"Are we mainstream-ready yet?"
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Hi UBports community,
I discovered Ubuntu Touch recently and feel very enthusiastic about it, as an alternative to current mainstream options.
But it is difficult to estimate where it is, in terms of user experience. I watched a couple of videos, and it seems still in a clearly "early adopter" phase.
Was wondering whether it could make sense to publish a table or roadmap outlining the exact features, services and improvements that are missing to match the Android/iOS user experience. This would help potential users, as well as developers to identify quickly where to help, and possibly also funders, who could more easily understand viability.
I imagine that there's a well organized board of technical issues, but this still is meaningful to give a more general overview, to a wider audience, and more specific about the gap to mainstream platforms.
Thank you!
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@developer Thanks for your thoughts - maybe this:
https://forums.ubports.com/topic/11644/smooth-edges-name-pending-let-s-fix-the-bugs-that-drive-you-mad
is a good place to dive in. -
fact is, the product needs marketing as much as new developers. There could be some videos on the main site highlighting the UI features because there are quite a few useful tricks that are not apparent for new users - to be fair, this is an issue for a tool like a phone that has no place on the screen for extended help, however there is a wealth of news articles, third party videos and user base that compensates this for Android while there is not much for UT.
I have browsed a bit the videos on Youtube and found a (too big) number of basic videos giving only basic introduction so your impression may be biased too much on 'early adopters'. Using a supported phone (Volla, Fairphone, Brax now it seems) makes a difference in ease of use not having to delve too much into custom roms.
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@developer After 35 years of existence, GNU/Linux desktop/laptop are mostly unknown from more than 90% of consumers in the world because of the way the capitalist system organises (manipulates, distorts) competition.
The same causes producing the same effects, we can expect mobile operating systems other than the duopoly to take several decades to exceed 1% market share.
Be that as it may, the important thing is that UT continues to be viable in the long run, for its ~10k current users and is able to attract others who share the vision and objectives of freedom, sharing and solidarity of the UBports community and more widely of those who appreciate free software philosophy.In 2026, with Qt6, Mir2, xdg-desktop-portal and Lomiri or others improvements, UT will be up to date and in the best possible condition to attract developers and users/contributors.
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@developer said in "Are we mainstream-ready yet?":
Was wondering whether it could make sense to publish a table or roadmap outlining the exact features, services and improvements that are missing to match the Android/iOS user experience. This would help potential users, as well as developers to identify quickly where to help, and possibly also funders, who could more easily understand viability.
I would say that the issue with that is that "the Android/iOS user experience" means very different things for different users, depending on how they use their phone. Some might use Android/iOS, only use some very basic phone features that have been covered for long by Ubuntu Touch, while someone might rely on this very niche Application available on Android/iOS and consider it as and an essential basic tool, while only a small minority use it. (And many different users might use different niche applications)
Some people will tolerate without problem some feature being slightly less efficient than in Andoid/iOS because they don't spend much time on their phone or use some feature very regularly, while this might be a problem for someone who use the phone intensively to loose even 1s when doing some operations.
I think all this is very subjective.
(As I've never used Android/iOS I cannot really compare anyway)
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I think the biggest difficulty for average users is not using Ubuntu Touch itself, but the procedures for unlocking the bootloader and, in most cases, downgrading the Android version, which requires studying and mastering procedures that are often quite complex, depending on the type of device.
Indeed, officially supported, pre-installed and partner devices (Volla, somehow Fairphone and soon - Brax3 in particular) allow Ubuntu Touch to be used ‘out of the box’.Ubuntu Touch was designed in the spirit of ‘Ubuntu’, i.e. very simple, user-friendly and intuitive to use, at least for basic tasks. Many Ubuntu Touch users on Telegram threads have no IT skills and are very happy with UT. It all depends on the specific needs of the users.
Most of the apps available in the OpenStore are great and very easy to use, but it is true that the catalogue is currently very limited, and WayDroid offers compatibility with certain Android apps, but unfortunately not those covering proprietary IoT applications.
I would add that since 2020, when I started my experience with Ubuntu Touch, I have noticed a clear improvement in the performance and overall stability of the system. From this point of view, the gap between Android and iOS has narrowed considerably.
To conclude, I personally use UT as a second device (holidays, leisure time), and am extremely happy with it!
