Nomacs allows you to navigate images in the current folder via the mouse scroll wheel as well as the navigation buttons at the top. The viewing area looks simple, with most of the space being used to show the actual image. You can open an image by simple drag and drop as well, or you specify any directory to load images from by clicking the Open Folder button.

Nomacs boasts an intuitive Find & Filter feature that enables you to instantly jump to your desired image. You can either type the exact name of the file or use the Filter button to narrow down to a certain group of photos from the lot. So, for instance, if you have loads of cats images among other files in the folder, you can simply type cat to display only the related images matching the word cat, provided of course that they have ‘cat’ in the name.

The app provides basic editing options much like many major image viewers available for Windows. For example, you can crop, rotate and resize the image to your desired dimensions. Nomacs doesn’t even open a separate editing area, as all the editing can be done directly in the main viewer.

Apart from basic editing, you can also change saturation, brightness, contrast, hue and exposure etc. from the Image Manipulation Tools window that can be launched from the Tools menu. The available parameters can be adjusted via the sliders present below each option.

Another area where Nomacs really shines is its customizable UI. Click the View menu and you will notice a plethora of elements in there that you can enable or disable. There are also hotkeys available for pretty much every feature. You can choose to display metadata, histogram, slideshow player controls, thumbnails, file info, folder overview etc. Pictures can also be viewed in full screen at the click of a button. The application also has anti-aliasing enabled across all images out of the box so that you may view images without any jagged edges.

When it comes to the synchronization feature, it lets you replicate the image view across multiple computers on your network. This works in a way that when you, lets say, zoom or pan image on one display, the action is reflected on the synchronized instances on all other connected computers. This feature alone makes it a worthwhile tool for anyone in an environment with multiple computers where the users often need to show each other images from their computers.

Although it may look very simple, Nomacs is a feature-laden image viewer. It’s an open source app that works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

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You’ll need to have Java installed on your computer in order to use Pically. It’s a portable app and requires no installation, so just launch the downloaded file to begin creating your calendar. The user interface is pretty self-explanatory. To add an image, all you need to do is drag and drop it in the specific month. Alternatively, you can use the ‘Select Picture’ button for each month to browse your computer for stored images.

Under the ‘Events’ tab, you can use the available options to create special occasions and pin them to your calendar. Simply select the type of event, specify the date, and hit ‘Add Event’. You can also specify what the event is about in the text field; if this becomes your go-to calendar for the year ahead, you’ll always remain apprised of incoming anniversaries with this feature.

You can edit an event directly from the list window. If you want to delete an unwanted event, select it and hit the ‘Delete Event’ button. The little button tucked above the scrollbar enables you to toggle certain categories on and off. If you don’t want to keep the event type drop-down menu or the text field, for example, you can get rid of them from here. Under the ‘Actions’ tab, you can select which year you want your calendar for, anywhere from 2011 till 2015. Click ‘Generate’ to create your calendar as a PDF document. If you’re using a Mac, you can upload iCalendar files containing appointments and engagements via the ‘Import iCal’ button. Th resulting calendar will then act as a physical counterpart to your online iCalendar.

Pically is a straightforward and unpretentious application, and the calendar’s clean layout reflects that. There’s ample room to write little reminders for yourself and reflect on the days ahead. The calendar above is for 2014, but let’s agree 2013 is still important. After all, it’s not that almost half the year is over; it’s that over half a canvas is still empty and waiting.

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Most Android apps that let you transfer files over Wi-Fi require some sort of app or browser-based connection between the device and the computer, or the involvement of a web service. This can sometime make you stuck with only one task at a time. qrSend does away with that, and opts for a rather easier solution by employing QR code scanning method. The procedure to get it running on your PC and Android is fairly simple.

