Canonical announce Ubuntu Touch for tablets.

At CES I saw a demo of Ubuntu for the phone and today Canonical have announced Ubuntu’s tablet interface. The interface brings together a unified platform for the TV (see my CES video), PC, Phone and Tablets.

The new design built with the standard Ubuntu core and is optimised for multi-tasking as you can have a phone app on the screen at the same time as a tablet app. There is secure multi-tasking with encryption of personal data. The UI has voice controlled heads up display and edge UI gesture controls

The developer preview will be released on February 21^st which will work with the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 , the phone edition working with the Nexus 4 and Galaxy Nexus.

Whether there is room for another tablet operation system remains to be seen but it will be interesting to give it a try.

Full press release after the video demo from Canonical.

Ubuntu unveils tablet experience with multi-tasking

Unique ‘side stage’ multi-tasking puts phone and tablet apps on a single tablet screen

Secure enterprise tablets with full disk encryption, multiple secure user accounts and standard management tool that covers Ubuntu server, PC and touch

Unique convergence across all four form factors: a phone can provide tablet, TV and PC interfaces when docked to the appropriate screen / keyboard / remote

London 19th February 2013: Canonical today presented Ubuntu’s tablet interface – the next step towards one unified family of experiences for personal computing on phones, tablets, PCs and TVs.

“Multi-tasking productivity meets elegance and rigorous security in our tablet experience,” said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and Canonical. “Our family of interfaces now scales across all screens, so your phone can provide tablet, PC and TV experiences when you dock it. That’s unique to Ubuntu and it’s the future of personal computing.”

“Fashion industry friends say the Ubuntu phone and tablet are the most beautiful interfaces they’ve seen for touch,” said Ivo Weevers, who leads the Canonical design team. “We’re inspired by the twin goals of style and usability, and working with developers who are motivated to create the best possible experience for friends, family and industry.”

The new tablet design doesn’t just raise the bar for elegant presentation, it breaks new ground in design and engineering, featuring:

Real multitasking: Uniquely, Ubuntu allows a phone app on the screen at the same time as a tablet app. The Ubuntu side stage was invented both to enable efficient multitasking and to improve the usability of phone apps on tablets.

Secure multi-user: Multiple accounts on one tablet with full encryption for personal data, combined with the trusted Ubuntu security model that is widely used in banks, governments and sensitive environments, making it ideal for work and family use.

Voice controlled HUD productivity: The Heads-Up Display, unique to Ubuntu, makes it fast and easy to do complex things on touch devices, and transforms touch interfaces for rich applications, bringing all the power of the PC to your tablet.

Edge magic for cleaner apps: Screen edges are used for navigation between apps, settings and controls. That makes for less clutter, more content, and sleeker hardware. No physical or soft buttons are required. It’s pure touch elegance.

Content focus: Media is neatly presented on the customisable home screen, which can search hundreds of sources. Perfect for carriers and content owners that want to highlight their own content, while still providing access to a global catalogue.

Full convergence: The tablet interface is presented by exactly the same OS and code that provides the phone, PC and TV interfaces, enabling true device convergence. Ubuntu is uniquely designed to scale smoothly across all form factors.

The Ubuntu tablet interface supports screen sizes from 6″ to 20″ and resolutions from 100 to 450 PPI. “The tablet fits perfectly between phone and PC in the Ubuntu family,” says Oren Horev, lead designer for the Ubuntu tablet experience. “Not only do we integrate phone apps in a distinctive way, we shift from tablet to PC very smoothly in convergence devices.”

On high end silicon, Ubuntu offers a full PC experience when the tablet is docked to a keyboard, with access to remote Windows applications over standard protocols from Microsoft, Citrix, VMware and Wyse. “An Ubuntu tablet is a secure thin client that can be managed with the same tools as any Ubuntu server or desktop,” said Stephane Verdy, who leads enterprise desktop and thin client products at Canonical. “We are delighted to support partners on touch and mobile thin clients for the enterprise market.”

Even without chipset-specific optimisation, Ubuntu performs beautifully on entry level hardware. “Our four-year engagement with ARM has shaped Ubuntu for mobile” said Rick Spencer, VP Ubuntu Engineering at Canonical. “We benefit from the huge number of contributing developers who run Ubuntu every day, many of whom are moving to touch devices as their primary development environment.”

For silicon vendors, Ubuntu is compatible with any Linux-oriented Board Support Package (BSP). This means Ubuntu is easy to enable on most chipset designs that are currently running Android. Ubuntu and Android are the two platforms enabled by Linaro members.

The Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu will be published on the 21st February 2013 with installation instructions for the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablet devices as well as smartphones such as the Nexus 4 and Galaxy Nexus. Installable images and source code will be available from developer.ubuntu.com.

The Preview SDK, which currently supports phone app development, will now be updated to support tablet apps as well. Uniquely, on Ubuntu, developers can create a single application that works on the phone, tablet, PC and TV because it is the same system and all services work across all form factors.