A while back I blogged about dogfooding Ubuntu Phone; that is, eating our own dogfood by using it on a daily basis. I have been tracking this here.
The phone team were setting the end of May as a goal for getting the phone into this daily driver state, and they have delivered most of what is needed.
In summary:
- The phone OS is reliable and doesn’t crash.
- Making and receiving calls works great. The phone now switches the screen on and off when you get a call/SMS, it switches to the phone app when you get a call, and switches the screen on and off when on a call based upon the proximity of your ear to the screen.
- Sending and receiving text messages works great.
- The messaging menu works great. Missed calls and texts appear there and I can reply or call back directly from messaging menu. I can also view my SMSes in the conversations list in the phone app.
- Connecting to wireless networks works well.
- Mobile data has landed but currently needs manual configuration to be used.
I am waiting on the phone team to publish how to test this. UPDATE: Read how to test this here. They will be working on automating this next. - Power management is much better; when the phone is not used for 30 secs the screen is automatically shut off.
- The camera works great (with flash) and photos appear as expected in the gallery. There is a shortcut from the camera app to the gallery.
- The browser works well, now has a progress bar and overlayed history based upon the URL entered.
- Orientation support has been added to a number of apps (phone, gallery, notepad, browser etc) so when you turn the phone the UI adjusts.
- You can now easily add an unknown number as a contact.
- Most of the fake apps and contact data have been removed.
All in all great progress is being made and I am continuing to use my Galaxy Nexus full time and now most of the bugs that made it a little difficult are fixed. As soon as mobile data arrives that will make life much easier, and the missing link for me is GPS, but the team are working on a location service to serve GPS needs.