Ubuntu Smart Phone Makers Trying To Crowdfund $32M

Will They Get $32M in 30 Days?

  • Yes

    Votes: 25 13.4%
  • No

    Votes: 161 86.6%

  • Total voters
    186
WTF who needs 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM on a phone?
Cut those those specs by 1/4 and still have a decent phone and then can lower the price, oh, by half.
 
WTF who needs 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM on a phone?
Cut those those specs by 1/4 and still have a decent phone and then can lower the price, oh, by half.

I think the point is to go balls to wall with a phone. I like the ambition. If they keep the current pace they might make it. What's the harm in them trying to do this?
 
I wish them luck. I think it is finally possible to use your phone as your PC. Decent thin client performance, beyond smartphone features, is the best they can possibly deliver at this time imo. I'd love to proven wrong, though.
 
WTF who needs 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM on a phone?
Cut those those specs by 1/4 and still have a decent phone and then can lower the price, oh, by half.

Those will be pretty run-of-the-mill specs by the time they actually get something to market.
 
here's quote from Mark Shuttleworth
The Ubuntu Edge is a pioneering device designed to drive innovation in the mobile industry. Like Formula 1 for the car industry, Ubuntu Edge is a testbed for cutting-edge technologies, accelerating their adoption and driving them down into the mainstream

I like that. Sums up perfectly the fate of their new phone because a lot of testbed runs for new Formula 1 tech either needs to be cut short because a pit stop is needed or the car has been put into the wall...because it's near the realm of impossible to get it right the first time. So indeed, this sums up quite nicely as to what will likely be happening to the Edge.

Besides, what "cutting-edge" technologies can really be added/adopted to the mobile phone industry that aren't already incorporated in today's modern touchscreen phones? For every innovation Ubuntu thinks they have, I'd damn near safely bet that the other major phone OS makers already have fifty derivatives in the coding or testing phase that will be rolled out in near future versions.
 
It is not very clear to me, but is this just running Android with Ubuntu on top? It's described as "dual boot" (however you want to interpret that), but then later described as being able to launch a Ubuntu desktop inside Android. So is this just a high end Android phone? I'm really hoping this is a straight up linux phone, but I feel like I'm in for disappointment with Android being under the hood.
 
One of the better exploitations of free advertizing.

Ubuntu for phones was going to be looked down upon as a 3rd world and/or recycled phone OS. But they created a wonderful commercial out of their kickstarter page with free tech advertizing for price of 6 minutes of video and cg. The 'leet' hardware will at least get writers and 'insiders' to read the page and create a 'cutting edge' capable association of the ubuntu OS.
 
Most users have money but refuse to actually purchase software. By going "open source", they are "sticking it to the man" (ie Microsoft).
:rolleyes:

More like sticking it to themselves with poor productivity and non-standard programs :p .
 
I think it's going to cost them more than $600 to make it. The extra 7 minutes of machining time for those divets is why.

But seriously, I would buy it.
 
WTF who needs 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM on a phone?
Cut those those specs by 1/4 and still have a decent phone and then can lower the price, oh, by half.

You did catch the part where you can plug in an HDMI cord and use it as a full desktop OS, right? I know you can use desktop OS's on less as well, but I've tried working on a Raspberry Pi, it's no fun. The more RAM/CPU speed the better
 
WTF who needs 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM on a phone?
Cut those those specs by 1/4 and still have a decent phone and then can lower the price, oh, by half.

Bill Gates, is that you?
quote-640k-ought-to-be-enough-for-anybody-bill-gates-69066.jpg
 
If they don't hit 15 mil in 5 days, they won't make it. Crowd funded projects tend to start strong and end slow. We will find out how much momentum this project has once the day one priced devices have sold out.
 
More like sticking it to themselves with poor productivity and non-standard programs :p .

Well, on a side note, I use Linux in and off-and-on kinda way and I totally support this statement as true. Stuff like LibreOffice can do some great stuff, but it's OMG lame when you start having to convert between it and MS Office. Formatting gets messed up going back and forth, even with files that aren't using very complex features. FOSS stuff is a good thing, but there's huge problems.
 
Android, iOS and Windows phone perhaps. I don't know anyone who would deliberately buy themselves Blackberries anymore,

Hmm lawfirm that I work at disagrees with you.

We have many older berries still in service and about 100 z10/q10 currently active.

People that actually do work still use blackberries.....The hipster crowd and teenagers will stick to their iphones and andriod phones.

Granted we have iphones and andriod phones in our environment but ask any lawyer what they prefer when doing work its BB.
 
Yes they will.

People are crazy about Linux , and rightfully so.
 
Yes they will.

People are crazy about Linux , and rightfully so.

Ubuntu is the red-headed bastard pet of GNU/Linux and doesn't deserve to be a part of the Debian branch.

Ubuntu to Linux is the equivalent to OS X to UNIX.
 
Looks like Ubuntu is trying to pull a Windows 8. That's okay, I don't like Debian based distributions.
 
Ubuntu is the red-headed bastard pet of GNU/Linux and doesn't deserve to be a part of the Debian branch.

Ubuntu to Linux is the equivalent to OS X to UNIX.

That's the best analogy I think I've ever seen for Ubuntu. However, Mark Shuttleworth's reality distortion field doesn't extend beyond Canonical :D
 
I'd play around with it, but I doubt it will work on Verizon ( = no sale for me)
 
What's funny about this is that companies use to have to give up equity or pay high interest rates for this type of thing. But now, the consumer can hand them an interest free loan with no equity stake.
 
