Focal Fossa has been mentioned at UBports for a long time. Ubuntu Touch is currently based on the operating system that Canonical released in April 2016, and it's been a year without support, but everything has a reason: they want to do things right. So today have thrown la OTA-23, and its list of new features is not very long for that very reason: they keep correcting and trying to improve what already exists, but they are already keeping an eye on the future.
With this release, the news published with the arrival of OTA-22, last February, is repeated a bit. There is nothing especially outstanding to tell, beyond that they are correcting the problems they are finding in the current version of Ubuntu Touch. They also mentioned again that they are working on re-basing the system on Focal Fossa, the version of Ubuntu released in April 2020.
Highlights of Ubuntu Touch OTA-23
Reading the release note, they have provided a list of supported devices, and it is striking that, if I have not missed anything, they have not added support for any new ones. So it's still valid the list published last February. Regarding new arrivals, They have highlighted:
- Initial support for FM radios for the BQ E4.5, BQ E5 and Xiaomi Note 7 Pro. More improvements are expected, but it won't work on other devices in the short term because they need a kernel tune-up. They promise that they will support more phones in the future.
- Minor improvements in the management of MMS in the messages application, and messages with symbols typical of the HTML language are no longer truncated.
- Support for video decoding in the media player application on the JingPad A1.
- Support for wireless screens.
- Subtly dimmed backlight.
- Error correction:
- External display improvements: Indicator scaling is now correct on external displays, the launcher and app drawer no longer disappear when operated with the mouse.
- Sound playback when entering and exiting sleep was choppy on some devices.
- WiFi annoys the user for already known passwords and creates new connections randomly.
OTA-23 is now available on the stable channel of Ubuntu Touch, so it can already be installed from the same device. The PinePhone and PineTab receive updates with different numbers.