7We8

The time.
One year is a long time in tech space. Its even longer in Mobile phone space. This is the platform in which Screen resolutions and CPU performance literally doubles every year. It will be tough to catch up.

App support.
Although you can run UFPs any Android device as long as you are rooted and have a developer community gracious enough to port it to your phone, you can’t use any of Android’s apps. This is a boon and a curse. UFPs does not support java, which is great because that will make the user experience much much faster. But it also means that the developer will have to port their apps to Ubuntu. With 3 main stream platforms and thousands of Android devices i’m not sure if all the major app developers will spend time and energy doing that.