First off, download qrSend’s Windows application (JAR file for Mac OS X or Linux) on your computer, and install the Android app on your device. The Windows application doesn’t have any GUI and creates a new shell extension in the right-click context menu of the files. In order to transfer the file(s), simply right-click your desired item, followed by clicking ‘Send with qrSend’ from the context menu.

A QR code instantly pops up on the computer screen, letting you to scan it through any code scanning app on Android. qrSend’s Android app uses Barcode Scanner by default, but you can also any other app of your choice by installing it from Google Play.

Now open the qrSend app on your Android device and tap the minuscule upload button at the top. If Barcode Scanner isn’t already installed on your device, you can tap ‘Yes’ to let qrSend automatically download it for you. Having done that, scan the QR code and the selected file(s) will be instantly copied to the device. You can also access the file(s) without leaving qrSend by tapping the eye button. There’s also a Settings screen that lets you toggle file transfer notifications and select the download folder as well as your default QR code scanning app.

It’s good to see that qrSend lets you transfer multiple files in batch, though you can’t transfer a folder via this method, which would have been a nice option to have. All in all, it’s a very useful tool for instantly copying files from your computer to your Android device without much hassle.

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Performance Enhancements

First and foremost, you will notice a significant improvement in the overall performance. Ever since Canonical introduced its Unity UI, many users complained about it being slower compared to the old Gnome UI. In 13.04, everything feels just snappy – no lag, no noticeable performance glitches, no slowdowns due to the UI. This alone can go a long way towards making several users finally embrace Unity with open arms.

New Photos & Social Lenses

One of the key features of the Unity interface are the Lenses that allow you to quickly find both local and online content without having to worry about where to look. In 13.04, two new Lenses have been added. The Photos Lens – as the name suggests – provides you with quick access to not only your local images, but also the images from your online albums as well as those shared with you by your friends over social media, provided you have connected your online accounts with the OS. There are also several handy filters available to view the images based on their source or date.

Similarly, the Social Lens consolidates your social media communication in one place. At the moment, Facebook and Twitter appear to be the only two compatible services, but these should be enough for most of us. You can access your Facebook messages as well as Twitter @mentions and DMs from here.

Per-App Toggles For Online Accounts

The Online Accounts section is great for connecting many of your social media and other web accounts with the OS in order to make your content from these services accessible in the relevant areas of Ubuntu. However, it’s also important to have more control over what content from these service gets to be available in which particular OS features or apps in Ubuntu, and that’s been taken care of in 13.04 by providing you with toggles for enabling or disabling access to your online content on these services from individual Ubuntu features or apps. Want to keep your Picasa photos accessible for the Photos Lens but don’t want Empathy to automatically sign you in with the same Google account? You can do that now!

New Window switching Methods

The heavy multitaskers among us are always on the lookout for the quickest ways to switch between all the different windows that we have open all the time. In 13.04, Ubuntu makes life easier for us by adding two new ways of switching between windows. Firstly, the application Quicklists now show you all open windows of the currently selected application, complete with a visual indicator next to the currently selected one.

Though what’s even better is that now you can cycle between multiple open windows of the same app by simply hovering your mouse pointer over that app’s icon and scrolling your mouse wheel. It works incredibly well, and you are bound to appreciate its intuitiveness as well as usefulness when you try it out for yourself.

Sync Menu

Over the past couple of years, we have seen an exponential rise in the use as well as availability of cloud service, with Ubuntu also joining in with their cloud storage and sync solution in Ubuntu One. In Ubuntu 13.04, upon signing in with your account in the Ubuntu One app, you will notice a new Sync menu in the menu bar. From here, you can quickly toggle the service on/off, open the Ubuntu One app or your synced folder, share files, open the web interface, keep track of any ongoing file transfers, and purchase more space if the 5GB free space doesn’t cut it for you.

Improved Bluetooth Menu

While the Bluetooth menu has had a place in the menu bar since the old days before Unity, it has previously been quite bland, using multiple text entries for turning Bluetooth on and off, and for toggling your device’s visibility. In the latest update, both these features have been implemented in the menu in form of toggles that not only look better, but also offer a more instant visual indication of the current Bluetooth state of your device.

