Vodafone + Canonical Working On A "Cloud Smartphone"

Vodafone in collaboration with Canonical is showing a prototype "Cloud Smartphone" as Mobile World Congress happening this week in Barcelona.

This isn't like the days of the failed Ubuntu Touch / Ubuntu Phone effort but rather Vodafone making use of Canonical's Anbox Cloud for running Android in the cloud.

So far this is just a prototype they are showing at MWC 2022 of this "cloud smartphone" effort. From today's press release:

The prototype Cloud Smartphone will be showcased on Vodafone’s stand at MWC 2022 in Barcelona, demonstrating the concept of a smartphone running entirely on the cloud while leaving basic functionality on the device a user holds. With the use of Canonical’s Anbox Cloud, Vodafone can test a software stack that allows for the implementation of running the Android operating system in the cloud by moving all the processing to a virtual machine. Because of this, the device of choice will only need to use basic video-decoding capabilities, enabling simple objects to take on smartphone tasks. The integration with functions remaining on the physical device like camera, location or available sensors, provides the user with an environment that shows no difference to what they are regularly used to having.

The ability to offload compute, storage and energy-intensive applications from devices (x86 and Arm) to the cloud enable end-users to consume advanced workloads by streaming them directly to their device. Anbox Cloud also allows developers to deliver an on-demand application experience through a platform that provides more control over performance and infrastructure costs, with the flexibility to scale based on user demand.

More details at Ubuntu.com.