While I've been a Linux user for several years on and off, I don't really keep up with the news and happenings in that world.
From my perspective, the move to Unity made zero sense at the time. It was a clear case of NIH (Not Invented Here). "It works better on small screens" was translated in my head to "Netbooks are the future!" so I went out and bought an Asus eeePC. IT wasn't bad, but it got old after a while and I sold it.
Fast forward 2.5 years, and we're seeing the convergence of mobile devices. I personally carry a 7" Samsung tablet as a phone. Others around me carry an iPad or iPad Mini in addition to an iPhone or Android device. Now "It works better on a small screen" translates to "We're building a single experience across phones, tablets, laptops and desktops."
Apple has been trending that way for about a year with the introduction of the App Store for Mac, and Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon too with Metro and its touch-based UI features.
Suddenly, the much-maligned move to Unity as a desktop shell makes Shuttleworth look like a freakin' genius, as Ubuntu sits here with a unified experience for both users and developers, while Microsoft tries to push its heavyweight OS onto tablets and Apple tries to close the gap between iOS and OSX.
Add in that Ubuntu's primary development language seems to be Python, while your other options are Java (Android), Objective-C (iOS) or .NET (Win8)... I'm seriously considering dropping my side projects and going headlong into app development for Ubuntu Phone. It's a gamble, but if anyone can threaten the status quo right now, I think it's going to be Ubuntu.
App development for Ubuntu touch is currently based on QML (Javascript & maybe C++). I'd love to see them properly support Python in the future, but I've no idea if they will.
I agree with most of what you say. But it seems like there's still a big technical gulf between Ubuntu desktop (X based, with apps in Python+GTK) and Ubuntu touch (Surfaceflinger, apps in QML). I'm sure there's a plan to bring them closer together, but so far I don't know what that will be.
EDIT: And just minutes after I post, at least part of the answer appears: they're making a new display server, Mir, for both desktop and touch devices.
My understanding is that QML describes the interface, but the actual application logic is written in something else.
From Ubuntu's developer portal:
> While Ubuntu and the applications that come with Ubuntu are written in many different languages, from C to Java to Haskell, when writing something new we recommend using Python. Many important parts of Ubuntu are already written directly in Python, and we work to make every important API and framework within Ubuntu available from Python. Python includes a rich standard library and a vast set of third party modules, so there are libraries available for just about everything you can think of.
I've not gotten far into it though, and likely won't for a month or two. My experience lies almost completely on the web; I've never written a native mobile app or released desktop software.
From my perspective, the move to Unity made zero sense at the time. It was a clear case of NIH (Not Invented Here). "It works better on small screens" was translated in my head to "Netbooks are the future!" so I went out and bought an Asus eeePC. IT wasn't bad, but it got old after a while and I sold it.
Fast forward 2.5 years, and we're seeing the convergence of mobile devices. I personally carry a 7" Samsung tablet as a phone. Others around me carry an iPad or iPad Mini in addition to an iPhone or Android device. Now "It works better on a small screen" translates to "We're building a single experience across phones, tablets, laptops and desktops."
Apple has been trending that way for about a year with the introduction of the App Store for Mac, and Microsoft is jumping on the bandwagon too with Metro and its touch-based UI features.
Suddenly, the much-maligned move to Unity as a desktop shell makes Shuttleworth look like a freakin' genius, as Ubuntu sits here with a unified experience for both users and developers, while Microsoft tries to push its heavyweight OS onto tablets and Apple tries to close the gap between iOS and OSX.
Add in that Ubuntu's primary development language seems to be Python, while your other options are Java (Android), Objective-C (iOS) or .NET (Win8)... I'm seriously considering dropping my side projects and going headlong into app development for Ubuntu Phone. It's a gamble, but if anyone can threaten the status quo right now, I think it's going to be Ubuntu.