Is Ubuntu for Android launching on January 2nd?
Canonical has announced that an "all-new Ubuntu product" will be released on January 2nd, which is just a couple days away, but there has been no word on what the product will be. Of course, we can make an educated guess based on the known products in development, and since Ubuntu is all open-source, it's kind of hard for there to be a complete surprise release. Our best guess is that this could be the release of Ubuntu for Android.
It is possible that it could be an announcement of an Ubuntu phone or tablet, but that seems highly unlikely given that work has just started on optimizing Ubuntu for mobile devices, and Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said specifically that the OS wouldn't be ready for use on phones or tablets until 2014. Given all that, it seems far more likely that this will be the official release party for Ubuntu for Android, which is something of a stop-gap product until the OS is fully mobile ready.
We've seen Ubuntu for Android demoed before and it looks pretty amazing. The basic idea is that your phone or tablet runs Android as usual, but when docked, it will switch to a full Ubuntu instance shown on an external monitor, and it will bring over whatever you're doing in Android from continuing the same music, to opening the same browser tabs.
We'll find out soon enough, but we're keeping our fingers crossed for Ubuntu for Android (and that it will support the newest Nexus devices).
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