Ubuntu for Android Officially Announced

Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth proudly announced a few minutes ago a new product, called Ubuntu for Android and designed to bring the popular Ubuntu operating system to Android mobile devices.

Ubuntu for Android is not really an operating system for Android devices, it is intended to be installed on the mobile device alongside its Android OS while it's docked.

Designed only for mobile phones with dual-core ARM CPUs, Ubuntu for Android runs on top of the Android kernel, like Motorola's Ubuntu-based WebTop environment.

Ubuntu for Android offers a complete desktop environment with popular apps like Chromium web browser, VLC media player, Thunderbird e-mail client, Google's Calendar and Docs, Ubuntu's music player and photo viewer, Android dialer or the popular Gwibber social networking software.

"This isn’t the “Ubuntu Phone”. The phone experience here is pure Android. This announcement is playing to a different story, which is the convergence of multiple different form factors into one most-personal device."

"Naturally, the most personal device is the phone, so we want to get all of these different personalities – phone, tablet and desktop – into the phone. When you need a desktop, you connect up to a screen and a keyboard. When you need a tablet, you dock to some very elegant glass." - said Mark Shuttleworth.

The phone's connectivity (3G or 4G networks) can also be access by Ubuntu for Android.

Learn more about Ubuntu for Android on the official website.