ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Unix One <unix1@xxxxxxxx>]

On 02/26/2017 11:05 AM, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> On Sun, 2017-02-26 at 18:09 +0000, Unix One wrote:
>> As for Ubuntu Touch phones, since 100% of existing phone devices are
>> 32-bit, there are no 64-bit phones even being planned (at least
>> publicly), wiping 32-bit future official support outright alienates
>> the
>> core power users and developers - i.e. pretty much everyone - in a
>> frustrating way.
>
> Both the BQ M10 tablet and Meizu Pro 5 phone are 64-bit hardware. The
> userland is currently only 32-bit there, because arm64 was not
> supported on 15.04, which the current phone/tablet images are based on.
> That would reduce your figure to 60% (if you're only talking official
> retail devices, or 50% if counting both M10 FHD/HD separately).
>

I'm sorry! I take the 100% number back. But talking about phones 
(different use case from tablets entirely) specifically, I wasn't sure 
Meizu Pro 5 accounted for 20% of all existing phone devices; I'd thought 
that number would be somewhere in a single digit percentage. Are you 
counting % against available device models, or % of physical devices 
currently in the hands of users?

Regardless, assuming the Meizu Pro 5 will continue to receive 
64-bit/snap updates (which I haven't officially seen confirmed either), 
the rest of the statement - potentially alienating 80% of phone users - 
stands.

On a personal side note, I really enjoy Qt+QML development, but my 
choices are - a Meizu Pro 5 degraded coverage (radio frequencies) from 
an unreputable online seller in $300-$500 range, or another 
refurbished/used mako which won't be updated. It feels like I've been 
backed into a corner.