Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has announced a tablet version of the popular open-source operating system. Canonical has said that the new variant of the OS is part of its overall strategy of rolling out Ubuntu across multiple categories of devices such as televisions, mobile phones, tablets and PCs.
An exhaustive post on the official Ubuntu website explains that the OS will work on tablets with the help of a new interface designed for larger, touch displays. It will also be optimized to work on multiple hardware configurations but will require a minimum of 2GB RAM, a dual core Cortex A9 processor (or equivalent), 8GB of storage and a multi-touch display. The post further explains that the same OS will run on all platforms and the only differing factor between them will be the interface.
Canonical has stated that it is in talks with its PC OEM partners to push Ubuntu on mobiles and tablets and that the first tablets running Ubuntu will be out by the end of the year. However, Canonical hasn’t revealed any tentative pricing details, only stating that the tablets will be priced “competitively.”
If you were expecting to run Android apps on Ubuntu tablets, you’re in for disappointment. Canonical explains that since Ubuntu is a completely separate OS, you will not be able to run Android apps on it. However, Canonical claims to have made it easy for developers to republish Android apps for Ubuntu, especially if apps have been developed for either iOS or Android using HTML5. Canonical has also released an SDK for developers interested in creating apps for Ubuntu.
