14 DAY TRIAL // The Ubuntu Touch developer team for smartphones and tablets has officially announced they will be providing support for only two devices in the upcoming months: the Nexus 7 (2013) tablet and Nexus 4 smartphone (and not the new Nexus 5 as was hoped).
Most importantly they have said they will discontinue the official support for the Google Nexus 10 and Google Nexus 7 (2012) tablets plus the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The two slates will be "terminated" towards the end of January (via OmgUbuntu).
But that doesn't mean members of the dev community won’t be able to port the touch-screen version of Ubuntu to run on other devices (there are plenty of communities dedicated to various phones and tablets) and skilled uses are free to step in where the Ubuntu official team has left off.
This strategy might ensure the developing team has time to focus its efforts on two devices, as opposed to trying to cover many models inefficiently. On the other hand, owners of Nexus 7 might have to wait more for the official build to come out.
With the Nexus 7 (2013) becoming the new chief reference platform for Ubuntu for Tablets, the first release is expected to arrive somewhere in April.
At the moment the team is currently working on embedding the latest version of Android, so that Ubuntu Touch can be built on top of the latest KitKat build.
The move to KitKat is scheduled to happen as soon as possible and the team is hoping everything could be ready by January.
On top of that the dev team is perfecting its emulators meant for ARM and x86 devices, so they can encourage developers to test the Ubuntu touch software.
Anyway keep in mind that the above mentioned milestones aren't set in stone and the dates might receive modifications. Stay tuned to find out more.