Canonical making full-fledged Ubuntu tablet push in early 2011
By Sean Hollister 
posted June 11th 2010 3:15AM
posted June 11th 2010 3:15AM
posted June 11th 2010 3:15AM
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@iamcriss The only thing that's vaguely similar to Mac OS is the button layout. Oh, and there's a panel on the top instead of on the bottom. Otherwise, the colours, the content of the panels, the overall position of the panel, the widget theme and the presence of menus in the application window are all painstakingly different.
It's like complaining it looks just like Windows because there's a menu.
@The Madman the similarities go way beyond that
@iamcriss
Apple steels more shit then anybody. You just don't realize it cause they claim they invented everything and just patent other ideas of other people. I'm sure they will soon steel Linux 3d desktop and say it was theirs invention and patent it too. People really need to learn the truth about apple and how they work. Here is one example : http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/318845/No_Mac_zealots_Apple_didnt_invent_the_dock/page/2
@TechHedz Yeah, bad grammar.. I know..
@TechHedz Not to mention they didn't make Webkit (that came from Linux (KDE's KHTML, more specifically)), they didn't come up with Spaces all on their own (Again, Linux), nor file indexing (Linux), automated back-up (hell, just about everyone came up with that before them)...
@The Madman Correction: Virtual Desktops came from the Amiga, I think. Or something else really old. I just noticed that Apple made Spaces in nearly exactly the same as they were done in Compiz/Beryl.
@The Madman Well Apple Fanboys will probably still dispute all this even though the evidence is out there. It irritates me cause many just believe what Apple tells them instead of looking into it themselves.
@TechHedz no more relevant arguments so lets call them fanboys and its done
@Formul No relevant arguments period. You're not standing up to scrutiny very well.
@TechHedz
Sorry, but who the fuck cares? I am not in the slightest bit interested in who made what first, not least because the first implementation of an idea usually isn't the best one. All I am interested in is a device that does what I want and doesn't piss me off while doing it. I am not going to debate whether Apple invented X, Y or Z because I simply don't care. What I do care about is that Apple seems pretty good at making good implementations of ideas and therefore producing devices that don't annoy me.
Frankly, much of this just sounds like sour grapes.
@Kelmon We wouldn't mind so much if Apple gave credit where it's due instead of outright ripping-off other people's work and pretending like they put in the man-hours. That's just rude.
@The Madman
True, but they're hardly the only ones. Occasionally, they will also cop to implementing ideas already present in competing products. I distinctly remember Steve Jobs stating on stage that the Fast User Switching was something that Apple implemented in Mac OS X 10.3 based on what was implemented in Windows XP when the OS was unveiled. This is certainly the exception to the rule but it does happen.
It should also be noted that while WebKit was not the invention of Apple, they have ploughed a lot back into this open source project.
@Kelmon The only reason I brought this up was cause I am sick of all these post of how something looks like what Apple created. Thats the only reason I mentioned anything. Im not trying to argue who came up with what first. Just sick of people claiming all the time how something looks or works like what Apple invented.
@TechHedz so you are just making sure apple will not get credit for anything, thats nice
@Kelmon Webkit was only open-sourced after the KHTML developers pestered Apple's developers about it, and then the development tree was only opened to the public after much more pestering.
It's difficult to say Apple's contributions come from the depths of their heart rather than being something they have to put up with due to open-source licensing. I'll bet they would have used a Linux base to Mac OS if it meant they didn't have to share their code.
According to the comments, every Engadget readeris buyin every new tablet that comes out before they even see it, never mind actually use it first.
It's hilarious people are so keen to buy something ecause they think it may be a tiny bit better than an ipad
@pukerocket There's a hundred ways the iPad could have been better, and there's hundreds of ways to make a better tablet too. Most of us have given up on Microsoft coming up with something, and Google is likely going to try alter Chrome OS for tablets and give us all a web browser on a screen... Ubuntu and Meego, on the other hand, look quite promising.
Besides, the more people doing a good job of tablet UIs, the better.
Go ubuntu - it's an awsome and solid OS. Now where's Win7 tablet edition with great on screen keyboard, bigger icons and responsive touch input?
@stoffer its all about the UI and the only thing different is the menubar sticking to the application window
Xorg is going to need a lot of work in the multi-touch area for Ubuntu to be a serious player on tablets.
