This Ubuntu Tablet Design Could Almost Pass As Real

By , Published January 29, 2012

Drip, drip, drip.

That was the sound my drool made as it hit the ground when I opened my inbox this morning and found this slick Ubuntu Tablet Concept by Deviant Art user spiceofdesign staring back at me.

Now, I know you’re  probably thinking “Concept, Schmoncept”, but I’m going to shun my fear of hyperbole and say that this mock-up has to be one of the most plausible Ubuntu tablet interface designs I think I’ve seen. And that’s despite the fact that it doesn’t feature ‘Unity‘ – the interface to be used in Ubuntu’s multi-device plans.

Caleb, the artist, explains more on elements of his design:

“The first screen is just an unlock screen, nothing too fancy there, with a numeric password unlock.

The second screen is the home hub. The hub has many different views, the icons to switch between them shown at the bottom (home, applications, search, running applications (which disappears if no applications are open), documents, photos, music, videos, preferences). There could be more views added, such as downloads or social views. At the top is the title and indicators bar, and in the middle running applications (I know I have repeated the same application three times, but I was being lazy here).

The third view is a standard application view.”

Is this how you think an Ubuntu tablet interface would look? Would you expect something more Unity-based? Let us know your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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  • Anonymous

    this is just awesome….!!!! :D =D

  • http://twitter.com/alexwifi64 Àlex Wifi

    It’s not that it could pass, it’s that it’s prettier than the real ubuntu.

    • Anonymous

       most concept cars are prettier than real cars, this is not unusual! It is nice though, maybe if the bottom bar was on the left it would be just as good and more unityish. I would like to have lenses on a tablet.

      • http://twitter.com/alexwifi64 Àlex Wifi

        I think it’s more comfortable to have the launcher at the bottom in a tablet, but i suppose that it will go in the left to give a sense of cohesion between all the ubuntu platforms. And I think the lenses are there anyways, aren’t they?

        • Omer Akram

          have you ever used a tablet? you hold it from its left and right side not the buttom part.

          • Freddi

            I like that concept, in fact it’s like the WeTab which has two thumb navigation bars, left for inside the app, right for between different apps.

    • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ActionParsnip ActionParsnip

      Is ‘pretty’ all you need? What about functionality and speed of the UI….

      • http://twitter.com/alexwifi64 Àlex Wifi

        i’m not saying that.

    • Oleksa Stasevych

      Alex, seems I understand you, this interface could be more comfortable for users of tablets, that Unity’s one. I have an opinion that different devices which have different goal, form factor deserve to have different GUI.

      • http://twitter.com/alexwifi64 Àlex Wifi

        absolutely, but shuttleworth’s vision of taking the ui as a form of branding, something recognizable on multiple devices, is a great idea, too. let’s see how it develops. 

  • http://twitter.com/jhjacobs81 Jan Jacobs

    this is a briljant design’ i could see my next tablet using it :

  • http://lucacerone.net Luca Cerone

    I’m a complete ignorant in OS development, so don’t get angry is too naive. I found a bit surprising though that nobody tried and released an Ubuntu distribution for one of this cheap tablet around.. What are the technical reasons that make so hard to develop an Ubuntu based system for such tablets?

    • Joaquin Padilla Rivero

      Basically, the fact that the most used applications in Ubuntu  are not touch-friendly. If you have a netbook with the same screen dimensions than a big tablet (10 inches or so) you’ll see what I mean. 

      • Manasij Mukherjee

        It is quite comfortable, at least for me, to use PC applications on my Netbook. Some like Thunderbird, Gimp are a little cramped. 

    • https://launchpad.net/~brunogirin Bruno Girin

      There are a couple of reasons for that.

      First the hardware in those cheap tablets may not be supported by Ubuntu. In order to make the tablet cheap, manufacturers will go for under-powered CPUs and cheap graphics. For instance, even though Ubuntu now supports ARM processors, it supports ARM v7 and above, while a lot of manufacturers will use older ARM v6 chips to bring costs down.

