14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical has announced that Ubuntu mobile devices will use Nokia HERE maps data by default, making this the start of a very interesting partnership.
Ubuntu for phones or Ubuntu Touch, as it's known in the community, is getting closer to an official release. The operating system has been out for some time and it has been deemed stable, but it's not yet sold with any devices.
This will change starting this autumn and Canonical will finally get to see its product powering Meizu Phones in China and possibly Bq phones in Europe. Getting an operating system ready for launch is not as easy as it seems and numerous moving parts need to come into place. A maps service and application is something that all smartphones have today and Ubuntu Touch really needs one.
This is where Nokia HERE comes into play. This is a business unit from Nokia that brings mapping and location services under one roof (HERE is actually the former Ovi Maps). The service is already present in Nokia X, Windows Phone, Firefox OS, Sailfish OS, and a number of other platforms.
“HERE will provide a hybrid solution integrating an A-GPS and WiFi positioning system. Although Ubuntu already features GPS-based location, GPS on its own is not sufficient to support the location services that run on the OS with a rapid and efficient location positioning capability. This fully integrated solution will also be available to the many thousands of application developers currently using Ubuntu OS on their own hardware.”
“The system has been designed to anonymously collect data on WiFi signal strength and local radio cells and pass this data back to a remote crowd-sourced location service. This is purely to improve the overall quality of the positioning service and is in line with Ubuntu's policy on its use of personal data and an opt-out option will be available to all users,” reads the announcement from Canonical.
The Ubuntu developers are preparing an RTM version of their mobile operating system (Release To Manufacturing) and it should be ready soon, or at least it has to be ready if they want to make the autumn deadline. It's very likely that this new mapping service will be ready by then if everything goes according to plan and if no major bugs delay its adoption.
With that in mind, Ubuntu is now an official Nokia partner (the company that remained after Microsoft bought a number of its components).
