So I installed UT yesterday on a brand new Nexus 5.

I'm happy to report that phone calls, video recording, selfies, photos -- all the basic stuff that a phone is supposed to do works well, to an acceptable standard,

After spending yesterday evening and most of today (It's 3:30pm now) investigating other stuff that I might need, I'm disappointed about these things:

• There's no working video chat messenger.
• Viber (my favourite messenger) doesn't work on it.
• GPS doesn't work. I tried both Unav and Puremaps (while inside and outside/in my car). Although this isn't a deal breaker, as I can just use a Garmin or Navman or something.

Although I'm happy to see Mattermost working. That's an app I use daily, for work.
Slack also works, which is something I use daily. Nice!

So at the end of the day, I'd rate the development to be in line with the functionality of a flip phone. You can call, sms and take pictures/video.

However, I can see the potential. I can't use this phone as my daily driver yet, due to the above bullet-pointed reasons. I'm still pretty impressed though.

I actually purchased 4 of these phones. I was hoping to give one to my mum, on to my dad and one to my wife. But after testing it out today and yesterday, I realise I'm prolly going to have to go the AOSP route, because I need to video chat. The main reason I am attracted to a Linux phone is to get away from Google, tracking and privacy issues.

I actually COULD use this Nexus phone as my own phone -- if I didn't have any family or friends and just wanted a phone in my pocket -- but with all this Covid BS, and the fact I didn't see my family for a year, the ability to be able to video chat is paramount. So again, I think it's gonna have to be AOSP for me (for now).

And having said that, I REALLY want to use Linux. There's just something cooler about running a Linux phone than AOSP. I'll keep playing with this one though.

*An anecdotal side note: I switched to Linux full time 2 years ago, and I haven't looked back. However, I'd been "trying" Linux every year for 13 year before that. For a decade, I considered Linux a toy -- something that couldn't be used as a daily OS. But on the 14th try, everything just clicked, and I realised I could FINALLY use Linux as my daily OS. I actually work for an IT company, doing digital marketing and web development -- and I am using Linux with absolutely NO hassles now.

I see Ubuntu Touch the same as I used to see Linux in general. It's a fun toy; or a great phone for a recluse); but I cant't see mass adoption until at least ONE (privacy respecting) video chat app works.

Who do we have to pay to get that to happen?

So that's my 2 cents after a 24 hour play around with UT.

I'm still HIGHLY impressed. For what it is and what it does UT is pretty awesome.

@flohack Definitely Viber, without a doubt.

Privacy: https://privacy.viber.com/

..and it's widely adopted and just an awesome video messenger.

You can sync the desktop with the phone. It's intuitive, functional, simple and useful.

If Viber worked on UT, I'd become a one eyed advocate overnight.

That would be the catalyst that would cause me to make the change.

@emphrath I'm not looking for free. I am looking for freeDOM

Perfectly happy to pay for that, so I am not the product.

@dobey I'll stop saying it, because I know it's not well received -- but I can't stop thinking it. I'll move onto other, more important topics now.

So if I have an Ubuntu Touch, and turn flight mode on -- basically it is very unlikely anyone will be tracking meat that point. Even the ISP, right?

In the video above, Google only knew where the man had been, because it was all recorded and uploaded by Google software on the phone, when he turned his phone back on.

Or, short of that, I could probably just put the phone in a faraday bag.

Okies guys, I'll check out telegram more closely. Ubuntu Touch will be so awesome if we can at least get video chat running. I can think of about 10 people I could easily convince to carry a Nexus 5 or Oneplus One phone if it had video chat.

I have never been a telegram user, but I'll definitely check it out and become familiar with it.

@flohack He seems quite genuine. But now his passion is to be creative with light bulbs and speakers that have an IP address? If he's that hard up for something to do, he should get back to Ubuntu Touch.

@domubpkm wow, nice! Wait! I see the light...

I personally believe that Ubuntu Touch will go from 0 to 100 if it had a good, SECURE, video chat messenger.

In another thread, it was noted that the main problem with starting a video chat app is that it requires centralised servers and that costs money -- and would require staff/infrastructure, etc.

So if that's the case (and I do believe it to be so), the obvious way forward is to have people pay for the app. I do believe people will.

How about we start small. Let's get the MAXIMUM users we possibly can one one server. Then, launch a good marketing campaign to cause that to grow on a cloud infrastructure or balanced servers or something. I don't know, I'm not a sys admin; but surely we can develop something that works and will be scaleable later, without too much trouble?

Mark my words: If we get ONE private, end to end encrypted video chat messenger running, that will make all the difference in the world for UT.

UT is such a great and polished OS, it's just sad to see it fading out the back door.

I think if one video chat app doesn't get built, UT touch is over.

But .. If there's a will, there's a way.

So we just need to get cracking on building a Linux video app from scratch. OR, work very closely with another FOSS project that has most of it already done -- and fork it.

We can start with just ONE server. If we can get all that functional, we can branch out. People will pay. Even if it's via crowdfunding. Everyone who contributes to crowdfunding gets access to the first server. The second and future servers will be by subscription.

We can set up a website and social media for the effort. It will grow, believe me. There's a LOT of support for UT. It just needs a bit more of a push to get across the line.

Link to social media, crowdfunding.. create YouTube videos. Get some PROPER marketing behind the effort. I'm capable of building all that myself. I'll do it for free. I do marketing, Facebook ads, Google ads, websites, etc all day every day for a living. It's my job. I can help.

One last thing. Kudos to everyone that continues to try to develop UT. You're all awesome. I know you're doing it on the smell of an oily rag -- which is more than I can say for Canonical. I truly hope someone with money comes along and props UT back up to where it should have been. There's still hope. Maybe all this effort needs is a decent marketing company behind it.

@emphrath I don't have the answers. I can't figure out why a lot of stupid things happen in this world -- yet, they happen. I can't figure out why a lot of people think they way they do -- yet, there they are, baffling any semblance of logic and reason; and in NUMBERS. Hoards, even.

We can discuss semantics endlessly, but at the end of the day, Canonical has hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and access to countless programmers that are willing to (and do) work for nothing. Yet, they couldn't even get UT to a point where even ONE basic app for each task/project would work? *Kind of like what Apple did.

I'm just not buying it. I know I'm sounding like a broken record at this point -- so I won't keep repeating myself. I personally believe a crowd funding campaign for $250k would get UT over the line to a point where it would be adopted by hundreds of thousands of more people -- which would generate the interest (and the money) to add more stuff. Purism did a crowdfunding campaign.

I know there are some limitations like an old kernel, etc. But still. It's just sad to see such a great project shining so brightly, but (as it appears to me) .. fading out the back door.

Ubuntu Touch is the BEST "idea". The most promising Idea. At the end of the day, it could probably even be programmed to run android apps, like Sailfish can. Like Linux runs Windows stuff with wine.

UT is like 95% the way there. What a waste. What a shame.

And SHAME ON CANONICAL as far as I'm concerned -- and I don't care what their excuse is. They have the money to get this over the line.

None of you have convinced me that Canonical didn't start out right, but got overtaken by monopolistic greed. It also makes me think twice about Ubuntu in general actually.

I'm not trying to start any trouble or accuse anyone. I'm just saying my thoughts. I could be wrong..

..bit something doesn't smell right.

@flohack It seems to be displaying something. It's refreshing like every 1/2 second and displaying timestamp, elevation, etc.

@stanwood

Yesterday, I checked that location services were turned on already and that the apps had access. They were toggled on. I didn't reboot after I checked those things though.

And also, the phone is brand new.

I'll try again today.