Like Sailfish, Ubuntu is based on Linux. Unlike Sailfish, there aren't any Ubuntu phones yet. But the company behind it announced partnerships with two phone makers last week. Phones are due to come out this year, likely to European and Asian markets at first.
Ubuntu's home page has a series of so-called scopes, arranged by category. One video scope might consist of icons for movies on your phone. Another might have items in your Netflix queue. You can refine what's presented through a universal search. The idea is to let you access content easily, without having to open an app first.
Swipe from the left edge to get a launcher. The top has all your open apps, while your favorite apps are underneath those. There's also a home screen scope to search for installed apps and those in the app store.
Swipe from the right edge to get your most recently used app. Swipe further for a carousel of all open apps. Just pick one to go straight to it.
These systems all have good innovations to help users, but people will find the phone and app selections quite limiting. Sailfish has potential if it can indeed run well on existing Android phones, while Android apps can run on it. I look forward to trying that out when it's released in the first half of the year.
