Apps I would love to see eventually made available on UT:

Video Chat - even a single way to do this would be fantastic - whether it is via eventual support for Telegrams currently alpha video call capabilities being enabled in TELEports - or via Morph support for various web based services, or via WebRTC - whatever gives us a viable option on UT devices that is easiest to implement is all good by me.

Task List with ToDoTxt support - there are a ton of existing task list apps for UT already, but I really would like one that has ToDoTxt support, along with NextCloud syncing support, so that it could be synced to a multitude of cross platform apps, all in a "future proof" format. Info on the ToDoTxt spec is at http://todotxt.org/

Native basic Video Editing app - while there are a number of online web services that can be used for this task, it would be way more efficient and reliable if there was a UT app that could do basic functions like trim, rotate, resize and reformat for videos - especially useful for posting to social media directly from ones mobile device.

Ride share app - it would be very useful for me if there was a UT native app for either Uber or Lyft (the two most popular services for this in the USA). While these services can be hailed via an online web page accessible via Morph, the rest of the experience is definitely not as smooth as what you get on Android and iOS.

Widevine support - it would be nice if there was a Widevine plugin for Morph, allowing it to be used for movie streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. I understand the proprietary DRM nature of this makes it difficult to do this - but given that there are plugins for Linux via Chrome (that is compatible with some of the other Chromium based browsers, as well as Firefox) - perhaps there is some way this could still be implemented.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Start with installing gimp package in your Libertine Container.
Screenshot is GIMP running in Libertine Container using the Color 48 theme to make icons usable on a mobile device - https://bitbucket.org/paynekj/paynekj-gimp-scripts/raw/2e8e87faf5eaaf6036e0d8b68ff9f6f37a3f0421/themes/Color-48.7z

In order to install this theme I had to extract the 7z archive on my computer and upload the folder to the phone. Then I had to go into home/phablet/cache/libertine-container/xenial/rootfs/usr/share/gimp/2.0/themes rename the "Default" theme folder as "Old Default" - and then paste in the Color 48 theme folder renamed as "Default" (because trying to change the theme from Gimp's gui would just crash it)

Also to get the GTK menus to be sized to be useable on phone it is important to: create a file named .Xdefaults in a text editor (tedit is a good Ubuntu Touch native one for this) with a single line Xft.dpi: 280 - or whatever other dpi value which you prefer. Save this to the home directory of your chroot environment - usually .local/share/libertine-container/user-data/xenial/ in your normal home directory.

You also still need to use an external bluetooth keyboard for GIMP on the phone in order to have the gui respond.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

great and informative interview! Thanks for posting and huge thanks to TheKit for all the work he has done for UT

Best regards,
Steve Berson

I was just thinking it would be fun and illuminating, and could possibly garner some promotion for UBports, if some recent devices (e.g. Volla Phone) that were fully configured were handed to some figures that were key to Canonical's initial effort to create Ubuntu Touch (e.g. Mark Shuttleworth, Jono Bacon, etc.) and if there impressions on how far Ubuntu Touch has come in the 4 years since Canonical dropped it were recorded and posted as a video. It would be nice to hear some talk by them on what they think could have happened if Ubuntu Edge had become a reality, as well as what they think UBports can offer for the future in terms of what has become of their "baby" once it "left home."

Just an idea! - and given that UBports has now been developing UT for around the same amount of time that Canonical did (about 4 years each - Canonical did 2013-2017) maybe one that makes sense to do now.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Telegram is NOT hosted in Russia - servers are located around the globe, financial HQ is in London UK, operational HQ is in Dubai UAE. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)

There are chat groups for UT also already hosted on Matrix (but that do not bridge to the Telegram groups) if one is looking for an existing alternative to Telegram.

I had never even heard of the Mattermost service prior to this post - given that there is no UT client for it at all seems one is putting the cart before the horse as far as this request goes.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Given that the current "promoted/supported devices" are now all discontinued and at least 4 years old (with the Nexus 5 now 7 years old) - doesn't it make sense to change both the website as well as support priorities to a new set of "promoted devices"? Seems to me Volla Phone, PinePhone, OnePlus 3/3T, Sony Xperia X series, PineTab, perhaps Google Pixel 3A, and whatever Xiaomi/Redmi device is looking to be easiest to fully support, would all make sense to change the focuses to as far as what is "promoted"- with the understanding that some devices (e.g. PinePhone, PineTab) need a bit more development before placing into this category.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Us users tend to fill up these Q&A's with feature requests for things we would most like to see developed sooner than later - but what things would the UBports team like to see added to UT by their fellow devs and the community first??

