A common reason to switch to Ubuntu Touch is to become less dependent on Google. On vivid, Dekko is a decent email client that can handle different email providers. Sadly, the app doesn't work on xenial and the developer @DanChapman has indicated that is is challenging (to say the least) to port Dekko to 16.04. Make no mistake here about my esteem for Dan, he has done, and as I understand it continue to make great things for the UT platform.

My goal with this thread is to make a call for a working xenial email client, which I think should be a core app (Dekko or something else). Being such an essential feature on a modern smartphone, I think a native email core app is necessary for UT and UBports to gain traction outside of a small group of enthusiasts.

Thanks to Rudi Timmermans and his Gmail app, I am able to use xenial as a daily driver. I am annoyed by Google, as are many people in this community, but for the time being Gmail (or google apps email) is my only option if I want to read emails on my UT phone.

I am not a developer myself, but I try to help out as much as I can testing things and filing bugs where appropriate. I would really like more people to chime in on this request and enable UT users to break free from Google as much as possible if they like.

All the devs that are working so hard to make Ubuntu Touch such a great mobile OS have my full respect and I understand that moving to 16.04 must be the number 1 priority right now. But, pretty please (with sugar on top), could we gather some clever brains to bring Dekko or some other general email app to Ubuntu Touch!?

@unisuperbox
I have a few questions:

1. It is getting longer between the 16.04 devel updates (at least on Turbo). Also, the Backlog Milestones are not seeing much action. Is it not just updated or are development resources used elsewhere?
2. When can we expect a new test version of Anbox? @mariogrip mentioned on the last Q&A that he has a new version with working mobile connectivity.
3. Developer interest to recompile apps for xenial seems limited at the moment. What kind of signals do you get from the dev community on this? Is it too difficult? Aren't there enough devs with xenial phones to test their apps? Other reasons?
4. I know there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes that we normal users can't see, but sometimes it is difficult to not get the impression that development has stalled somewhat. That is especially true when there is little or no action on Github and no devel updates for 16.04 for a while. Is this a matter of lack of resources to update forums, Telegram etc or just the fact that development is actually moving slower at times?
5. There was also talk about a new webbrowser app for xenial on the last Q&A, what is the status on this?

What are the future milestones of UBports? Have you moved the milestones from Github (empty since OTA-8) or aren't there any?

During the last Q&A, a question about how work is progressing with bluetooth was raised just at the end of the session, and it was therefore not addressed before the Q&A ended. The person asking said bluetooth issues appear to affect all devices in some way or another, so it should be rather critical for UBPorts and Ubuntu Touch.

I also want to know if there is any work done to improve bluetooth functionality, because as it stands now it is nearly unusable in Ubuntu Touch. If I am lucky, I can play music through bluetooth speakers (often with considerable stutter), and that is about it. Phone calls, Pebble smart watch won't work.

If the core team could shed some light on this, it would be appreciated.

Thanks

What is going to happen when the 16.04 backlog is empty? Will there be an RC channel or will you just continue working towards a stable OTA?

Yes, or at least similar. I haven't flashed my Pro 5 to UBports yet, but the behavior on the Canonical image is similar. Every reboot resets cellular to 2G only. I have to manually set it to 4G. Also toggling airplane mode on/off a few times can trigger the problem.

@Marathon2422
I can't agree more! Bluetooth has been unreliable ever since the launch of Ubuntu Touch. BLE devices never worked well and last time I tested with a BLE keyboard I couldn't bring the OSK back after disconnecting the KB. Car kits, as I stated above, has not worked for me since my Bq E4.5. While it connects fine, there is no audio or mic routed through the phone app. My Pebble Round watch connects, but the BT connection is not recognized by the Rockwork app.

Many smartphone users today, rely on bluetooth for handsfree phone callls, external speakers, smart watches, mice and keyboards, so I believe it is essential this works flawlessly in Ubuntu Touch too.

Any news on the calendar and clock apps, that keep crashing in xenial?

@stefano
C'mon @mariogrip , feed the hungry testers :-D!

@rocky58 That is my problem too, Pro5 connects fine with car kit, but no audio.

Is the Pinetab software being worked on or on halt atm? I have a Pinetab Ubports edition, but almost immediately switched to Mobian as Ubports at the time of delivery wasn't very functional. I haven't seen much activity on this forum or elsewhere regarding UBports/Pine64 lately, particularly when it comes to the Pinetab.

Since yesterday, my PineTab won't see or connect to any wifi networks. I have restarted the device multiple times, but still the same. I have also toggled wifi and tried to turn on airplane mode (which doesn't seem to work at all), but to no avail.

Edit: I managed to fix this with the nmcli command.

nmcli networking on
nmcli radio wifi on

I just got my PineTab with keyboard stand and trying it out.

Currently running on UBports devel channel to see the progress to the software. As has been commented on above, it is still rather buggy. Sometimes trackpad will work, sometimes not and sometimes the mouse cursor disappears completely. At times, there seem to be an invisible limit for the mouse cursor movement, which I can't move beyond.

Screen resolution appears to be less than optimal. E.g. indicators are not crisp and window titles text is kind of rugged. Also, scaling in the browser makes address and bottom bars look huge, consuming a great deal of screen real estate. Is this a settings issue, or is it just a screen resolution that works poorly with Unity8?

I haven't tried to many things yet, but among those that work for me are:
Dekko2
Teleports
UT Tweak Tool
Browser (with scaling problems)
Keyboard (trackpad sometimes)
OpenStore
Terminal

Not working:
Rotation
Bluetooth
User accounts
GPS

The device is rather sluggish at this stage, but I am confident that will get better with future upgrades. That probably also goes for battery, which has dropped from 100% down to about 60% in a couple of hours light use.

Interesting to try it out and hopefully it will be able to replace my aging BQ tablet with UBports eventually. I really like the nifty stand with built-in keyboard.

@mrcyjanek After a week of enjoying my OP6 with UBports, it started to act up a bit, particularly with wifi and mobile data connection. I usually solved this by doing a complete reboot, but the last few times the phone would only reboot into UBports with screen at max brightness and then shortly after turn itself off. The battery is at over 90% and I am able to boot into fastboot mode, so I thought maybe I should reflash.

Some more info: I am able to ssh into the phone, just like before, but the screen remains off.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

@mrcyjanek I find the built in speaker volume very low. Is this a known issue with this port or is it a hardware problem?

@stefwe Hm, could that be changed? Is it up to the dev porting it?

I thought OP6 was an arm64 device, but when I tried to install futify.frenchutouch_1.0.0_arm64.click it failed while futify.frenchutouch_1.0.0_armhf.click installed at launched fine.

@Flohack Ok, I am not sure how to check a) and c). I guess there is no community channel yet, but I could be wrong. I'll wait for more info from @mrcyjanek . So far so good, though. Positively surprised I managed to install UBports on the device even though I wasn't able to follow the installation instructions exactly. The OP6 is a really nice device and much snappier than my aging Pro5.

@makeixo The port works surprisingly well. Phone calls work, without echo too! The overall experience is that the device is very fast and smooth. It has its quirks, e.g. that some apps won't work (mostly non arm64 apps I think). Also, the indicators are partially hidden behind the front facing camera and speaker. Picture quality is excellent. Battery drain for me, with cellular and wifi on seems to be 5-7 percent per hour.

Will OP6 get OTA updates in the near term or will updates have to be flashed?