14 DAY TRIAL // Canonical's converge goal has been a lofty one right from the start, but the company didn't fully explain what they really wanted with it. Their goals for convergence changed over the years, and they only now point out exactly what this convergence is all about.
There is no doubt that convergence is now at the core of the Ubuntu platforms, and that will become much more evident once Unity 8 ships for the desktop flavor. For now only the mobile devices are powered by the Unity 8 desktop environment, but they are approaching a stage where they can ship a phone that can also provide a desktop experience. They are not quite there yet, but it's happening as we speak.
Some of you might remember that there was a time when Canonical was working on something called Ubuntu for Android, and that looked and felt like convergence. They soon moved on to other things, but the convergence concept reappeared with Ubuntu Edge. It's been two and a half years since the Ubuntu Edge campaign, and Ubuntu for phones is stable and getting a new update each six weeks.
Convergence is the obvious direction
The ultimate goal is to have a single platform for all form factors. A single Ubuntu OS for desktop, phone, and tablets, and a single type of applications that are platform agnostic. Developers won't need to worry if their apps run on the phone and the desktop, and the operating system won't really care.
"Ubuntu device convergence is now starting to happen as we move closer to bringing the first smartphones to market carrying a full Ubuntu desktop interface. The real test for a smartphone which can double up as a PC is to give users the same experience from their smartphone as they get from their primary PC. This is our starting point for real smartphone convergence – to deliver an Ubuntu PC experience that embodies everything already familiar to the millions of Ubuntu desktop PC users worldwide. Quite simply, this means everything that a user expects from a PC experience has to be available from their smartphone," said Canonical's Richard Collins.
There is no date proposed for the final and stable form of convergence, but that's not really the point. Canonical doesn't want to do something that's half way, like Microsoft's Continuum. They need to offer users a full desktop experience, and this is what they are going to deliver.