Best regards,
Steve Berson

I think the ultimate plan (or at least one possible one) is to allow people to place widgets and launchers on the wallpaper background as if it was a "home" (same as if it was a non-vanilla-Gnome-3 desktop) - but that this will take time to code and the need to streamline the code and image size to what can be easily maintained makes the first step of getting rid of Scopes one that will have to happen in order to make any forward progress from there.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Excellent news! Thanks so much for your work on this! So, just to check, camera and bluetooth are currently not working?

Best regards,
Steve Berson

There is a functional native Signal client (Axolotl) now in the Open Store, and there is a beta for TELEports available that allows the UT device to initiate an encrypted "secret chat" for Telegram, and there is a clunky but functional webapp available for Wire - so there is in fact a number of ways to send and receive encrypted messages from a UT device currently.

Also - if one needs to have end to end encrypted notes, the Standard Notes UT webapp allows to access these online with an option for them to be password protected.

But it would be great if encrypting our home folders was made much easier to do in the future - hopefully a developer will take on this task at some point.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@klh - I have 4 different watches that I have flashed to Asteroid OS: Ticwatch C2+ (skipjack), Huawei gen1 (sturgeon), LG G Watch R (lenok), and LG Watch Urbane (bass). These sync to Android using either the Asteroid OS sync app or Gadgetbridge.

There is a UT native Asteroid OS sync app called Telescope that has yet to be updated to Focal, I believe the maintainer of this app was needing some help to figure out getting around some issues for this port.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@Mark-Muth - Libertine in Focal is working well for me on my Volla Phone now, it just took multiple tries for me to get it installed (I ended up having to use the Terminal instead of the Systems Setting gui to get it done).

Best regards,
Steve Berson

• list item

@doniks - thank you so much for this! In my tests on Volla Phone running Focal it works
The only issue I saw is that the default container id shown by it on launch is "xenial" - please change this so it defaults to "focal" so users do not have to enter this for each new install.

Beat regards,
Steve Berson

@osndok - to be clear, there is currently nothing that fulfills all those requirements that runs UT - OR that is expected or in the works to fulfill all those requirements in the next year.

Regarding VoLTE: the only option that currently works for that for both calling / receiving is the PinePhone (and once ported, the PinePhone Pro as well). Otherwise Pixel 2XL, 3a or OnePlus 5, 5t, 6,6t have all been reported to be able to receive calls via VoLTE, but none of those devices can send calls via VoLTE when running UT. There are efforts being made to try and solve this, but whether and when they will show any results is unknown.

@idj - the Libertine Tweak Tool is in the Open Store at https://open-store.io/app/libertine-tweak-tool.doniks -. but it is built for Xenial only, so you can not install it if your device is running Focal. Hopefully the app will be updated with Focal support sooner than later.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@rugby - there are no updates that I am aware of. I don't think it will end up getting ported to Focal, unless someone outside of the usual suspects does some heavy lifting in a porting effort (which entails the arduous task of backporting systemd into the kernel, just for starters). A nine year life span for a smart phone is about as long as one can hope for these days, but probably time to put these beloved devices into their final resting places.

@delphi_coder
4) some of the Ubuntu Touch devices can send to external display monitors wirelessly through the Miracast protocol.

@delphi_coder
2) Ubuntu Touch by very specific design, only uses its own unique desktop environment, originally called Unity 8, and recently renamed Lomiri. This is why it does not use Gnome.

If you want to use Gnome there are other mobile OS's that use it, but the core developers of Ubuntu Touch do not have an interest in implementing it.

@delphi_coder -
2) Ubuntu Touch was originally created and named by Canonical, the developer of Ubuntu, who maintained it from 2013 until abandoning it in 2017. UBPorts took over development and kept the name.

@delphi_coder

1. arm devices from Android OEM's do not use mainline Linux kernels, rather they use generally fixed version ones that are setup with proprietary binary blobs and firmware to run the hardware. The Halium layer allows the Ubuntu Touch OS to communicate to these drivers