ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@xxxxxxx>]

I really don't think it helps a lot to complain about _apps_ missing
for Ubuntu Touch here on the mailing list. Proprietary solutions will
have to come either from community programmers (as clones) or the
related companies themselves. For the former ones Loqui ([1], [2]) is
one of the most promising I've found at least from the look and feel,
once it works on UT some time in future.

[1] http://hosted.loqui.im/
[2] https://github.com/loqui/im/labels/ubuntu-touch

BUT: What Ubuntu Touch should really care about is:

  a) integrating existing, non-proprietary technology for doing
communication (voice and video calls, messaging), and
  b) provide easy integration points (a plugin infrastructure) for
providers of proprietary solutions (Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Slack,
etc.), including push notifications

For (a) this is like creating an "Ubuntu Facetime" based on SIP or
XMPP technology, but fully integrated into the telephone app.
Topic (b) is actually the foundation for providing (a). In the end we
should have communication devices capable of connecting to all and
everything (instead of app-driven pocket computers as of today).

I really want to do calls transparently from and to any service
(Ubuntu to Ubuntu via SIP or XMPP, WhatsApp, Skype, Appear.in, Viber,
... and even normal phone calls) from a beautiful (Ubuntu) smart
watch, say, next year. I really don't want to deal with opening apps,
entering credentials, checking for messages and online statuses of
contacts. I just want to connect my (social) accounts a single time
when doing the setup, maybe even with an Ubuntu Single-Sign On, and
the whole platform makes it a breeze to do easy, ideally
cost-optimized, communication.

This is what I see as convergence. Converge everything into a single
platform. Handle the time-consuming (app handling) efforts for me. I
don't want to sit in cafés and on the beach staring at my smart phone
like everyone else. Let's aim for the future. A future where phones
and computers are not _between_ us hindering real-life exchange
between people, but supporting us in getting things sorted with "no"
effort.

The "Show contact details from social accounts" and "VoIP" tickets are
a start for this:
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/address-book-app/+bug/1535755
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/canonical-devices-system-image/+bug/1533104

(Thanks for all the votes! Please continue to click on "Affects me
too" if you care about one of those tickets.)

Peter


> On Fri, 2016-07-22 at 09:49 -0500, mark wrote:
>> From reading comments left on different forums, it would seem that
>> the absence of WhatsApp in particular seems to be a deal-breaker to
>> the adoption of Touch for many... Perhaps if there was a version of