Canonical Releases Ubuntu Linux for Tablets, Aims at Device Convergence
It’s been six weeks since Canonical has released Ubuntu for phones. Yet while people were anticipating its release, the team also surprised many with news that Ubuntu for tablets is out as well.
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu, describes this release as one that aims at device convergence, in saying, “Multitasking productivity meets elegance and rigorous security in our tablet experience. Our family of interfaces now scales across all screens, so your phone can provide tablet, PC and TV experiences when you dock it. That’s unique to Ubuntu and it’s the future of personal computing.”
This comes just after Ubuntu for phones was released a few weeks ago, and which was well-received for its ability to use all four corners of the screen. As for the Ubuntu tablet interface, it supports screen that are 6 to 20 inches and resolutions from 100 to 450 ppi.
What is noteworthy, and as claimed by Shuttleworth, is that the user will enjoy the same experience depending on the device you plan to use. However, not only will this operating system run smoothly on all devices namely PCs, tablets, phones or TV, app developers can write a single binary app that will work across all these devices.
This convergence will be complete by the time Ubuntu 14.04 is released in April 2014 but for now, a ‘Touch Developer Preview’ of Ubuntu for tablets has been released The source code as well as the installable images can be downloaded from the Ubuntu developer site.
Finally, one can expect to find hardware using Ubuntu by the first quarter of 2014 but it’s hard to say whether it would be released for tablets or smartphones.