Canonical Made An OFFICIAL Ubuntu Linux Phone

If you've been using Linux since the unity days you may know the name Ubuntu Edge phone, but I have a feeling a lot of people have completely forgotten about it. The official Ubuntu phone that Canonical tried to make.

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#Ubuntu #LinuxPhone #UbuntuTouch #Android #ios #Apple

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[Gooberpatrol]

So sad this failed. Now I'm stuck eternally trying to get my pinephone to work

[Its-Just-Zip]

I actually know a company who dropped the $7, 000 for that enterprise bundle. They were all on board with the convergence idea and possibly getting rid of the quite chunky laptops they were sending out with specifically their IT staff on remote calls.

It didn't hurt for them that they were already a canonical customer for a lot of their servers and IT machines.

[gobleno]

Around that time I had a Lumia 920, also with the idea to back a third platform. It is sad both projects failed, and we now only have two ecosystems that both have a strong grip over what you can do on your phone by default.

[ionparticle]

I backed the project. At the time, the RAM and storage spec were ambitious, but seems completely feasible. I don't think they were too far off. They were projecting a 2014 release, and in 2014 we see the iPhone 6 with 128 GB variants and many Android phones with 3GB of RAM.

[saturn]

as soon as i heard "Ubuntu edge" i just had microsoft edge flashbacks

[Davestar]

I feel like if they want "Linux on Phones" to really take off, they need to find a way to make it easily installable on existing Android hardware arbitrarily.

[breadmoth]

i wouldn't mind a linux phone still, preferable with some kind of android compatibility layer to run android apps

[eriklundstedt]

this makes me think that if valve released a "steamdeck-phone" (based on the same hardware, running a similar os) it could actually revolutionize the phone industry the way that the edge wanted to


Imagine a slightly smaller Steamdeck without the gamepad, and with the needed "phone" hardware

running arch/SteamOS in portrait mode with some custom "apps" to call/text and with the ability to dock into deck/Big-Picture mode

[CotyTernes]

I was one of the Indiegogo backers of the Ubuntu Edge phone. It took more than an entire paycheck for me at the time. I was super excited for it. Then I was when instead of adjusting goals with a lower amount of money they canceled it. At the time I was mainly a Windurp user who toyed a bit with Linux. The Ubuntu Edge would have gotten me to switch fully to Linux years earlier than I actually did. I loved the Nexus 4 I had around that time (still one of the best phones in history IMO), but the Edge could have lasted me so much longer.
IMO they should have relaunched the campaign with a lower goal and adjusted expectations and stretch goals. They could have started a path of long lived phones, releasing a new version every 3-5 years with support of 5-8 years or paid extended support after 5 years.
Also I was at that Blizcon where that clip was from. Can confirm the massive amount of crowd cringe that was expressed. The room it was in was huge with over 1K people in it for sure. If the crowd wasn’t in such a good mood prior to that moment I think things could have gotten ugly.

[RedbeardyMcGee]

I remember the ubuntu `convergence` thing

[piman_]

I've always thought it would be a cool selling point for linux phones if when you plug them into a computer that is off they ask if you want to go into a "live boot mode". basically you boot an image from the phone that then mounts and chroots into your phone while the phone hardware just exposes itself for utilities and turns off or something (eg. cellular modem, WiFi and Bluetooth if/or unavailable or preferred to use the phones). can you imagine going to a coffee shop or a gaming arcade and plugging in your phone to a computer with no drive just a USB C/4 port and gaming off your phones storage (steam deck proves you don't NEED it to be insanely fast). and yes I see many flaws, drop your phone all is gone, can you truly tust the computer as it could have a firmware virus. and a few more but its still cool lol

[Lampe]

3:18 I recently heard of Star Citizen as basically an "indie AAA game" and promptly got the first-ever Star Citizen YT ad. And now you're talking about it too…

[dragonridertechnologies]

The sad part of this is that I'd have happily bought one, but didn't know about it at the time.

[acegear]

would love to swap os from android to linux based but the problem is that lack of support from the manufactureres themselves to open up the phone for 3rd party

[lua-nya]

I wanted an Ubuntu phone. Was intending to wait for used ones, as there was no way i coukd afford iphone levels of monetary costs.

[guss]

I participated in the Ubuntu Edge phone indigogo campaign and later had an Aquarius phone.

Afaik this is still the most successful indigogo campaign ever (in terms of money) and possibly of any kick start campaign.

The reason I was enthusiast about this is the "convergence" stuff - or more precisely the "take the desktop with you" use case. A few years earlier some startup (i don't remember the name) did a CES presentation showing a device that was a block that you can slot into a desktop dock and have a full desktop system, or slot out and take with you home, or put into a "tablet sleeve" and compute on the go - with all the storage and most of the performance of a desktop PC - and i was hooked and convinced that this is the future (i also liked the "global communicator" from Gene Rudenberry's Earth The Final Conflict). I looked at the Edge as the next best thing

[SamuTheFrog]

Never been this early to a Brodie video.
Feels cool

[sylvershadow]

I miss the day when Canonical actively developed Unity. Still holds a place in my heart.
Here's to hoping Lomiri/Unity8 ends up replacing Unity 7 on Ubuntu Unity soon

[InfinityN]

Do I remember it.. I was one of the backers. It's one of the main reasons I despise Canonical to this day (and them abandoning Unity).

[elalemanpaisa]

2013? There was much lower interest in Linux. I guess today they would crush it especially after such a success of the steam deck.