The UBports project, which has taken over the development of the Ubuntu Touch mobile platform after Canonical stepped back, has released the OTA-18 (over-the-air) firmware update. The project is also developing an experimental port of the Unity 8 desktop, now renamed to Lomiri.
The Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 update has been formulated for smartphones such as OnePlus One, Fairphone 2, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 2013, Meizu MX4/PRO 5, VollaPhone, Bq Aquaris E5/E4.5/M10, Sony Xperia X/XZ, OnePlus 3/3T, Xiaomi Redmi 4X, Huawei Nexus 6P, Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet, Google Pixel 3a, OnePlus Two, F(x)tec Pro1/Pro1 X, Xiaomi Redmi Note 7, Samsung Galaxy Note 4, Xiaomi Mi A2, and Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo+ (GT-I9301I). Separately, without the label “OTA-18,” updates will be prepared for Pine64 PinePhone and PineTab devices.
Ubuntu Touch OTA-18 is still based on Ubuntu 16.04, but recently the developers' efforts have focused on preparing for the transition to Ubuntu 20.04. Among the changes in OTA-18 is a redesigned implementation of the Media-hub service, responsible for audio and video playback by applications. The new Media-hub addresses stability and extensibility issues, and the code structure has been adapted to simplify the addition of new features.
General performance and memory consumption optimizations have been made, aimed at comfortable operation on devices equipped with 1 GB of RAM. This includes increased efficiency of rendering background images — by storing only one copy of the image in RAM with a resolution matching the screen resolution, RAM consumption is reduced by at least 30 MB when setting a custom wallpaper and up to 60 MB on devices with low screen resolution compared to OTA-17.
Automatic display of the on-screen keyboard when opening a new tab in the browser has been provided. The on-screen keyboard now allows for the input of the symbol “°” (degree). A key combination Ctrl+Alt+T has been added to call the terminal emulator. The messaging application has added support for stickers. In the alarm clock, the snooze time for the ‘give me a little more sleep’ mode is now counted from the button press, not the start of the ringing. If there is no response to the signal, the alarm does not turn off but only pauses for a while.
Source: opennet.ru