      Then designing an OS for a tablet needs to take into account the way you use a tablet, i.e. it is a touch interface where you need large buttons; things that rely on a right mouse click don’t work well, anything that relies on the keyboard is going to be a pain to use, etc. Even though Unity is a lot more touch friendly than Gnome 2 was, it’s not fully there yet. The top panel for instance is too small for touch. That’s the reason why Apple has a completely different OS for the iPod/iPad/iPhone than the OS used for their laptops and desktops (even though they are now trying to merge them).

  • Neil Sutton

    Anything that isn’t Unity based would be good. Wherever screen real estate is an issue, Unity is a disadvantage. I like this mockup. Maybe someone could create this using Mint’s take on Gnome3?

    • http://twitter.com/rouge_sheep Andy Burne

      Why is unity bad for screen real estate? The dock hides and the menus are hidden at the top. The only way you could make it better is by hiding the panel too, which only saves like 25 pixels…

      • Freddi

        Not yet to speak about that this mockup (“I like this mockup”) has a much bigger horizontal panel at the bottom. Widescreens forever! ;-)

    • http://www.mhall119.com/ Michael Hall

      Unity takes up less screen space than any other DE I know of.

  • http://thomasboxley.com/ Thomas Boxley

    That is sexy as frak.

  • André Lametti

    Looks nice. However I’m wondering how such an OS could be installed on a tablet due to their notorious lack of user control, assuming it is too late to have anything bundled. I’m sure someone with better skills could do this easily, but I don’t like stuff being too hard :)

  • http://twitter.com/Filipnomnom Filip Addams

    This is going to be awesome!

  • Shane Quigley

    Lads you  realise that kde is actually releasing a tablet for 200 euro maybe you should be talking about that instead

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ Joey-Elijah Sneddon

      One post doesn’t come at the expense of another; the Spark post is currently being written. 

      Also never assume that we know about _everything_ going on: it really helps to be sent tips to things you think we should cover.

      • Shane Quigley

        No prob :)

      • http://forteller.net/ Børge / forteller

         Hey, maybe you should do what the Linux Action Show does to get tips: Set up your own subreddit? There we could send in tips and vote so you see what’s most popular.

    • Anonymous
  • Anonymous

    Very good-looking concept (maybe not the window buttons and on a tablet the panel and window title border should probably merge). The dock/launcher is much nicer like this with its own uniform icons.

  • florian schoeberl

    not gonna happen..

  • Edward De la Torre

    The 2nd screenshot reminds me of webOS. Would be interesting if Ubuntu did something with it after it went opensource.

    • Anonymous

      Yeah, but it’s going opensource in SEPTEMBER! That too, it’s only WebOS 1.0. :(

      • http://twitter.com/MotionShot Heimen Stoffels

        No, they’re open sourcing all versions of webOS, they just reset the counter to form Open webOS 1.0 Read it on webosnation.com

        • Anonymous

          Yes, that’s where I read it from, and what I meant is going to be so long to get there (yes, i know, these things take time).

          I guess I misunderstood the article on there then ;)

  • Anonymous

    Wow, this one really makes sence…

  • Ken Lohatepanont

    Cool. I hope Canonical might follow up with this concept design.

  • Anonymous

    The calendar app is Maya which is being developed for Elementary OS using Vala

  • Satchit Bhogle

    spiceofdesign’s gallery are filled with a lot of elementary mockups, and we can see the influence here too with the colourful application icons and the single menu button. Still, there’s a very nice Unity feel too, with lenses and the Ambiance theme (which, by the way, is better than sliced bread).

  • Satchit Bhogle

    spiceofdesign’s gallery are filled with a lot of elementary mockups, and we can see the influence here too with the colourful application icons and the single menu button. Still, there’s a very nice Unity feel too, with lenses and the Ambiance theme (which, by the way, is better than sliced bread).

