The PinePhone – KDE Community edition includes most of the essential features a smartphone user would expect and its functionalities increase day by day. You can follow the progress of the development of apps and features in the Plasma Mobile blog.
Plasma Mobile is a direct descendant from KDE’s successful Plasma desktop. The same underlying technologies drive both environments and apps like KDE Connect that lets you connect phones and desktops, the Okular document reader, the VVave music player, and others, are available on both desktop and mobile.
Thanks to projects like Kirigami and Maui, developers can write apps that, not only run in multiple environments but that also gracefully adapt by growing into landscape format when displayed on workstation screen and shrinking to portrait mode on phones. Developers are rapidly populating Plasma Mobile with essential programs, such as web browsers, clocks, calendars, weather apps and games, all of which are being deployed on all platforms, regardless of the layout.
This seems like a really interesting combination, and I really want to see if I can get my hands on a review unit.
Projects like Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch should likely consolidate. Considering they both use the same frameworks and pursue the same goals, such as the convergence. That could lead to some further consolidation, likely it would get easier to address funding. Having one strong entity with a clear goal, that is to provide GNU/Linux on mobile with a reasonable end user experience, that would be great. IMHO currently this efforts are just too fragmented and the development pace is to slow to make a difference in a foreseeable future.
Give the fact that they’re merely mobile-friendly(*) versions of the corresponding full-fledges desktop environments, there is zero common ground for a merger here, unless of course the UBPorts folks give up on the Unity 8 desktop environment altogether.
(*) Plasma Mobile and the PinePhone sadly seem like a bunch of unstable crap at this point, to be blunt.
If they would consolidate for starters it would be great to have Ubuntu Touch alike experience on phone and Plasma Mobile alike experience when you connect to external monitor. As i doubt it would be all that great to run GIMP on mobile phone and at the same time i doubt GIMP will get a mobile phone friendly version anytime soon. That represents reasonable level of convergence to me. On desktop it might make sense to have fragmentation, when it comes to desktop environments. On mobile that just doesn’t make any sense. In addition Sailfish OS is more commercially oriented but likely there could be some synergies too if consolidation would happen. Librem doesn’t use the same frameworks, but if there would be a reasonable option out there i am sure that they would consider it. After we can start using GNU/Linux on mobile.
Unity DE should probably be left rest in peace.
Yeah, that’s how projects are in their alpha stage, and this is a project in its alpha stage.
I think the PinePhone is doing well, and we need to cut it some slack. The PinePhone just passed its one year mark, and it’s the first time the FOSS cellphone community has had a common hardware platform to really develop on. This isn’t a repurposed platform like past options, but a real platform for the community to build on.
If they would consolidate such debates would make zero sense. They both use QML for building UI and it doesn’t make that much different if you call the result Unity or Plasma. And it doesn’t make much sense to develop two convergent prototypes of a clock application as currently you only need one. PinePhone for sure could do better if they could put reasonably usable software on their hardware. Currently they can more or less sell you a brick. Unfortunately.
I agree with you about the need for consolidation. I’m just saying long term planning in relation to the greater ecosystem isn’t something FOSS projects are particularly good at.
It’s my understanding Pine64’s mission is to provide hardware for the community, and they are doing that.
If someone wants a full widget, they should probably look at Purism or something.
There were discussions back in the days
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2013/01/qml-component-apis-to-come-together.html
They probably should consolidate, but making rational, pragmatic decisions in the macro isn’t necessarily a hallmark of FOSS projects. Hello Mono, Wine, and FOSS Nvidia drivers.
It would be hard to make it worse compared the current situation. Currently GNU/Linux on mobile IMHO isn’t suited for anybody. It just doesn’t work. There is a big chance you will order a phone, promising GNU/Linux experience, and you will get a brick in the package. Currently it is not even suitable for the enthusiasts.
Is the PinePhone hardware QA that bad? I haven’t been following it. Mobile isn’t my thing.
The only thing worse than two similar mobile efforts, is when they combine forces and set the whole project back 5 years in an attempt to reduce duplicated efforts.
See Mameo merger with Moblin to make Meego. Then Meego’s merger with Bada to make Tizen. Maemo was great. Meego was eventually great. Tizen I guess is fine on a watch? Not sure but it seems like every one of these efforts took several steps backwards.
I have the PinePhone “UBports Edition” and it is a great concept, but at this point, it is just a waste of money. I’m sure I could install Plasma Mobile on it and I probably will. The issue with my edition is that it is slow, the camera doesn’t work at all and I can’t import my contacts from Google. I hope things get better in the future. I would prefer to run anything besides Android or iOS.