Fans of Ubuntu can go run to their calendars and pencil in the entire month of October as the time frame for the release of Ubuntu smartphones. According to Mark Shuttleworth, the CEO of a company that provides services for corporate customers using Ubuntu, the devices will be ready for launch sometime in October  with developer units being ready to ship later this month. 

One of my favorite parts of the Ubuntu Phone OS was the homescreen you are brought to when you power the phone on. Luckily for me, I’m not alone and some developers got together to make that design into a nifty live wallpaper. Once installed the wallpaper gives you a clock smack in the middle of the screen with subtle pulsing circles behind it. Very subdued and minimal for those who like it that way.

The wallpaper doesn’t drag on the phone’s performance too much either, which is a common problem from live wallpapers. While the app is fairly barebones now, the developers have promised customization like moving the circle, ability to change the clock format and different colors. For free it’s a live wallpaper with a lot of upside, you can get the download link below.

Play Link

To start off this story, let me give you the list of specs and you can decide if it sounds good or not to you. 10.1″ 1,920 x 1,200 IPS display that is powered by a Samsung Exynos 4412 quad-core processor underneath. It boots Android 4.0 and Ubuntu 12.04 and runs 2GB of RAM alongside 32GB of storage. Quite an impressive spec sheet, and the price is only around $415. 

Ubuntu and Android have been close friends for a while now, but developers have been working to make Ubuntu it’s own mobile OS and that work was revealed today. Using the Galaxy Nexus, the new totally gesture-based operating system was shown off today and looks like a fledgling OS with a lot of promise. You thought Google was crazy for having on-screen home buttons? This operating system has no home button whatsoever. 

Up until now, we have only heard rumors and seen still pictures of what Ubuntu running on an Android device will look like. Today however, a video has surfaced of the service up and running and it is exciting to see. It was promised that Ubuntu for Android “transforms your high-end phone into your productive desktop, whenever you need it.” While you might be skeptical at that claim, after watching the video your opinion might change. 

I will not act like I know too much about Ubuntu and I have basically zero experience with it. But I am hoping that will change soon as Canonical, the company responsible for bringing Ubuntu to the public, is to be launching Ubuntu for Android at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Let it be known, that this will not be just an Ubuntu app running on the Android OS though. This will be Ubuntu and Android, running alongside one another, on the same kernel. Unified.

While not attached to a dock, the Android device will function like any other Android smartphone. But when connected to a dock/monitor/peripheral device, users will be greeted by the Ubuntu desktop UI which many fans are familiar with. The reasoning behind this idea, is that people can consolidate all of their data. They can have all of the info they need in just one single device instead of having files and contacts scattered among multiple smartphones, tablets and laptops. To have a single device, for a single person with all of the functionality they need to get their work done.