14 DAY TRIAL // People tend to think about Ubuntu for Phones like a separate platform, but the truth is that it's a lot closer to the PC than most users think. The fact that an app like GCompris can be made to run on phones is good proof of that.
When a new mobile operating system makes its way onto the market, one of the main concerns is the number of apps that are available by default. As it stands right now, there are more than 700 available in the store and news ones are being published all the time. Some of them are made from scratch and others are ported.
An interesting feature of the Ubuntu mobile experience is that the OS can be home to apps that you would normally see on the desktop, like GCompris, which is actually a collection of apps for kids. It's a complex piece of software, but it looks like it's been made to work natively on Ubuntu for phones without much hassle.
Ubuntu is much more flexible than developers might think
Canonical released an Ubuntu SDK a while back and it's been making it better with a ton of updates. It has support for click packages and the Ubuntu Touch platform, which makes it a lot easier to publish apps for the phone.
"Spent the weekend getting the new QML based version of GCompris running on Ubuntu Touch; still a couple of little issues that need looking at but most stuff is working very nicely," wrote Canonical's Mike Sheldon, who's an app developer.
He also has a video demo you can check below. It seems to work just fine and that means that we'll probably get to see more of these applications made to work with the phone. The volume of apps will probably increase after MWC 2015, when two Ubuntu phones will be officially made available in stores, from Meizu and BQ.
