Last May, UBports He launched the OTA-12 of the touch operating system that it develops, with the main novelty that the transition from Unity8 to Lomiri was completed. Right now, the company that took over Ubuntu Touch when Canonical left it is working on the OTA-13, a version already in development that will arrive with important news for the PINE64 community: the project is focusing on making the operating system work better on the PinePhone and PineTab.
As explained in the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 82, UBports OTA-13 will improve performance in the latest Chromium build, add more security and some features. On the other hand, still working to update to Qt 5.12, but what stands out the most are the news for the PINE64 community. And, from the looks of it, both the PinePhone and the PineTab have been a bestseller and soon ran out of stock.
What's new in OTA-13 for PINE64 devices
- OpenGL rendering support on the PinePhone. Right now Ubuntu Touch on this budget smartphone from Allwinner is using software acceleration, which is doing great, but will now have a working OpenGL renderer with the next version.
- Initial factory image completed for Ubuntu Touch on PineTab tablet. This image has a user interface that works and works well in tablet mode, but other features are still in the works.
- There is now working camera support for the PinePhone, but it is still quite slow and has other limitations, such as being limited to 2.1MP mode at the moment.
- Fixed the Bluetooth switch for PinePhone.
PINE64 also mentions that they are making progress in Anbox, the software that allows running Android apps on Linux, something that from the point of view of this editor is very important. Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 no release date scheduled yet.