New Look For Shut Down Dialog

Most of the features we saw above were primarily about function rather than mere cosmetics, but that doesn’t mean cosmetic changes have entirely been left out in 13.04. The Shut Down dialog has been visually revamped, making it more Unity-like, and a bit similar to the Alt+Tab list too.

Speaking of the Alt+Tab list, it has also received some subtle visual improvements that might not be noticeable at first glance, but become apparent when comparing it with the previous version.

Prettier & Smoother Animations

If you have a thing for smooth animations and stunning visual effects, you are in for a treat when you next try to snap a window to a side of the screen (or the full screen) – the new animation is both stunning and super-smooth, and it adds a nice visual enhancement to this handy window management feature.

In addition to that, you’ll also notice an improvement in the animation shown in Unity Previews when you right-click an item from any of the Unity Lenses.

Other Minor Changes

Apart from the above, there have been a few other, relatively minor changes as well. The Workspace switcher icon is no longer there on the launcher by default, but can be added back by enabling it from System Settings > Appearance > Behavior, and now indicates which workplace you’re currently on. Also, the launcher icon of removable media such as USB flash drives now shows a visual indicator in form of a different background color if you have the device open in the file manager. Speaking of the file manager, it’s icon has also been changed.

To sup it up, while Ubuntu 13.04 may not seem to be a huge upgrade in terms of features alone, its performance improvements combined with the few major new features as well as the countless minor enhancements make it worth the upgrade for every Ubuntu user out there.

What do you think of the latest version of Ubuntu, and which of its new features is your favorite? Did we end up missing out on something new that you have noticed? Don’t forget to let us know in the comments.

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Setup

When installing BitTorrent Sync, you can either install it as an independent client or connect it with another system to begin with. When installing as an independent client, choose the ‘Standard Setup’ option.

During setup, you will be offered to connect another device and will be provided a ‘Secret’ to do so. Copy this code if you’re ready to add a device, or just click ahead to the next step if you don’t want to add a device just yet and plan on doing it later.

Adding Devices

The second device we added in our testing was a Mac, You can set up your second device independently just as you did with the first, or you can select the ‘I have a Secret’ option and enter the code generated on your first device during the setup process itself. If you didn’t copy the code during setup, you can always add a device later by sharing a folder with it.

Sharing A Folder

Each folder that you sync with a device has its own secret regardless of which device you sync it with. You can sync any folder by going to the ‘Shared Folders’ tab. Don’t worry if you haven’t connected any devices yet – just click ‘Add’ and select the folder you want to share and sync. Click the ‘Generate’ button and share the ‘Secret’ with whoever you want to sync the folder with (or just sync it on another one of your own computers). As long as the other device has the app installed, the folder can be synced with it.

On the other system, go to the ‘Shared Folders’ tab and click ‘Add’. Here you’re setting up your app to sync with a folder shared from another computer, so create and select a folder on this device that the incoming files will sync to. Instead of clicking the ‘Generate’ field, paste the Secret that was shared with you and click ‘Ok’. The files will instantly begin to download. Each time a download completes, you will receive a notification and you can watch the download progress in the ‘transfers’ tab. The device you shared to will now appear in the ‘Devices’ tab.

If you ever want to share the same folder with someone else i.e. on  another device, go to the ‘Shared Folders’ tab and right-click the folder you want to share. Select the ‘Copy Secret’ option and share the Secret with whoever you’re sharing with. The recipient will have to follow the usual steps for accepting an incoming folder. All newly added files to the folder will sync to the devices they’ve been shared with automatically. Since it’s two-way sync, any files added to the synced folders on any of the computers will sync across all connected computers.

