Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Ubuntu Edge: smartphone with a Touch of Android

Officially announced by CEO Mark Shuttleworth on July 22, this year, Ubuntu Edge is a hybrid next-generation device designed as a high concept smartphone to be built by Canonical Ltd.

Ubuntu Touch is the operating system developed for Ununtu Edge, and unveiled at the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where it was declared winner of CNET's Best of Show, finishing ahead of Firefox OS. 

The idea behind this particular design is producing a phone that will be ready to tackle the future of computing, as well as drive innovation to the mobile industry. Launching something like this has the idea of convergence written all over it, since it will be combining the mobility of a smartphone and the power of a desktop on a single device.

This will be the first time Canonical gets into the smartphone business, and although they claim no interest in competing with the giants, the moment could not be better for rising the level of smartphone capabilities an even higher echelon, and to start coming up with tremendous technology for everyone to benefit from.

Some of the features this device will be loaded with include, a scratchless saphire glass monitor cover, 4.5 inch 1280 x 720 display the fastest available multi-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 128 GB for storage, or a body made out of a single piece of textured metal. It will also have two LTE antennas for full speed 4G, which will work both in Europe and America. The thinner and lighter battery is expected to come with silicon anode technology. 

The monitor is supposed to have the best combination of 
resolution, dynamic range and color. It is important to notice that the company is putting a considerable effort into optimizing color accuracy and brightness, which, unfortunately, does not necessarily mean that their megapixel resolution will be the highest of all the competitor devices out there.

Perhaps the best part about Ubuntu Edge is contained in its software, since the user will be able to use both operating systems: 
 Ubuntu Touch and Android.  This is the feature the company is most proud of since, according to them, it will bring true convergence to the mobile arena. 

As far as branding, the logical option could have been to go with their own Touch, but in terms of market reach and penetration, the obvious choice is Android. Since both operating systems are Linux based, either one will do the job, but of course it is a great idea to have them working together.

In order to finance this project, Canonical has embarked in an ambitious crowdfunding campaign to raise 32 million USD in one month; in other words, until august 21. This goal seems to be quite reachable judging by the results obtained during the first week in which sponsors have contributed over 7.4 million dollars. 

One of the best possible outcomes generated by this particular crowdfunding initiative is that in the future the company could very well start implementing ideas coming from users and sponsors' input towards making actual modifications to the design of the final product. The following is a quote from Shuttleworth himself: "I think we'll have an annual process by which the previous generation backers get to vote on the spec for the next generation of Edge."

Besides the campaign itself, it is important to also consider the enormous enthusiasm coming from fans or potential users as well as an increasing amount of expectation this sort of event can create within the entire industry.

Copyright Esteban Dobronsky 2013 © All Rights Reserved

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