  • http://twitter.com/_Sampsukka_ Samuli Karvinen

    Why tablets? Why not phones? :D

    • http://twitter.com/alexwifi64 Àlex Wifi

      Why not both?

      • Satchit Bhogle

        Why not Zoidberg?

  • Marco Ceppi

    Props to the artist for creating a very nice looking concept. A few practical flaws that people are overlooking. For starters, most people don’t hold a tablet from the bottom. If the launcher icons are in the middle at the bottom think of how tedious it would be to continually select them, remove hand from side, move down and click. However, if this followed the Unity guidelines with a Launcher on the left, then being able to select most icons with just the movement of your thumb, that would be excellent. Both Droid and Apple devices don’t take this in to consideration and in my opinion it’s a pretty poor choice not to have a launcher within reach of your resting hand.

  • http://profiles.google.com/lilianftp Moraru Lilian

    Yes, it looks very well using the Ubuntu theme. But anyway, just because of this theme is looks awful compared to iOS looks and Android Honeycomb… The design is good, the theme is not…

  • http://twitter.com/JureGrahek Jure Grahek

    Wow. I want a tablet with this UI. It looks better than any other tablet OS UI

  • http://hathix.com/ Neel Mehta

    I like it! I’m not a big tablet guy but I’d seriously consider an Ubuntu tablet.

  • Anonymous

    The KDE tablet looks better. Oh yea…and it’s real.

    • Anonymous

      The plasma active tablet could easily run anything else you throw at it.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/DATA6WDNBSCFJL6JSP5OP3AADQ asedsa

    Any tablet interface is going to be based around Unity and lenses, so doing a mock up that doesn’t use Unity and doesn’t use Lenses is pretty darn pointless. It’s basically saying “here is my mockup of a tablet interface that was designed with zero consideration of Ubuntu in mind”. 

    • Anonymous

      No company has shipped unity in a tablet yet, so how do we know the current unity design is the best fit for a tablet ? and most importantly will it be as good or better than what the competitors have to offer ?

      the design of the software can always adapt or change, but the optimum way to integrate with the hardware and provide the most easiest and natural interface doesnt.

      The higher the learning curve and the akwardness of the interface, the more appealing the competitor products will look.

  • RCA II

    Looks good. Maybe the Mint team would look into
    this as a UI for a tablet version of their OS.

  • Ralph Alex Charlemagne

    C jolie!!!!!!!! Je ne peux pas attendre, j’aimerais que ce soit demain la sortie la tablette Ubuntu….

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YI6YF5MODP2ZBSHKHC6PJ4GQJM DexterP17

    It looks a bit too much like Android. IMHO

    • Anonymous

      In what way? Android 3.2/0 may have a bottom bar but doesn’t uses lenses.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1092969838 Robert Koolis

    If you build it, people will buy it…

  • Anonymous

    The task switcher looks like gnome shell
    :Chuckle:
    In all seriousness that type of task switching was started by webOS.

  • Will Moorhead

    IMO, It is an incredible mockup. To make it unity-ish? Maybe have the launcher on the bottom on portrait mode, then on landscape have it on the left?

  • Anonymous

    I think I could get used to this. :D

  • Anonymous

    Is it just me or this looks *a lot* like a rip off of QNX on the playbook ?
    Albeit much more beautiful, in all honesty

  • seamus williams

    Or something like this 

  • Fabian Bakkum

    Awesome looking! Thats why I should consider buying a tablet.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001235417989 Ben S-r

    I prefer Gnome, but I think Unity would work better for a Tablet.

  • Joni

    Looks like Mark did get HP Touchpad and learned something from WebOS

  • http://twitter.com/howythegeek Howy

    I approve this UI. Canonical, go make this happen.

  • Squeaks

    I like this tablet UI.

  • Anonymous

    The card metaphors for applications seem very webOS-ganked?

  • Juan Francisco Suarez

    yeah baybe!

 
Idea