Just over a month after Canonical took the wraps off its Ubuntu phone OS, its founder and CEO, Mark Shuttleworth, has revealed the first phones running the software will be available in October.
It was initially thought that phones running the OS would only go to market in 2014. Speaking during an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Shuttleworth did not reveal any further details about any confirmed or potential hardware manufacturers. When Canonical previewed the OS at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, it was shown running on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
It has also been said that developers will be given access to the OS on the Galaxy Nexus at some point this month. Other development tools have, however, already been made available for download.
Shuttleworth has also indicated the Ubuntu mobile OS will make its official debut in two major markets, but he has not specified which markets those will be.
The Ubuntu mobile OS forms part of the company's strategy to offer a unified platform for any device. The OS for smartphones promises a unified user experience across PCs, tablets and phones. The interface is gesture-based and instead of back and home buttons, users must swipe the different screen edges to switch between applications, menus and screens.
In January, Shuttleworth said: "Today there are many different devices for personal computing: laptops, tablets, smartphones - and we use completely different interfaces for them, even when they come from the same company. All of these devices are just different faces of the same thing. You have apps, content, contacts and messages, and you need to access them in a way that suits your situation. We set out to create something completely new."
At Mobile World Congress last year, Canonical also revealed Ubuntu for Android, which allows enabled phones to run a full desktop OS when docked to a screen and keyboard. The phone experience itself, however, is pure Android and only when the device is connected to a computer screen, does it launch a full Ubuntu desktop on the computer display.
By contrast, the Ubuntu OS for smartphones is a fully-fledged mobile OS, which uses Android OS kernels and drivers.
At the end of 2011, Shuttleworth first announced Canonical's vision of "Ubuntu on every device". He said at the time that by April 2014 "Ubuntu will power tablets, phones, TVs and smart-screens from the car to the office kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server and the cloud".
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