BitTorrent Sync Preferences

BitTorrent Sync can be set to start when your system logs in. You can change the name your device appears with, and limit the upload and download rate from the ‘Preferences’ tab. Notifications for completed downloads can also be disabled here.

Folder Preferences

BitTorrent Sync will sync new files as long as both systems are online and they each have the BitTorrent Sync app running in the background. Folder syncing, by default, is two way. If you would prefer sync for any folder to be one way, go to the ‘Shared Folders’ tab, right-click the folder and select ‘Show Folder Preferences’. Copy and share the ‘Read only secret’ and the device you share with will only receive files from that folder, and wouldn’t have the ability to upload files to it by adding them to their end of the synced folder. You can also generate a special secret that will only allow a device to sync the folder for twenty four hours. A shared folder can be manually removed any time as well.

Despite being in Alpha stage, BitTorrent Sync works really well. The only issue we came across was there being no way to remove a shared device yet.

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When launched, Shotcut presents a quick start guide to get you acquainted with its essential elements and hotkeys. Those who have used any other video editor would know that using hotkeys can really make a huge difference in using such an app, and Shotcut is no exception.

To kick off, open a new video clip file by clicking Open File from the toolbar. You can also add videos via drag-and-drop. You might notice a rather conservative workspace upon first running the app. This is because most of the elements in your workspace are hidden by default, and you can enable them from the View menu.

Click the View menu and Shotcut will allow you to toggle the controls that you want to throw into your workspace, for instance, Properties, Recent, Playlist, Filters, History, Encode, Jobs, Melted Server and Playlist. In addition, you can enter full screen mode for distraction-free video editing.

You can easily switch to different windows in your workspace, and maximize or close them if required. Speaking of the video editing procedure, there are a lot of options available here that you would expect from a powerful video editor. You can trim any part from the video by specifying the start and end points, add filters, change video and audio settings and then some.

To trim the video, just drag both the starting and ending points to the required positions; the highlighted area will be included in the final output, with the other parts removed. You can also play and pause the video in order to identify the correct frames that you’re going to include or cut out. Likewise, there are different filters included in the video editor to spice up your videos. Some of the effects like blur, glow, mirror, saturation, white balance and sharpness etc. also let you control their overall intensity.

Shotcut allows configuring a truckload of settings for output quality of the video. For instance, you can specify custom parameters for the video and audio streams of the output file. Sample rate, codec, bitrate control, quality, volume control – everything is in there. The application also offers various presets for those who don’t like to manually configure all these details.

The Settings menu at the top contains some advanced features. For instance, GPU processing takes the burden off the CPU and encoding is done through GPU instead. Though this feature is still experimental at the moment. You can also toggle other settings like use JACK audio, realtime frame dropping, progressive, deinterlace (one field, linear blend, YADIF etc), interpolation (nearest neighbor, bilinear, bicubic) and video mode (HD, SD, NTSC, PAL et al).

All in all, it’s a versatile video encoder that gives users a lot of flexibility and control over the output quality while not costing a dime. Shotcut works on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

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The simple interface of PC Manager contains all the aforementioned features laid out at the front. You can select the required tool and make use of it in its own separate window, which pops up on clicking  any tool’s button. In addition, PC Manager lets you change the look of the UI from a bunch of available skins.

Duplicate File Remover is obviously the key feature of PC Manager, and it’s fairly effective in finding duplicate files. You can add the folder that requires scanning by selecting it from the directory pane to the left and clicking ‘Add’. The tool basically allows you to add multiple directories to search for duplicates. Next, hit the scan button to begin the scanning process. After completion, PC Manager displays the list of clones found. You can either delete all the duplicate items by clicking ‘Trash All Duplicates’, or manually mark the required items from the list to perform the pertaining action.

The application can also scan and compare two files in order to find similarities. This feature comes handy when you need to remove files having different names but same content, like documents, pictures, music etc. Duplicate File Remover compares file content while performing this action. The ‘View Trash’ window helps you restore any accidentally deleted items.