@linuxamp MPX was supposed to help towards this, but that isn't true multitouch, is it?
@linuxamp
You mean like this..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTeUbx_nnM4&feature=related
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj590HkBwYg&feature=related
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3QzR6xSYTo&feature=related
Took more time to watch the clips to make sure they were relevant than it did to find them.
Multi touch capability is already done.
Next problem?
@The Madman We're on the same page when it comes to agreeing that Windows 7 isn't suitable at all for tablets whereas the iPhone OS/iOS clearly is. However, it's like Canonical is doing this all back to front. Rather than focusing on giving the general public a reason to use their distro in order to get their name out there, they're wasting resources and people hours on an (at the moment with their lack of users and brand name familiarity) ultimately superfluous tablet OS project.
If I was Canonical I'd do something radical like build a windowing system for Linux from scratch and focus on developing insanely polished, user friendly and beautiful apps for it. Make it easy to roll out in corporate and kiosk environments and then start marketing it.
@Tres What you're suggesting would actually cost far more than what Canonical is doing, not to mention a duplication of effort that several other organisations (often with much larger work-forces) are already working on. It's like suggesting that Canonical should work on hardware support. Writing drivers for unsupported hardware is a huge task, and is done already by the kernel teams and employees from several companies.
Canonical's focus is exactly where it should be: on the user-facing side. Canonical doesn't work on fine-grained details, but works to bring together the efforts of several projects and to build services and systems on top of existing projects. Canonical just isn't big enough to build their own desktop environment.
Besides, altering Gnome to make it suitable for slate PCs comes down to making alterations to GTK libraries to make them behave better for finger-based input. You know, stuff like making inputs in empty space on the file manager start scrolling rather than group-selecting, that kind of thing. Application menus can be translated to a single toolbar button, menu items can be made thicker and be distinct from each other (e.g. with a line separator for each one so you know where one starts and another ends) in the theme, and the launcher/desktop area can be re-worked (as it has in the netbook edition) for finger-friendliness. The sidebar they demonstrate is already quite usable and appropriate for use with fingers.
Another issue they may have to address is smooth re-orientation. This is really, REALLY important. Part of the reason iOS is so appealing is because it does exactly this kind of thing smoothly and naturally, rather than just suddenly jumping between two states in a rather ugly fashion. It would be better if this kind of thing could first be handled in Xorg and window managers such as Compiz before moving onto Ubuntu-controlled elements such as the desktop launcher.
@The Madman
Is the eye candy aspect actually that important?
Can you stop the iPad/phone display at 45 degrees of rotation and use it? And why would you? or does it only go 90 degrees rotation before it stops and is again useful? In which case, not a huge problem. Personally, I'd prefer a quick portrait landscape switch like on my desktop, instead of playing around with animations to disguise a slow change of aspect ratio.
Rotating the display is already easy on just about every distro with an entry in xorg. Link it to an accelerometer, and job done. If you really must have an animation, I'm sure something can be done to keep you happy.
@(Unverified) Yes, exactly that kind of thing IS important. It impacts users more than you know.
Take this example: say it takes 0.5 seconds for the OS to change orientation from landscape to portrait. One GUI switches by quickly rotating the graphics and gadgets, the other turns black then switches back on when the change in orientation is complete. The user will think that the first was faster and more pleasant even though there was no difference in the amount of time it took for each GUI to change the orientation.
Exactly this kind of polish and attention to detail can mean the difference between a consumer purchasing one product over the other.
I use Ubuntu in my personal life because it's pleasant, highly tweakable and open ... although I have to use windows and/or OSX at work ...
But goddamn it can't Canonical design a UI that's not fucking maroon and purple ... 2003 is over guys WAKE THE FUCK UP !
@Geek With Attitude
Sorry about all those swear words but zut alors !
Yes, I was waiting for this. Great news. Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition is great and I am looking forward to trying a tablet version. Currently running Ubuntu 8.04 on the desktop.
This the tablet I am waiting for. I hope Canonical is able to do it with help from thousands others because tablets will be the future. Despite its limitations, Apple has shown that slick hardware and software is what is needed for these devices.
