The first Ubuntu smartphone will be introduced in early 2014. However, you shouldn’t expect it to have all of the bells and whistles a modern mobile platform has. For one thing, it won’t have an app store, the feature that will have to wait for some other version.
Speaking to Engadget, Canonical’s product manager Richard Collins said that the company is initially targeting basic users who only run pre-installed apps.
In terms of our first go-to-market product strategy, the intention is not to have an application store full of ready-made applications that are there to download. We have a very definite approach in terms of addressing a very important part of the market where users are primarily interested in being able to use a core set of applications.
And while we’ve no doubts that app store will eventually be available on Ubuntu Mobile, we do dare to wonder who in the world will get a smartphone which doesn’t support third-party apps from the get-go. I’m not sure what’s the point of releasing such a product, except to get an early feedback. Not sure what’s going on here but I do look forward to see Ubuntu providing a viable alternative. We’ll let you know when we hear something new on this…