Canonical has announced that the touch developer preview of Ubuntu for smartphones will be released for developers on 21 February 2013. The version will support Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone and Nexus 4. Ubuntu is a popular, Linux-based open-source software.
Canonical be publishing images and open source code for the Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu and these are to ensure that app developers can to familiarise themselves with Ubuntu’s smartphone experience and develop applications on spare handsets.
Canonical will also be present at the Mobile World Congress, which is due to be held in Barcelona (25-28 February) and will show Ubuntu on a range of devices.
Image from Ubuntu’s website.
The install process and supported device list are maintained at this link and once new devices are supported, they will be added to this list.
Earlier the CEO of Canonical Ltd, Mark Shuttleworth had confirmed that smartphones with Ubuntu would be hitting markets this October.
Ubuntu smartphones can be connected to bigger screens and wirelessly connected to keyboards etc. Ubuntu also hopes to give users access to Windows apps and devices via their Ubuntu smartphone.
According to the Ubuntu website, the entry level smartphone will have a 1GHz Cortex A9 processor, between 512MB to 1GB RAM and around 4-8 GB storage space plus microSD card.
The High-end Ubuntu superphone will come with a quad-core A9 or an Intel Atom processor. The device will have minimum 1GB RAM, minumum 32 GB space and SD support. This is will also allow syncing with Desktop unlike the entry level smartphone.
An app store is still in the works. For now, web apps written in HTML 5 for all other platforms should run on the Ubuntu OS. The phones will be touchscreen based.
