Ubuntu on the Galaxy Nexus

Apps

The app world on the Ubuntu smartphone corresponds to the device's still early development stage. The only currently native Canonical app is the preinstalled Gallery. It's supposed to be a demo of what the Ubuntu mobile apps are capable of.

The application selection also includes HTML5 web apps that run like normal programs on mobile phones. Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail are ready to go. The web apps integrate with native apps on the system: They get an icon in the user menu and can access the system routines, such as event notifications.

For external developers, Canonical offers Ubuntu's QML toolkit, with which you can create native apps. Developers with a knowledge of QML and Qt thus have an edge (see the QML Toolkit article on page 65 for a quick introduction).

Ubuntu Everywhere

With its latest developments, Canonical wants not only to conquer the smartphone but to have a presence on all digital devices. The company also wants to take its Ubuntu for Smartphones to tablets. Unity also runs on TVs as "Ubuntu TV" and works with your remote control. Laptops and desktops are already in the Ubuntu domain. However, mobile phones are currently Ubuntu's center of attention.

Newer smartphones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S III, have enough power with their quad-core CPUs to run the larger displays, and you can connect the Ubuntu phone via HDMI to a PC monitor to put the Unity interface on a big screen (as shown in Figure 3). The phone itself doesn't necessarily need to run a Unity instance but can run Android instead.