All Convergence stuffs will eventually land on all Ubuntu
Phones and yes including your ( and my ;-) ) bq Aquaris E5
however, it won't be very much useful on all official Ubuntu
Phones released so far. First, as you mentioned, both bq phones
doesn't support external display and even MX4 seems to not
support it. It's a hardware thing so Canonical can't really do
something about it. Second, you won't really want to use both
E4.5 and E5 as a desktop. They're are simply underpowered.
Bluetooth keyboard and mouse support will surely be implemented
in the future via OTA. It's been working on my Nexus 7 for
months actually but I don't know why the phones doesn't. The
current status of Convergence is pretty much in-progress but
we're getting there :-)Man, sorry to tell you this sad news. But
don't worry, as far as I know the next Ubuntu Phone to be
released will be a convergent-capable one so watch out for it
;)
From: Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@xxxxxxx>
To: ubuntu-phone <ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 5, 2015 11:58 PM
Subject: [Ubuntu-phone] Convergence (current status for bq devices)
I have difficulties finding out the current status of convergence.
There have been a few videos and photos around on YouTube, Google+,
OMG!Ubuntu, Ubuntu Wiki, but I've found no official roadmap or release
date for an Ubuntu Touch release with convergence features enabled in
general (on any device). Even worse, on OMG!Ubuntu a commenter
mentions having been told by a Canonical representative that
convergence will never be available for bq Aquaris (4.5) devices:
"""
"The guy in charge of phone development at Canonical UK told me
recently that you won't be able to 'converge' your Aquaris. For one
thing the E4.5 isn't able to support MHL. It just doesn't have the
required hardware to run as a desktop."
"""
See below for some sources.
Also, I've just bought a MHL micro USB to HDMI adapter [1], which
works great for attaching USB pen drives, but when I try to attach
either a wireless keyboard and mouse [2], or an external monitor to my
bq Aquaris E5 Ubuntu Edition (latest OTA, 15.04, r6, VEGETEA01A-...)
nothing happens. Attaching a bluetooth mouse [3] to the phone isn't
supported yet either; same for the bluetooth keyboard of my kids' Kano
device. At least on the stock image updated over the air.
So,what is actually true? Will Ubuntu Touch on our devices be capable
to do convergence, say, with the next OTA update? When can we expect
convergence to work for all devices by default? Is there a status page
or roadmap somewhere?
(BTW, just noted that my phone runs 15.04; will the next OTA bring 15.10?)
Peter
