The Mobile World Congress 2013 sure did have its fair share of smartphones and tablets being showcased, but there was more it to the event than just gadgets. Tech enthusiasts the world over were looking forward to checking out two new mobile OS’s at MWC too – Canonical’s Ubuntu Touch and Mozilla’s Firefox OS. Unfortunately for Mozilla, what can we say, Ubuntu got more attention at the event.
Makers of one of the world’s most popular browsers, Mozilla did have solid support from a number of phone manufacturers and wireless carriers for its upcoming Firefox OS. And things would have gone great for it too, if it hadn’t been for the entry of open source with Ubuntu into the extremely competitive mobile OS world.
Canonical unveiled the developer preview version of Ubuntu Touch for Phones and Tablets at MWC. The OS can run on any device that runs Android currently, and Canonical even showcased a number of popular Android mobile devices running their OS. It is expected to release in October 2013, while the tablet version is expected to release sometime next year. Even though the developer preview left a lot of blanks yet to be filled and is still clearly a work in progress, the overall user interface is slick, minimalistic, and simple to figure out, making it a promising new entrant in the market.
