Ubuntu Touch Working On Better PinePhone, PineTab Support

The UBports' Ubuntu Touch crew has been focusing a lot lately on improving their support for the popular, budget-friendly PineTab tablet and PinePhone smartphone. The next OTA release will bring more improvements for fans of these PINE Allwinner-powered devices.

The UBports team relayed a number of PINE improvements they have been working on including:

- Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 will bring working OpenGL rendering support on the PinePhone. At the moment Ubuntu Touch on this Allwinner budget smartphone is using software acceleration, which is brutal, but now will have a working OpenGL renderer with the next release.

- The initial factory image has been completed for Ubuntu Touch on the PineTab tablet. This image has a working UI and functioning in tablet mode but other functionality is still in the works. UBports' Dalton considers this tablet "a very nice device" for its sub-$100 price.

- There is working camera support now for the PinePhone but it's still quite slow and other limitations like being limited to 2.1MP mode for the moment.

- Bluetooth toggling has been fixed for the PinePhone.

Outside of the PINE scope, Ubuntu Touch OTA-13 will also bring a much newer Chromium build with better performance, security, and features. Ubuntu Touch also remains working on upgrading to Qt 5.12 as well as working on their ports to other phone/tablet devices.

More details on this current work around the community's advancements on Ubuntu Touch via UBports.com.