What's new?

This release of Ubuntu Touch is still based on Ubuntu 16.04.

Initial support for FM radios (@mardytardi): If you own any of those devices: BQ E4.5, BQ E5, Xiaomi Note 7 Pro - you are lucky: Connect your headphones, download the FM Radio App  and enjoy the show. Several improvements are planned, and consider it more like a proof of concept. Also it will not work on other devices since the kernel needs a few options set. More devices to come…

Messaging App (@lduboeuf): Some smaller improvements for MMS handling for bigger attachments. Also text messages with special characters from the HTML specification (&, <, >) are no longer truncated.

Jingpad A1 (@fredldotme): Support hardware video decoding in the Media Player App.

Wireless display support (@fredldotme): Finally some efforts were successful to fix Aethercast protocol to allow setting up an external display for your device and work like on a desktop. Note that also here, not all devices can support this, so it needs to be enabled by the porter for each device separatly. We are still working on a final list. Also this needs a compatible Miracast adapter, and behold, not all of them are really “compatible”! It might need a few tries to find the right one.

Snappy backlight dimming (@Flohack): Now all devices brighten and darken the screen in the same amount of time, regardless of ambient lighting. This makes the device quickly accessible, and also prevents “pocket dialling” when the screen is too slow to turn off, but the user has already stowed it away.


None so far :)

Existing users of Ubuntu Touch on Stable channel (which is selected by default in the UBports Installer) will receive the OTA-23 upgrade by using the Updates screen of System Settings. Devices will randomly be allocated the update from today through. This spread is to give us a breathing space to stop the roll out of any bad update (should that ever become necessary), and is not to accommodate any bandwidth restrictions.

Note also that starting with OTA-23 we try to bring back the broadcast facility, which will send each device a trigger message. If the device can find its update, it will be downloaded for you and when everything is ready, a notification will pop up and you can install right away. This only works if you have set up that updates can be downloaded automatically.

If however you would like to receive the update immediately, turn on ADB access and issue the following command over `adb shell`:

sudo system-image-cli -v -p 0 --progress dots

Your device should then download the update and install it. This process may take a while, depending on your download speed.