ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@xxxxxxx>]

I just found an old albeit pretty interesting comparison with demo
videos from 2013 about Ubuntu Phone (demoed by Mark Shuttleworth) and
Sailfish OS.

http://www.jollausers.com/2013/07/why-sailfish-is-better-as-a-modern-os-here-is-a-comparison/

Now that many of us have used Ubuntu Touch for almost a year on the
first dedicated Ubuntu phones it's interesting to look back at what
was originally planned, promised, envisioned.

Interesting are a couple of facts:

- Ubuntu Touch had a few niceties which went away (long name of the
app selected on the launcher, among others)
- Indicator controls (i.e. the elements shown when you pull down an
indicator from top) are much smaller today than two years ago
- The apps demoed by Mark seem to be much more consistent compared to
what we see on our devices today (e.g. every single demoed screen,
apart from the camera app obviously, had a header in large letters,
including indicator pages!)
- The large header letters have been replaced by a smaller font (not
sure why this makes me feel like Ubuntu Touch is moving closer to
Windows phone)

Most interesting comparison facts with Sailfish OS:

- The gestures seem to be more well-designed in Sailfish (e.g.
left-handers have a harder time to access the launcher on Ubuntu
Touch, true in fact!)
- Sailfish has no lack of apps, because you seem to be able to install
and use any Android app there is
- Ubuntu Touch needs more horse-power, the UI lags sometimes (true in
fact, not really visible on the demo video but on the Aquaris E5 when,
e.g., your device connects to a new network CPU goes up to 95% and you
must lean back and wait)

Interesting explanation also here, in a video confronting the pros and
cons of Windows phone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-wdWzspIBY

Some of the disadvantages of Windows phone just make me think of
Ubuntu Touch. It's terrible.

Let's see if we can draw some conclusions out of this.

I feel it's time to sit down for a review and evaluate which decisions
went down the wrong lane, before it's too late to throw in the reverse
gear. Is it really all just a matter of maturity, a matter of time
that, e.g., the lagging disappears? Is it good or bad that Ubuntu
Touch is partly starting to look like its competitors? Which were the
compromises (e.g. in the look and feel) that led to what we have today
(as opposed to what was envisioned two years ago)?

Peter


P.S.: Just updated to OTA 8.5, and it's as if Ubuntu Touch wanted to
stop me from pressing the Send button: Launching apps feels much
faster all of a sudden!  :-)  But seriously, the headers still have
the small font, so I send this email to the list.  ;-)