I said goodbye to Windows a couple of years and have no intention of going back, and have turned to Ubuntu for all my computing needs and it has been great and improving all the time. I have absolutely no intention of ever getting a Microsoft operating system on any device. Apart from Microsoft wasting my time despite paying hundreds of dollars to a powerful, multi-billion dollar influential company, I do not want to support them. So anything to do with a Windows tablet is not even a consideration.
Google Android/Chrome I am relunctant. I would much prefer an Ubuntu tablet over Google Chrome.
@Zaitu
Absolutely agree.
With a behaviour show in the past, there is just no way I will give my money to Microsoft willingly.
If I have to wait for a decent Linux or Android tablet for a long time, I will wait.
Same for Intel.
The Ubuntu screenshot in the article is quite badly selected. The window is not even auto-maximized as it should be if you use the Ubuntu Netbook Edition (with Maximus as defult) so window title is showing...etc.
Take a look at the 2. and 3. picture on this page to get a better idea how the Ubuntu netbook desktop looks like in screen estate saving mode:
http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook/features
It is very muh possible to optimize Linux GUIs for tablets (Gnome/KDE/XFCE/LXDE) and it is already happening. Canonical has been working on this for a while (aka Netbook Edition). KDE has already released a Netbook Edition, they will certainly work towards touch-optimisation.
The more important Linux apps can be/will be touch-optimized for a good tablet experience. Of course only "non-creative" apps will need to be optimized since I don't think that, for exaple, video editing or OpenOffice document editing is a task which needs to be done with the touchscreen. Of course the tablet hw may be strong enough for this too (multi core SOCs like Tegra2, OMAP4) and if you need to do such tasks you will simply sit down to a desk and attach a usb or bluetooth mouse to your tablet.
Resources: The worldwide open-source developer community behind Linux apps is WAY BIGGER than the resources Microsoft can allocate for touch-optimization of Windows7 and its core apps.
Having a touch-optimized version of Ubuntu could be useful, even if it is not running on a tablet itself.
Imagine using a remote desktop app (Citrix, Chromoting, etc.) on your tablet, to connect to an Ubuntu desktop. Once connected, it would be nice if you could continue using touch, on the remote desktop, instead of having to use a stylus or a keyboard & mouse, because of small menu items, etc.
mh the tooltipbox is the same as in mac os x, the color sheme of the bg is the same like the basic wallpaper in mac os x, the close, minimize and maximize buttons are in the same alignement as in mc os x, the ui itself is just the inverted color sheme of the mac os ui, but looks somehow also similar to many mactheme gui's.
where's the problem to create an uninspired and completely own theme?
"craptablet" ... that's something like a "crapblog" with "crapeditors" isn't it?
I hope that canonical gets it right. It should have a fluid UI that is responsive and easy to navigate. I can't wait to see how it turns out.
Please just keep your focus, Ubuntu. Your desktop distro is FANTASTIC, but keep making it better. It's still a few steps behind OS X, and while I'd say it's head of Windows in many ways, from a first-time-user perspective, it's still not quite there. Also, your netbook distro is amazing! My mom has it on her Eee PC, and she loves it. Who woulda thought she'd turn out to be a linux lover.
I can tell from the screenshots above that you're working on jamming the Ubuntu desktop onto a tablet. Don't... just let this one go until you're even better and more focused on the netbook / desktop. Don't divert your resources away from the two big markets!
Oh, man! I love how there is a "This looks nothing like OS X" argument going on here. I saw this on the main page of Engadget and immediately thought, "Oh man, when did Ubuntu decide to copy Apple?" And yeah, the color scheme is different but there is more to UI design then colors guys. They have a Dock now! I don't know about you guys but to me, that just reaffirms Apple's dominance in UI design. First Microsoft now Ubuntu. I'm not saying this because I'm an Apple fan boy, I'm saying is because it's time for UI designers to grow some balls and stop copying the dominant paradigm! Come on guys think of something different!
If they can optimize Ubuntu well for tablet use, I'll definitely install it on my Tablet PC along with Xournal just to check out how much of the gap is closed with Win7 for Tablet PC use.
As it currently stands, it takes way too much tweaking to be even remotely usable outside of laptop mode-just getting a proper onscreen keyboard up, for starters. There's also some quirks with the linux-wacom driver that generally have to be fixed with a fresh install, and linux-wacom only has two points of calibration compared to Win7's eight points of calibration and XP Tablet/Vista's four points last time I checked.
Can they correct all of that and then some?