14 DAY TRIAL // A few small fixes are being prepared for Ubuntu Touch, and an intermediary OTA update is scheduled to make an appearance.
The Ubuntu developers are busy with the work for the upcoming OTA-9 update, a small OTA update that should be released in the coming days, and they are also pushing to rebase the operating systems on the new Xenial branch (Ubuntu 16.04).
As you can see, they have their hands full and the holidays are approaching fast. The rate of updates will slow down, and it will only pick up in 2016. Until then, users are expecting to get the small fixes that they have been promised and that have been slightly delayed. It's nothing serious, and we should be able to upgrade our Ubuntu Touch devices in the coming days.
Ubuntu Touch is getting better with each new update
One thing is certain. Each new update that has been released for Ubuntu Touch, with a couple of small exceptions, has been really good for users. One of the components having received a lot of attention was the battery. Users are reporting some incredible numbers for the battery life, which is something not usually seen with today's smartphones.
"OTA-8.5 still in final testing, we expect to get a good/no-good sign in the nearest 2-3 days. No landings today on the overlay-PPA yet, but many good silos are in progress. We also fixed the nightly builds of xenial, broken due to regular expected changes in debootstrap - fixed by a new livecd-rootfs," Canonical's Łukasz 'sil2100' Zemczak explained in this regular email.
With a little bit of luck, we could get the new update this week, but Canonical has a policy of not releasing updates on Friday, so the most likely scenario is that the hotfix will arrive on December 21.
On the other hand, OTA-9 will be ready sometimes by the end of January 2016, and users will have to wait until spring for the Xenial rebase.