The application also boasts a rarely used files remover option that basically allows you to get rid of files lying unused and eating up your disk space. This feature works in a similar fashion as removing duplicates, the only exception being it allows you to scan items according to the selected date.

The unique Bluetooth Security feature enables you to encrypt a user-specified folder with a password and a Bluetooth enabled device such as mobile, laptop etc. Before it gets any confusing, this feature adds an extra layer of protection to the folder by registering a Bluetooth device with it, so whenever someone wants to access the contents of the encrypted folder, they also need to have the paired device with them along with the specified password. You can also refer to the usage documentation provided at the author’s page to dig deeper into it.

A weak password can seriously compromise your personal or sensitive information. Thankfully, the Password Generator that comes with PC Manager can get rid of this annoyance for you. You can generate strong passwords for your computer, email, social media, and any other accounts with a few simple clicks.

Coupled with a decent interface and powerful features, PC Manager is an excellent freeware app that can come handy in several scenarios. It requires Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in order to work. Testing was carried out on Windows 8 Pro.

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Screenbird runs in your browser, and requires the Java plugin to be installed and up to date. The controls might take a little time to load at first. Once loaded, a small controls bar will appear on your desktop. The bar can be minimized or closed. By default, it is set to record your entire screen, but you can limit it to record only a selected area. Screenbird will record audio from your mic once recording starts. A timer lets you know how long you’ve been recording, and you can stop or pause it at any time. Once you stop recording, Screenbird will load your screencast and allow you to preview it.

The preview opens in a separate window. Click ‘Play’ at the bottom left to start watching it. On the right, you will notice a ‘Finalize’ button. Don’t click it unless you’re happy with what you see. To redo a part of the video, move the seek bar to the point you want to re-record from, and click the ‘Record from here’ button that follows the seek point. Screenbird will enter record mode again; click the record button to resume recording.

When you’re happy with what you’ve got, click ‘Finish’. Screenbird will first encode the recording, and offer you to enter a title and description for it while you wait.

Once the video has been encoded, click the ‘Upload’ button to begin uploading it to Screenbird’s cloud. In the mean time, you can share the link to the video with others while it uploads. The video will be available as soon as it has finished uploading. If you just want to save a local copy of the video and don’t want to upload it online, click the ‘Save a Copy’ button. The video will be saved locally in MP4 format. Videos that are uploaded online can be set as public or private.

Quality wise, Screenbird records really well; the frame rate is perhaps not as high as you might want, but remember that this is a free app. A premium account with Screenbird will allow you to upload a total of 500mins of videos, and also post them to YouTube. The recorded videos can be played on mobile devices too. As per our tests, uploading is rather slow but the local version saved by Screenbird plays perfectly.

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Unlike Google Reader, which is a web based service, QuiteRSS stays closer to your desktop by being a Windows and Linux (and OS/2 as well, if anyone still uses it) app. Its open-source nature means you can mold it the way you want by grabbing the source code from the developer’s page. Though that doesn’t make the default version of the app is lacking in terms of looks or features; it’s far from it in fact. Built with a decent UI, the app is pretty intuitive to navigate around.

Sporting a barebones design, the application displays all your RSS subscriptions in the left pane, with the feed for the selected subscription appearing on the right side just like Google Reader and many other RSS apps. You can also create folders in the subscriptions list to keep everything well organized. Furthermore, you can mark the feeds as read, important, starred, to do, later, etc. The marked items can be quickly accessed from the Categories pane. In addition, the selected feed can be viewed in full HTML, thanks to QuiteRSS’s browser integration.

The tabbed interface of the app allows opening items such as marked feeds, categories and the HTML browser itself in separate tabs. This makes things a bit more accessible and easy to navigate between.

Subscribing to new feeds is pretty simple and quick. To do that, click the Add button on the main window and enter the feed URL in the input field. You can enter either the URL of the feed or the website itself. Having done that, click Next to let QuiteRSS fetch the required information and bingo! You’re done. You can also put the latest feed in a separate folder during this process.

