What are the big questions Canonical
gets asked about its Ubuntu for
Phones proposition? Here, we gather
the top questions (in no particular
order) and give the answers.
What makes Ubuntu for smartphones
so different to other OSes?
We are filling some real market gaps with
an innovative platform for a new category
of ‘superphone’ as well as providing a
much richer experience for entry level
phones. Not only is Ubuntu backed by a
strong app ecosystem, it brings great new
capabilities including a superb user
experience, strong OEM support,
customization opportunities and an ability
to support all hardware from the low end
to the most highly specified smartphones.
Take customization for example. We give
our partners more influence over the
services they can make available to end
users, unlike Android and other platforms
that have services locked into the phone.
Hardware makers and operators can
customize the interface to suit their
users.
We also focus on allowing all services to
run natively through hardware to achieve
best possible performance. And we
embrace HTML to ensure all the
wonderful innovation from web services
development is supported. We offer the
best of both worlds – native and web-
based services.
What do you mean by HTML5 and
native apps being “equal citizens”?
An application written in HTML as a web
application will have its own UI context
running Ubuntu meaning it can run
independently of the browser (so if the
main browser is closed, the web
application will continue to run). Ubuntu
also defines different levels of UI
integration which web applications can
benefit from to give the user a more
integrated experience – this is especially
useful for social media and multimedia
web applications. It means the web app
can surface alerts and notifications using
standard Ubuntu UI elements such as the
notifications menu. As “equal citizens” we
allow web apps to behave in the same
way as native applications, so they may
share the same system resources to
ensure performance and share the same
customisations.
What do you mean by ‘device
convergence’?
With Ubuntu, the industry’s first fully
converged device will be a high-end
smartphone that can be docked to a
monitor and keyboard to become a
powerful desktop PC. This is made
possible because we have a very deep
level of integration between the services
on the phone and the desktop –
underneath, it is really the same OS. This
is a real strength of Ubuntu.
What makes you think you’ll succeed?
Running on desktops, TVs and phones,
Ubuntu is a trusted brand supported by
thousands of contributors, millions of
users and the world’s largest OEMs. The
mobile industry is crying out for a new,
affordable, feature rich operating system
that’s easy to work with. We are perfectly
placed to meet that need.
What is the target market for Ubuntu
for Phones?
Ubuntu supports all the different
smartphone segments. At the high end, it
creates an entirely new ‘superphone’
category with converged devices that act
as phones on the move, but with full PC
functionality when docked with a
keyboard and monitor. Ubuntu is also
great for aspirational consumers who
want a superior experience, with faster,
richer performance on lower cost
smartphones. It’s a positioning that’s
captured the interest of operators in Asia,
Europe, Africa and North and South
America. Ubuntu will probably launch first
on smartphones in Western Europe.
What types of user will want Ubuntu
for smartphones?
The first is an enterprise audience that
wants to combine phone and thin client or
desktop into one highly secure device.
Secondly, consumers who want a lean,
beautiful smartphone. Both are equally
important.
Do you have any interested partners
that you can talk about?
We are in discussions with all major
handset OEMs and some of Western
Europe’s leading mobile operators, but
none we can talk about publicly. Work is
also ongoing with silicon vendors to
ensure they can use most of the Android
board support package in order to deliver
handsets at volume, when needed.
What are the minimum hardware
requirements?
A: Ubuntu will run on standard low end
hardware. Hardware component costs are
falling so we can guarantee that the
Ubuntu OS will align with all relevant low
end specifications: typically 1 GHz
processor and 512 MB — 1 GB RAM.
Is it really open source?
Yes absolutely! Open source is used in
the same way as other Ubuntu
developments. And we will be releasing a
the code base for the phone OS shortly.
When will it be available to buy?
This depends mainly on our partners’
roadmaps, but we are working with these
partners today and expect the Ubuntu to
be available on phones during 4th quarter
2013 or in early 2014.


http://insights.ubuntu.com/mobile/get-the-faqs-about-ubuntu-on-smartphones/

Good to try.

This is serious, lets see how it goes but Ubuntu is really in a different category.....i'll love to turn my phone into my pc whenever i need to, on the road its a phone, in the office it turns to a pc @home, its a combination of pc & a phone......we are waiting

It's much like android only if nokia use Ubuntu instead of android