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Comment by u2328 | Hacker News Reader

I'm bored by Ubuntu, much less the promise of a Ubuntu smartphone. I thought the appeal of Ubuntu was that it was a freedom-respecting but user-friendly alternative to Windows and Mac. Turn out, their Unity interface ships your desktop search results off to Amazon and tried to sell you something when searching for a program or a file on your system.

So, for a Ubuntu phone, at least on the privacy/respect front, it's no better than Android. Android has better support, has a ton of third party support and the weight of Google behind it. Can anyone explain why should I switch to a Ubuntu phone?

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I think its killer feature is how it's an all-in-one OS. In you pocket, it's a smartphone; docked, it's a complete linux desktop environment.

I thought that was a feature for 'Ubuntu for Android' (a different product). I could be wrong, but I don't see that feature available under the 'Ubuntu Phone' list of features.

It's right here on the Ubuntu Phone homepage: http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/operators-and-oems

Running a full unity desktop on your average smartphone would be dog slow. Looks like the idea is to use it to deliver thin client services.

Well, I stand corrected. That would, indeed, be a killer feature, if it works well. I suspect it won't, unfortunately.

I'm sure we can look forward to a Linux Mint phone pretty soon ;)

On a more serious note... People who say, "Linux, therefore it can be hacked to your liking" really don't understand the public at large or aren't empathetic. I mean if you have the complete source (we're talking, no proprietary binaries as well), as Stallman would say, you can pay someone else to change the thing for you, but how many people would really invest the time and effort to that?

We would need an army of people like this : http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1047633/one-writes-...

... willing to invest time & energy and have a passion for doing things because they should be done so those who can't or, for various reasons, won't will still benefit.

I can count on one hand, the number of strangers I've met that come close.

> Differentiation for OEMs and operators.

We all know what that means.

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