The application can also import feeds from other RSS readers. Doing so will save you a lot of time of course, as re-adding each feed separately doesn’t seem to be the most convenient way, especially if you’ve subscribed to a truckload of feeds. To do that, you’ll need to export your existing feeds to either an XML or OMPL file and then import this file into QuiteRSS.

Another cool feature I found is the full screen mode, which makes browsing feeds an even more intuitive experience. To enter or exit full screen, simply press the F11 key on your keyboard.

Although Google Reader apparently has no parallel when it comes to its ease-of-use and feature-rich design, if you’re looking to migrate your existing feeds to another service or app before Google pulls the plug of its Reader service, QuiteRSS is worth giving a try. Testing of the app was carried out on Windows 8 Pro, 64-bit.

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Copy’s web interface is quite clean and minimalistic. To share files using the service’s web UI, you can either drag and drop them on the page, or double click the upload area and select the files. Once selected, copy instantly starts uploading files to the cloud – it’s that simple. You can share files without even creating any user account that most other similar services often require.

Once uploaded, Copy generates a unique URL for the file that you can copy and send to the intended recipients over email, social media networks or IM. On the receiving end, the user just needs to open that URL in their web browser and click the Download button to download the file to their PC, smartphone or tablet.

While you can use Copy’s file sharing features without creating any account, registering for one rewards you with a few additional privileges like 5GB of cloud storage and file synchronization straight from desktop or mobile, depending on which platform you use it. An account can be created both from the web interface and from within the service’s desktop or mobile apps. The desktop application is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, while the service offers mobile apps for both iOS and Android.

I tested the Windows version of Copy and it worked perfectly fine for uploading and accessing my files. The good thing about installing any of the desktop or mobile apps is that it gives you an additional 5GB of storage, bumping the total up to 10GB. If you don’t already have an account, you can click ‘Create Account’ and enter a few required credentials to make one right from the app.

Users who have previously used services like Dropbox, SkyDrive or Google Drive will instantly find themselves at home, because Copy for Windows works not much different from the apps of those services. It creates a local directory on your PC to which you can simply move your stuff that you want to keep synced with the cloud.

Another cool feature I came across in the desktop app is the ability to share a custom cloud folder with other Copy users.  This comes handy if you frequently need to share photos or other content with your friends. To do this, open the Preferences console of the app by clicking its notification icon and select Sharing tab. Then simply click ‘Share a Folder’ to choose the directory that you want to sync with others. After creating the folder, right-click its path and select ‘Invite Others’ from the context menu. The app lets you invite users by sending them an invitation email.

Copy also keeps past versions of your files so that if you accidentally lose or change something, you can get it back. The Android app of the service comes with PhotoCopy – a feature that automatically uploads your photos to the cloud similar to Dropbox, SugarSync and Google+’s offering.

The initial tour after registration lets you add an additional 2 GB of free storage simply by tweeting about Copy, bumping up the free storage space to 12 GB. For a limited time, Copy is also offering 5 GB of free storage for every user that signs up through your referral, and that can help you boost your free space a lot further. In addition to the free storage, there are also several paid plans available for those who want more cloud storage space.

In a nutshell, Copy is a file sharing, cloud storage and syncing service that doesn’t really offer any remarkable new features over what’s already out there, but gets the job done really well and provides plenty of free cloud storage for many users.

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The first thing you’ll notice about SlimBoat is how extremely fast it loads from a cold start. When launched for the first time, the browser automatically asks whether you want to import any bookmarks from another web browser such as IE, Chrome or Firefox, though you can choose to skip this process if you wish. SlimBoat’s UI comprises of a menu bar at the top, a toolbar below it offering a few basic navigation buttons for back, forward, refresh, home etc, a bookmarks bar, and the tab bar. The home page will present you with speed dial links for some popular websites including Facebook, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Twitter and CNN, among others.

