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back to article Ubuntu phone on sale to world+dog ... but will it work on your network?

Customers worldwide are now able to buy smartphones running the mobile version of Ubuntu Linux, even though many won't be able to get full value out of them. In a Tuesday blog post, Ubuntu maker Canonical said that BQ, its Spanish hardware partner, has opened a new online store where customers around the world can order the …

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  1. PushF12
    Unhappy

    Ubuntu Phone is already dead in North America

    No-contract carriers in North America often use the AWS radio bands, which means that Ubuntu Phone is incompatible with networks that are used by people in North America that can take a risk on a new product.

    Everybody else is in a 2-year hardware subsidy contract, where costs effectively increase by 20% while using a non-carrier phone.

    1 1 Reply
  2. Youngone Silver badge

    I'm guessing the limiting factor for most people will be apps, or the lack thereof.

    I might be wrong though, because I have met happy Windows Phone users, and there are not many apps available for those.

    Still more competition is good, and even if these devices fail lessons will be learnt for next time.

    1 0 Reply
    1. glussier
      Reply Icon

      There are over 400,000 apps on windows phones, this is much better than the half-dozen available for Ubuntu.

      2 2 Reply
      1. Teiwaz
        Reply Icon

        400,000 apps?

        > "There are over 400,000 apps on windows phones, this is much better than the half-dozen available for Ubuntu."

        I was surprised, from what I could find out, that figure, at least if you are prepared to believe the horse that he's fit to race rather than be sent to the glue factory.

        That sounds way too many. Quantity is not a good indicator of quality, and with that quantity I would guess it would be much harder to find quality, wheat and chaff and all that.

        (I almost wish nintendo would get into the phone business for this reason.)

        Half-dozen is unfortunately not particularly accurate, especially if you take the ubuntu promoted scopes into account.

        1 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Is Ubuntu Phone really just Ubuntu compiled for ARM? In which case an "apt-get install" will get you pretty much any package you can think of.

        Or is it a completely different product, as Windows Phone is to WIndows?

        1 0 Reply
        1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
          Reply Icon

          AC: I'm confused, too. How can this be Ubuntu on a phone and yet "In May, the development team said there were "no plans" to release new devices based on Ubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf," the upcoming version that's expected to ship in October.".

          If you can't upgrade to Willy, er, Wily then it is just another walled-garden built on a FOSS kernel but deliberately closed off to prevent paying customers from actually deciding how the device is used. We already have a couple of those and if you prefer something more exclusive then Microsoft have a third strait jacket with hardly any other users, so you could use that.

          1 0 Reply
      3. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        "There are over 400,000 apps on windows phones,"

        That must be over 1000 apps for each user - cool !

        1 1 Reply
    2. MrWibble
      Reply Icon

      Ubuntu / Canonical tells us that we don't need apps, as they have scopes.

      I'm not sure I believe them.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        I don't think it is a matter of belief -- more a question of definitions. Canonical's own description of scopes (http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/features) makes it perfectly clear that they are a way of shovelling content in the direction of the consumer. If your notion of "app" has withered so far over the last couple of decades that you cannot conceive of a computer used being anything more than a dribbling lard-bucket squinting at a poxy screen and thinking they are cool, then scopes do indeed replace apps.

        1 0 Reply
    3. Richard Plinston
      Reply Icon

      > I'm guessing the limiting factor for most people will be apps, or the lack thereof.

      My Nokia N800 with Maemo (Linux) runs real applications and not just 'apps'. For example Gnumeric and Abiword. I wrote applications for it in Python and Glade that ran unchanged on Linux desktops and Windows. The N850 would run OpenOffice.org. I would look forward to a replacement that would also run applications like this. I hoped that Ubuntu Phone would be that.

      2 0 Reply
  3. Teiwaz

    It's still not ready for mainstream

    These BQ phones are still really only being aimed at the eager and developers.

    Plenty of happy people who up to now have been eagerly awaiting the ubuntu phone to be available in the US market, at least on Ubuntu topic forums like omg

    > "Previously, BQ had only sold the devices in Europe, and then only in time-limited "flash sales" designed to hype the product."

    The Flash sales were held during February of this year. The Phones have been available to order outside Flash sales a month or so after this (can't find a link to exactly when)

    0 0 Reply
  4. msknight

    Americans ... don't be concerned... just step away from the phone...

    Four numbers land on my hip. One of them is a Jolla running Sailfish and another is Ubuntu on a 4.5 (which actually has dual SIM and that's about the only good thing I can say about it; it's running one UK and one German SIM quite happily)

    I'd take Sailfish over Ubuntu any day. While swipe is a new thing, I'm having a far easier time with Sailfish than I am Ubuntu. A lot of the stuff is still web based, and the sodding thing won't connect to my high security Wi-Fi ( http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2288904 )

    The Ubuntu support forum for phone and tablet is creakily quiet. I had this some months ago, and didn't like it then ... and since I updated it a few weeks ago, I don't like it now either. From where I'm sitting, this phone OS is going nowhere.

    2 0 Reply
    1. Ken 16 Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      Re: Americans ... don't be concerned... just step away from the phone...

      I'd take Sailfish over Ubuntu too, and Blackberry BB10 over either but, as sales have proved, we're a minority.

      1 0 Reply
    2. John Hughes
      Reply Icon

      Re: Americans ... don't be concerned... just step away from the phone...

      And the Jolla does 4G as well.

      0 1 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why BQ?

    I live in Spain and have owned a BQ phone in the past, as have several people I know. They're cheap, but low-specced and made from bargain-bin parts. BQ is basically a rebrander of low-end tat that it buys in bulk from the Chinese manufacturer Malata; a couple of years ago it was under fire because people found out that its latest so-called 'Made in Spain' smartphone could be bought from Amazon for nearly half the price - the only difference being that the badge said Malata, not BQ. So I'm surprised Ubuntu chose to launch its mobile OS on such piss-poor hardware - unless the idea is to shift any negative feedback regarding performance or functionality onto the phone itself, thereby keeping Ubuntu's image untarnished?

    0 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    :( :( :( sad face :( :( :(

    0 0 Reply

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