The most opportunities I can see for UBports is custom OEM buildouts for large corporate.
For example, food retailer Chik-Fil-A goes through hundreds of IPads a year. (overheating)
Panera kiosks are all iPad based.
So look for large markets where a corporate may want a custom label (and secure) tablet front end for order or retail.
Provide the hooks for ecosystem integration (like VMWare AirWatch) would be a great start.
I went back and installed the original Ubuntu Touch with the SPFlash Tool and was able to update to the latest UBPorts version using the desktop app with no issues after that. Thanks for the prompt feedback everyone.
With BQ formally out of business now, it will give my M10FHD some extended life. I still remember how excited I was when it arrived from Spain here in the US way back when.
I will send a donation to the UB Ports Team as soon as I finish checking everything out.
I have been intimately involved in a corporate tablet specification, bake off and decision process, so I am not blind to anything that is required to use tablets in a corporate space.
In the bake off it really came down to the ecosystem surrounding the product. Not the apps running themselves. The apps were developed in house or used off the shelf commercial apps modified for their internal purposes.
I personally pitched an OEM Linux based tablet approach based on the fact that the use of Linux was already universal within the company.
No one would say (and I repeat, no one) would say running RHEL in a datacenter cloud is the same as running tablets in the field, but many of the required knowledge and tools sets are similar. The synergy and interest in career portability was very, very high.
I am not at liberty to share all the details of the decision process, nor can I share who won the bake off, all I can say is that all the low level technical requirements were easily met with a Linux based tab. Many of them were very, very specific that the competitors had to jump through hoops to support.
Everyone has to meet their needs in their own ways, I am only throwing out what examples exist. I am sorry that my 5 sentence post over estimates their needs in your mind, as I didn't expect to write a large justification of it, merely make a thought provoking suggestion.
Thank you for the update.
Completely understand how resources have to be focused. The BQ M10 tablets are now over 6 years old and the company is no more.
It will be a matter of time before the batteries start to lose their chemistry to hold charges, while mine still works as usual, time marches on.
I have found various alternate ROM's for this tab, and they have some of the same functional issues as UBPorts does, which I found interesting. The last ROM I found was based on Android 8 Oreo using Lineage as their base. So this tab did have "some" life beyond its original OS target.
I was advised in another Linux discussion forum that UBPorts will be dropping the BQ M10 FHD when the Ubuntu OS refresh occurs (2023?) and that OTA-23 will be the last release for it.
Do you have a link that references which devices will be dropped/added for the OS refresh, if/when that occurs.
Thank you.
@moem said in Corporate OEM designs:
@edwaleni Do you feel that the UT interface is intuitive enough for people to be able to use it instantly, if they are handed an iPad that runs UT?
Honestly speaking: I have my doubts. Most of us, when they switched from a different OS, needed a little time to find our feet.
I provided a full demo of the original Ubuntu Touch to a group who were tablet gurus in all the others (Android, Windows, IoS) and while they found some parts clunky, they liked the scopes concept and the ability to control the focus with a swipe, but some of these features have caught up in the other products now.
The biggest "clunky" issue they ran into was, Android and IoS goes all out to keep the users away from the things underneath.
Where UT seems to struggle is to know where to find the balance between what is simple Android touch and go VS. providing access to terminal/CLI low level functions. I broke my BQ Ubuntu Edition several times because I accessed areas I was apparently not supposed to go.
My peers seemed to feel the same way on that "touch simple" or "access all" metaphor.
Currently we have no "demo" or kiosk mode on ubuntu touch
we have no automatic updates
no app automatic updates, or push to device type of capability
This is one of the main reasons I think canonical is still developing mir however
That is an interesting suggestion. (Core and snaps).
I will look at that a little closer.
I have been intimately involved in a corporate tablet specification, bake off and decision process, so I am not blind to anything that is required to use tablets in a corporate space.
In the bake off it really came down to the ecosystem surrounding the product. Not the apps running themselves. The apps were developed in house or used off the shelf commercial apps modified for their internal purposes.
I personally pitched an OEM Linux based tablet approach based on the fact that the use of Linux was already universal within the company.
No one would say (and I repeat, no one) would say running RHEL in a datacenter cloud is the same as running tablets in the field, but many of the required knowledge and tools sets are similar. The synergy and interest in career portability was very, very high.
I am not at liberty to share all the details of the decision process, nor can I share who won the bake off, all I can say is that all the low level technical requirements were easily met with a Linux based tab. Many of them were very, very specific that the competitors had to jump through hoops to support.
Everyone has to meet their needs in their own ways, I am only throwing out what examples exist. I am sorry that my 5 sentence post over estimates their needs in your mind, as I didn't expect to write a large justification of it, merely make a thought provoking suggestion.
The most opportunities I can see for UBports is custom OEM buildouts for large corporate.
For example, food retailer Chik-Fil-A goes through hundreds of IPads a year. (overheating)
Panera kiosks are all iPad based.
So look for large markets where a corporate may want a custom label (and secure) tablet front end for order or retail.
Provide the hooks for ecosystem integration (like VMWare AirWatch) would be a great start.
Actually that is not me.
And I have to apologize for not searching these forums in more detail. I certainly am not posting just to make people go look up stuff for me.
I had flashed my M10 FHD to Android from Ubuntu years ago and now am coming back via UB Ports. So I am quite new to this specific arena.
I don't think I will be as "touchy" as those users are, but I am sure I am seeking the same kind of functionality they are, to expand their productivity from click apps to include Android apps.
So when I loaded UB Ports and being based on Linux, I started looking at containers, kvm and other types ways to do this.
The alternate ROM community for Android with the M10 FHD is all over the place where most will boot, but various little details won't work. Ubuntu and UB Ports thus far are where everything works, but the ecosystem appears small.
It seems being a Mediatek ARM based tab is causing a lot of developer grief in alternate ROM's.
Getting back to Anbox.....I will do more research on what you have provided and if needed will reset it back to stock and start over.
The instruction page states:
*Some devices require you to install a custom Linux kernel to use Anbox. These devices are:
Meizu Pro 5 (codename: turbo, name of the boot partition: bootimg)
BQ M10 HD (codename: cooler, name of the boot partition: boot)
BQ M10 FHD (codename: frieza, name of the boot partition: boot)*
I am running OTA-16 (20210305)
After flashing the kernel patch in the instructions, the Anbox installer says device is not flashed.
Please advise.
Set the export command as noted and downloaded the frieza image file.
Device is in Developer Mode.
edwaleni@edwaleni-R2700:~$ adb shell
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ sudo reboot -f bootloader
[sudo] password for phablet:
edwaleni@edwaleni-R2700:~$ sudo fastboot flash boot anbox-boot-frieza.img
target reported max download size of 134217728 bytes
sending 'boot' (11308 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.316s]
writing 'boot'...
OKAY [ 0.528s]
finished. total time: 0.844s
edwaleni@edwaleni-R2700:~$ sudo fastboot reboot
rebooting...
finished. total time: 0.102s
edwaleni@edwaleni-R2700:~$ adb shell
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ anbox-tool install
Anbox kernel is not installed! Please flash this first!
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$
I went back and installed the original Ubuntu Touch with the SPFlash Tool and was able to update to the latest UBPorts version using the desktop app with no issues after that. Thanks for the prompt feedback everyone.
With BQ formally out of business now, it will give my M10FHD some extended life. I still remember how excited I was when it arrived from Spain here in the US way back when.
I will send a donation to the UB Ports Team as soon as I finish checking everything out.