ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Nathan Haines <nhaines@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Portable monitors exist today, but Ubuntu itself doesn't yet have that kind of software support yet for dual monitors. It's a future goal for Mir that will enable the kind of automatic adjustment.

You can already see this in the way Unity 8 and Ubuntu SDK apps adapt on the desktop when you resize the UI window. It will come fairly quickly but these things are best developed one step at a time. The video is the final goal, but with Ubuntu you are able to watch the process step by step as each component is polished to provide a stable, reliable user experience while providing the engineering foundation for the next block to appear.

It's fun to watch but sometimes a lot of pieces have to land before the bigger picture starts to appear. It's no use to have Mir and Unity 8 power a desktop experience while Unity 7 is robust and the phone and tablet aren't polished yet, for example. I'm confident just from the last 18 months of refinement that the finished puzzle will be brilliant.

If you want a decent tablet experience you are better off buying one with the OS you prefer preinstalled. I would definitely not buy any Android phone or tablet with the intention of using it for Ubuntu. If you want Ubuntu, I recommend buying an Ubuntu device. None are currently for sale but several should be available toward the end of this year.

Regards,
Nathan

-- 
Nathan Haines <nhaines@xxxxxxxxxx>
Ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com/

On Aug 3, 2014 5:00 AM, Steve Smith <hello@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hi both, thanks for filling me in.  I've found the video I saw, watch from 5:00 to 5:20:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGJXGJ6Q0Ys
>
> Nathan, from what you say, would I be right in understanding that the scenario imagined in the video is a dumb touchscreen rather than a tablet, then - one which doesn't exist yet and isn't going to exist until well into 2015 at the absolute earliest?
>
> So in summary, if I want a decent-sized tablet to use in the meantime, I'm best off getting a Nexus 10 and either using it with Android or with Ubuntu Touch Developer - yes?
>
> Thanks!
> Steve
>
>
> On 30 July 2014 22:30, Benjamin Tegge <benjaminosm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> I think there is a misconception here. To my knowledge, pairing two
>> hosts like you described has never been directly mentioned before.
>>
>> Also "docking" may be a misleading term, as it suggests that a dock or
>> cradle and special connectors are required.
>>
>> "Convergence" or converged desktop experience is what has been shown in
>> videos last year on the Nexus 4 [1][2]. Convergence gives you a full
>> desktop experience when you connect standard peripheral hardware
>> (monitor, keyboard, mouse) to your phone. Victor Palau is using a
>> portable monitor in his video. While portable monitors and tablets may
>> look similar, tablets usually have no video input functionality.
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Benjamin
>>
>> 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk9-v8Sl4yU "Ubuntu Edge: convergence
>> in action (Victor Palau)"
>> 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtNhlVn3ETQ "Ubuntu Edge: the software
>> story (Leann Ogasawara)"
>>
>> Am Mittwoch, den 30.07.2014, 14:02 +0100 schrieb Steve Smith:
>> > Hi all, I'm a long-time Ubuntu user and really excited to have an
>> > Ubuntu phone in my hand by the end of the year.  From what I've seen,
>> > you're doing an awesome job!
>> >
>> >
>> > I've seen mention of docking a phone to a tablet (possibly on a video
>> > with Mark?).  I'm guessing that it won't be something available in the
>> > first public release, but when you get to it how to you anticipate it
>> > working?  Would it be an actual tablet also running Ubuntu, that is
>> > just synced to the storage on the phone?  Or would it be a special
>> > dumb touchscreen (rather than an actual tablet) that the phone just
>> > plugs into and the software continues to run on the phone itself -
>> > much like docking with an external monitor?
>> >
>> >
>> > The reason I ask is I'm looking into buying an Android tablet and
>> > would like to future-proof myself for when docking becomes possible.
>> >
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> > Steve
>>
>>
>