Wednesday, November 01, 2017

Retiring my Ubuntu Phone after 1000 days

With some sadness I recently replaced my Ubuntu Phone with a Nexus 5. It lasted me just over 1000 days (almost three years) as my everyday phone, and I last wrote about it at the 500 mark.

Even though this is the end for me and Ubuntu Phone the hope of a true open source phone platform continues on:
  • The Ubuntu Phone project lives on ubports.
  • As I put my Ubuntu phone to rest the Purism Librem 5 project was funded with over $2 million!
I wish both these projects all the best.

My thoughts on my time with Ubuntu Phone:
  • It worked!
  • While the hardware (Meizu MX4) was reasonable hardware, it would have been nice to see it on something newer/faster and have gone through some more iterations on software performance.
  • The apps I missed most were:
    • An app for my bank and network provider (that I could use to quickly check balances).
    • Communication apps (e.g. Facebook messenger, WhatsApp)
    • Uber
  • I used a reasonable amount of webapps, which mostly filled the gap where apps weren't available. I does appear that most companies put more effort into their mobile apps than mobile web.