The update will be released very soon for all Ubuntu Phones

Nov 18, 2015 22:00 GMT  ·  By

While many of us are still waiting to receive the Ubuntu Touch OTA-8 software update on our Ubuntu Phone devices, the developers have just published the entire changelog with all the juicy details.

Let's start with the Web Browser app, which has received a new top level bookmarks view, media access permissions for websites, as well as a grid view and thumbnails for the Top Sites page.

The Weather app has been totally revamped, and it should now offer Ubuntu Phone users a much better weather experience. Moreover, the Contacts sync functionality has been greatly improved thanks to the implementation of the Buteo synchronization engine.

As for multimedia, the Ubuntu Touch OTA-8 software update introduces audio playback controls in the Sound indicator, allowing users to control the play and pause functions (support for skip backward/forward will be added a later time).

Moreover, OTA-8 brings in a new Twitter Scope that lets users tweet, follow or unfollow other Twitter users, or comment on tweets, as well as a new Book Aggregator Scope that features several regional content.

OTA version number is now displayed in the Settings app

Also new in Ubuntu Touch OTA-8 is support for displaying the OTA version number in the Settings app, under the About this phone, OS Version entry. Support for location and heading information has been added to the location service feature.

Last but not least, the Ubuntu Store has been updated to support in-app purchases based on the QtPurchasing library, which is currently in pilot mode, and all core apps have been ported to UITK (UI Toolkit) 1.3.

Numerous bugs have been fixed

Among the bugs fixed in Ubuntu Touch OTA-8, we can mention the removal of some performance issues as far as several core applications are concerned, such as the Messaging app, location accuracy improvements, and support for playing the ringtones on speaker while headphones are plugged in.

The battery consumption has been greatly reduced when no network connection is available, and many user interface hangs that occurred due to DBus traffic have been addressed.

As expected, many issues remain unresolved for OTA-8, the most important one being the inability to use the copy/paste context menu in the Web Browser app, which will be fixed in Ubuntu Touch OTA-9, due for release on January 20, 2016.

Ubuntu Touch OTA-8 will be officially released in a day or two from the moment of writing this article for all supported Ubuntu Phone devices, but it will be distributed in phases during a 24-hour period.