Also, since Google has their Google Chrome OS and most modern Android devices support MHL (HDMI over the usb jack), they could crush this with a Nexus device that docks. Kinda like the Atrix, without the secondary PC part.

UNLESS these guys are trying to cram an x86 processor in there.
 
Also, since Google has their Google Chrome OS and most modern Android devices support MHL (HDMI over the usb jack), they could crush this with a Nexus device that docks. Kinda like the Atrix, without the secondary PC part.

UNLESS these guys are trying to cram an x86 processor in there.

I don't think so...they just said they were going to use the best processor available when they actually get to building the phone. I'd guess some variety of ARM. For what they are trying to achieve, it would make sense to go x86 though, IMO.
 
I don't think so...they just said they were going to use the best processor available when they actually get to building the phone. I'd guess some variety of ARM. For what they are trying to achieve, it would make sense to go x86 though, IMO.

I'm still impressed by the concept, it's just unfortunate it had to be Ubuntu to do this first before Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

The idea to transition and link between a mobile device and a desktop computer is not new, but I have not seen a product outside the Atrix that has done it yet. And, I have yet to see one do it successfully.

You would have think that Microsoft with Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 or Apple with OSX and iOS would be the first to come up with this idea of a shared, seamless environment. Heck, Google's Android and Chrome OS would have worked too given both run on an ARM processor. However, neither companies have come up with such a device or software.

If Ubuntu succeeds at this, it'll hopefully pave the way for better software from the major three competitors in the mobile space-- Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

If the apps are HTML5/Javascript-based, the processor should be irrelevant. However, if Ubuntu wants other than web-based apps to be able to transition between a mobile and desktop computing device, they need to switch to an x86 processor such as the AMD Jaguar-based mobile APUs or Intel's newer Bay Trail (or other) Atom SoCs. This way programs will not run into the issue that Windows 8 RT has-- x86-compiled programs can't run on RT devices, and RT-compiled programs for ARM can't run on Windows 8 computers.
 
They amassed $3M just over the past ~12 hours. I think they have a chance of making their 32M.

If the device were Sprint CDMA compatible, I probably would have contributed for the device-level amount. But sadly...GSM only. Stupid Sprint and their affordable MVNO's! (cough:Ting:cough).
 
They amassed $3M just over the past ~12 hours. I think they have a chance of making their 32M.

If the device were Sprint CDMA compatible, I probably would have contributed for the device-level amount. But sadly...GSM only. Stupid Sprint and their affordable MVNO's! (cough:Ting:cough).

That was the easy 3M. Now that the for 1 day perk is used up, we'll get a better idea of if they can hit the 32M targer.
 
That was the easy 3M. Now that the for 1 day perk is used up, we'll get a better idea of if they can hit the 32M targer.

yea true that
if they don't hit 15m+ within first 10 days or so i don't see this happening
 
The problem with the atrix and every other transitional device is that the carriers do not support it and nothing will change here. It would be a miracle if any carrier even stocks this phone. You can see right away here how many people say well no sprint, or Verizon no deal and on top of that no subsidized contract.
 
The problem with the atrix and every other transitional device is that the carriers do not support it and nothing will change here. It would be a miracle if any carrier even stocks this phone. You can see right away here how many people say well no sprint, or Verizon no deal and on top of that no subsidized contract.

there is no stock
this phone will be limited run only backers gets it....if it meets the goal of 32m ( LOL )
 
WTF who needs 128GB of storage and 4GB of RAM on a phone?
Cut those those specs by 1/4 and still have a decent phone and then can lower the price, oh, by half.

The idea is it can be used as a desktop when docked. In a way I could see this working. If you run a terminal server environment and normal thin clients for instance. I could see this with a dock replacing that. Make a ultrabook dock and make a desk dock that acts as a phone set. Dock your phone and have some local apps and your terminal server apps. Have it work with voip on the desk and transfer cell calls. This could be a nice setup.

Hmm lawfirm that I work at disagrees with you.

We have many older berries still in service and about 100 z10/q10 currently active.

People that actually do work still use blackberries.....The hipster crowd and teenagers will stick to their iphones and andriod phones.

Granted we have iphones and andriod phones in our environment but ask any lawyer what they prefer when doing work its BB.

The blackberry does a very good job and handling work. My 5 year old blackberry is far faster and better at pulling up and working in its calendar, contacts, etc then my iphone 4s. I can see why a lot of people still like them(the keyboards on them help as well).
 
An ice cube stands a better chance in hell than these guys do meeting their goal...
 
What's funny about this is that companies use to have to give up equity or pay high interest rates for this type of thing. But now, the consumer can hand them an interest free loan with no equity stake.

Exactly, it's funny because at the same time that more people then ever see companies as evil we see more and more of these people assuming the risks for companies with funding such as this.

Let's assume they get their money, make their phones and they take off and are wildly successful, Ubuntu could make a ton of cash off these :investments." But let's look at it the otherway, they get their money and everything falls apart, then what happens is company brushes off it's hands, says "Oops, my bad" and continues on with business as usual and the crowdsourcers are out $32 million.
 
Hmm lawfirm that I work at disagrees with you.

We have many older berries still in service and about 100 z10/q10 currently active.

People that actually do work still use blackberries.....The hipster crowd and teenagers will stick to their iphones and andriod phones.

Granted we have iphones and andriod phones in our environment but ask any lawyer what they prefer when doing work its BB.

Android users are hipsters now? You better go in hiding before you get yourself lynched ;-)

I was referring to the consumer level, not business level.
 
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