"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!
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@developer
its usable for most of people those who dont need things like payments or lot of office (msteams/google/zoom/…) calls to be taken from phoneonly thing that UT needs now to mainstream is to be found in every local tesco shop
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@developer there are some freedesktop standards we need, also flatpak integration, outside of that we need eSIM support and way way better waydroid support.
outside of that we need a waydroid compatibilty chart for every major banking app in every country
we also need guides to what messanger has what feature supported natively and how to set it up.
also we probably want to make a public transport app and start supporting every single country we can.
we also need sms forwarding (i remember people asking about it in the forums)
a secure wallet for NFC, so someone needs to expose the treble APIs for hardware backed encryption so we can store credit card NFC tags safely. (to please the google/apple pay users)
and much much more.
we need to compile every UT feature and aspire to feature parity with vanila android (not the apps just pure android)i'd make a full comparison chart but i dont have the time
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Maybe the public can be divided into subgroups with different needs. Ubuntu Touch has to fulfill those needs.
Newbies that are not so into terminal coding generally say Ubuntu Touch is buggy. That the text is so small overall. That the text cannot be easily adjusted. They cannot see the text! Major road block for some.
The cookie nagging in Morph browser can drive somebody nuts, especially if they can't figure out how to block those cookie questions. Adblock exists in Openstore, but there may be difficulty to find a cookie question block solution. Or youtube ad blocking.
Some newbies want a laptop Ubuntu Touch like a Xubuntu desktop. Few understand that literally means to work inside a Libertine container with a terminal, inside Ubuntu Touch, but still isolated from Ubuntu Touch. That they need a device with USB3, external monitor and desktop mode to get things done. Or with snaps. It is not easy to grasp how Ubuntu Touch really works inside as a newbie. Major road block.
Offline GPS navigation with route planning is definitely on many newbies wishlist. If this part is too buggy it cools down emotions. Music player is there thankfully.
Signal is probably one such app that has to exist on Ubuntu Touch natively and work well. There is no way around it. Communication is high priority for some and a show stopper for many if not available.
Comparison: zoom does not exist for linux aarch64. Games do not focus on snapdragon chips. Result: people regret buying an arm computer because their wanted apps are not there. Same with linux distros lacking those apps people want.
Others want EPUB3 in night mode with proper fonts and good rendering. Try to find any android app that can render epub3 with inline svg graphics as well as those two most used apps in Openstore. Here is the uniqueness in Ubuntu Touch. Still, the epub3 viewers have some noticeable bugs which cools emotions. Night mode flickering between pagination is one.
What is downloaded most usually is most wanted by many. Many times it is games. The core apps are expected to be there but maybe do not get as much attention. Gameboy emulator is really good! No bugs there.
Lets look at the app ISODrive. It really solves a big support issue. But it does not work in 24.04/daily. Creating a bootable USB-stick when your laptop needs reinstalling is a nightmare when you are travelling, right? Here you have a unique thing, but it is not working. Why not fix it? Such things make effect because they are needed and solve a real problem that arises quite frequently.
