Watch the full Ubuntu phone keynote

posted by Michael H. / Jan 03, 2013, 9:50 PM

We tried our best to cover the announcement of Ubuntu for phones that came yesterday, but there are some things that are better seen than explained. With that in mind, we're bringing you the full keynote speech or Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth as he walks through the future of Ubuntu, including the plans for Ubuntu for phones.

As you'll notice pretty quickly, Shuttleworth is doing his best to emulate all of the product videos we've seen from Apple. You've got the jeans and black shirt, plus the annoying plain white background (a bit more halo effect on Shuttleworth than Apple would use though), and we didn't count, but we're pretty sure Shuttleworth uses the word "magical" at least 4 or 5 times.

All that aside, the announcement is pretty nice. A lot of thought obviously went into the design of the phone UI, and we really like the idea of using each edge for a different purpose, especially how you can easily get to different settings by swiping from the top (around 11:20 in the video). If it works well, the voice command in apps looks pretty sweet as well (around 12:30 in the video).

A couple other interesting moments came when Shuttleworth really tried to push the idea that gaming on the Ubuntu phone would be top notch, because gaming is a notorious weak spot for Ubuntu and desktop Linux in general. Steam is just now in open beta for Linux, and the gaming ecosystem isn't the best. So, it's interesting to see Shuttleworth really pushing this, even claiming deals with "top game developers". We'd like to see better gaming on Linux, but that's a tall order.

The most interesting was towards the end of the video when Shuttleworth seems to take a shot at Android by calling Ubuntu "a truly open phone", which seems to imply that Android is not truly open. This has always been something of an argument, and on a certain level it is both true and false. Android is semi-open in that developers can submit code, and the code is freely available, but it is only semi-open because Google doesn't release the code for new versions until the update has launched. Also, there is the top layer of Google Apps which are not really part of Android, and therefore not open.

We were also interested about the mentions of the security on the phone, but it's never really explained how security will be done, especially with the emphasis on the fact that the phone won't have a lockscreen ("a barrier" as Shuttleworth calls it), but rather a welcome screen. There is mention of multi-user support and great security, but no real demo of either. But, the image should be dropping soon, so we'll find out for ourselves soon enough.

source: Celebrate Ubuntu

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19 Comments

1. ray77

Posts: 126; Member since: Nov 17, 2012

that be nice

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 9:54 PM 1

5. D.Aceveda

Posts: 432; Member since: Jun 30, 2012

I think I'll pass. Android > Ubuntu (Before any stupid replies, Yes I know Android is Linux based)

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:14 PM 9

17. erroct

Posts: 14; Member since: Jul 17, 2012

I second that thought

posted on Jan 04, 2013, 2:10 PM 0

19. AnTuTu

Posts: 1596; Member since: Oct 14, 2012

I recently got certified on Linux and I think I can write few apps for Ubuntu now :) excited. Also the UI is very impressive and very innovative. I want to see Android, Ubuntu, WP8 and BB10 to bang the market in upcoming years. Best of luck :)

posted on Jan 05, 2013, 1:28 PM 0

16. SleepingOz unregistered

Indeed, this looks very promising! They need to redesign their "rounded corner squares" though, apple will not hesitate to sue them if they become successful.

posted on Jan 04, 2013, 8:09 AM 2

2. wendygarett unregistered

-The most interesting was towards the end of the video when Shuttleworth seems to take a shot at Android by calling Ubuntu "a truly open phone", which seems to imply that Android is not truly open.- Competition is good, the platform is awesome, but you have to know why several persons (including me) still prefer android over any other linux os... Don't get me wrong, the reason I pick android is mainly because it has a full and rich Google experience compared to other... Not to mention, more and more apps developer will choose to support this over other because developers themselves also need Google to survive... Just be honest, did anyone here never click Google.com for real? Go Google it :)

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:03 PM 5

7. eisenbricher

Posts: 973; Member since: Aug 09, 2012

About your last question... I know some people who have never clicked Google. But they never did anything either on computers xD i.e. For me it's life. I am a software dev and anyone in this profession can tell how important google search is for them!

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:28 PM 2

14. Nathan_ingx

Posts: 4769; Member since: Mar 07, 2012

As i've always been saying everywhere... Thank God for Google!!

posted on Jan 04, 2013, 3:08 AM 2

3. Birds

Posts: 1172; Member since: Nov 21, 2011

Alright, was I the only one who started dancing to that funky 80s style electric pop in the first 10 seconds of the video? Only me? Ok then....(=p-_-)=p or (=b*o*)=b

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:06 PM 0

4. bayusuputra

Posts: 963; Member since: Feb 12, 2012

This looks nice..

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:13 PM 0

6. blazee

Posts: 414; Member since: Jan 02, 2012

am i the only one who thinks the last thing we need is another phone OS. I mean this is gotta be a nightmare for the developers. To try to reach as much audiance as possible devs already have to make their apps for iphone, ipod, ipad, android and try to make everyone happy and optimize it for all of the different phones and android os versions, kindle, windows phone then blackberry and soon to be tizen, ubuntu and what not. To me all of the new os are unecessary

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:20 PM 4

8. baldilocks

Posts: 1486; Member since: Dec 14, 2008

I can see a lot of unwanted input with all this edge gesturing.

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:32 PM 0

9. a_tumiwa

Posts: 393; Member since: Mar 16, 2012

i hope many developers create application for them. no apps = would fail

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:33 PM 1

10. nard0207

Posts: 18; Member since: Jan 03, 2013

Application developer's support will be vital for Ubuntu's success. This OS for mobile has a lot of potential and I hope it would be successful much like Android.

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 10:58 PM 1

11. ljade.abadinas

Posts: 21; Member since: Nov 30, 2012

My only problem about Ubuntu is that there are only few apps available...

posted on Jan 03, 2013, 11:15 PM 0

12. drodil

Posts: 2; Member since: Jan 04, 2013

That is true. For example Spotify mentioned here is not even officially working with Ubuntu desktop (at least yet) so there might be some need to wake up the 3rd party developers to have their apps for both Ubuntu desktop & mobile before coming out with yet another mobile OS