ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Josh Leverette <coder543@xxxxxxxxx>]

So, for the first time in months, I decided to wipe my carefully configured
version of Android in order to try out Ubuntu touch. A few things struck me
immediately.

- The return to home animation *still* lags. Why?!? This is *the most*
noticeable
piece of lag in the whole OS. Come on guys... grab some low hanging
fruit!<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/low-hanging_fruit>

- The browser still behaves oddly. If you rapidly touch, drag, lift, touch,
drag, lift, touch, drag, lift... then you'll notice it starts to take over
a second for the browser to respond to touches, if not longer. Yet, if you
leave it idle, then the moment your finger touches the screen, the browser
begins responding by shifting the page around. Why is there
a discrepancy between these usage models?

- There are no tablet optimized apps! Ok. Maybe there are a couple, like
the gallery. But, why are most of the included apps running in the sidebar
designed for phone apps? Even the terminal is a phone app on the tablet!
That makes no sense to me. We should also expect to see a full screen
weather experience before launch, in my opinion, but more importantly: the
calendar app runs in the sidebar as if it were only a phone application as
well! *The calendar!* This is very odd behavior.
- - - The two-fold promise was that firstly, Qt would allow developers to
quickly and easily craft applications that run on all form factors, and
secondly, apps would be able to morph between phone-sidebar version and
tablet version seamlessly. So, you'd be able to multitask and single task.
To view the weather, it opens up whatever other app I last used and
*then* proceeds
to show me the weather. That's very distracting.

Let's actually just list it out.

Tablet optimized apps:
Browser (but the tab switching is phone style. Not fully optimized)
Gallery
Camera
Videos

Tablet optimized website app things:
Gmail
Music (? couldn't get this to open on the tablet)
Ubuntu One (not sure this counts)
eBay (not sure this should be included with Ubuntu touch to begin with)
Amazon
the launcher

Not tablet optimized apps:
File manager
Terminal
Calendar
Clock
Calculator
Friends (wouldn't even actually open)
Weather
Notes
Phone (shouldn't be there anyways)
System Settings (!!)

Not tablet optimized website app things:
Facebook (should be a link to the real Facebook site on Browser in tablet
mode)
Twitter (see Facebook)

I don't think I missed anything here... but still. The tablet feels like it
isn't a first class citizen at this point. I'm sure the phone experience is
wonderful, but Canonical is the one that chose to surprise us all by
announcing the tablet version only days after the phone version. I fully
expected them to wait a full year before announcing a tablet version, and
I'm sure many others felt the same way I did. Hopefully Canonical did not
bite off more than it can chew...


- There seems to be no way to exit "app closing mode" on the apps page
without switching to another page and coming back. Also, closing apps
results in the tablet opening up another random app afterwards (unless
there's only one remaining).

- The phone app is still visible on the tablet version of Ubuntu touch.

- I should really be able to switch rapidly between full size tablet apps
with the right edge swipe, not just sidebar apps.

- Turning the tablet back on after it falls asleep shows a cool animation
where the lock screen slides in from the left. Incidentally, this means *
anyone* can see what you were doing before the tablet fell asleep. (hitting
the power button avoids this issue, but if it goes to sleep on its own,
then the issue is present.)

- Apps hang and have issues starting, quite regularly, besides the Browser
app which is surprisingly reliable. System settings usually takes at least
one open, force close, open cycle to actually open.

*I'm honestly a huge supporter of Ubuntu touch, but this experience was not
inspiring. I have lost confidence that the tablet version will be ready at
all for the fall release cycle... maybe by next spring. On the other hand,
the phone version looks to be quite close to complete.*


-- 
Sincerely,
    Josh