Unlike Google Chrome’s minimalistic UI that gives more space to the actual web page, SlimBoat’s upper section contains several buttons that may seem to make things a bit cluttered. Though that doesn’t mean you can’t disable any unwanted element of the browser; just right-click the toolbar or tab bar, and the application will provide you with options to disable the stuff you don’t need. You can even send the tab bar to the bottom of the window.

Although SlimBoat is super stable, fast and works flawlessly when handling multiple tabs, you can can easily restore your last session in case of any application crash or system power failure, with a click of a button.

Another noteworthy feature of SlimBoat the built-in ability to switch the user agent to that of a different web browser. Apart from predefined parameters, you can also specify your own user agent by clicking Tools > User Agent > Custom. In addition. you can share the currently loaded web page with your friends on web services like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Stumble Upon, or email it to them.

While we’ve heard rumors about Firefox adding with a panel-based download manager in an upcoming version, SlimBoat has one built-in that’s quite powerful to say the least. It allows you to queue multiple downloads, add custom URLs for the download file, and specify separate folder for each item. Another great feature is its ability to let you download files in bulk from a web page.

The File menu of SlimBoat contains many features that aren’t natively available in Firefox and Chrome, such as the ability to save a full web page as a screenshot or PDF, or save its direct shortcut to your computer. You can also launch a private browsing session and restore your last session.

SlimBoat features a pop-up and ad blocker to block any annoying advertisements without having to install an add-on or extension for the purpose. You can modify a few ad blocker-related options straight from the Settings window. Other miscellaneous features that the application boasts include multilanguage support, auto fill feature for forms, groups option to save multiple tabs as one session, and a plethora of other features that usually require extensions or add-ons on other browsers.

In conclusion, SlimBoat is an excellent, versatile and intuitive web browser for Windows. It contains many advanced features that our favorite Google Chrome and Firefox only enjoy through add-ons and extensions. The application is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

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The Making

Considering how far smartphones and tablets of today have come, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a new entrant to come up with an entirely new user interface that doesn’t draw inspiration from what’s already out there, and Ubuntu Touch is no exception. However, before we get into details about what it brings to the table, let’s take a brief look at the user experience offered by a few other mobile operating systems that aimed to change how we interact with our devices.

Today’s mobile industry is dominated by two names when it comes to operating systems: Android and iOS. Though Apple’s offering remains basically a mere grid of icons with basic task switching and an Android-like notification pull-down when it comes to the UI, and Android only started to work seriously on its UI since the introduction of Android 4.0 ICS last year.

In addition to these two, there’s also Microsoft’s Windows Phone that has gained a lot of positive critical reception but hasn’t been quite lucky in capturing a significant market share. That said, it’s actually Windows Phone that has managed to redefine the smartphone user experience with its extremely fluid Metro design language that aims to help users focus on content rather than the user interface itself, and we have seen the likes of Google take inspiration from this in their Magazine style interface introduced in Ice Cream Sandwich that also features fluid side-swiping gestures and large content-rich tiles in many stock Android apps.

Windows Phone wasn’t the only OS to think completely different in terms of the user experience; the ill-fated MeeGo had aimed to redefine the smartphone user experience as well, by eliminating buttons (both hardware and on-screen) entirely in favor of swipe gestures from the bezels – a concept that didn’t quite take off officially in any of the mainstream operating systems so far, but was greeted with arms wide open by third-party app developers, who have integrated it in countless apps to provide users with a more intuitive way to use their devices.

And before both MeeGo and Windows Phone, there was the also ill-fated webOS – Palm’s brainchild that was later acquired by HP with the company, but discarded as a commercial OS along with the devices it was intended to run on. At the time of its introduction, webOS had introduced several features such as the revolutionary card-based full multitasking and task switching UI later incorporated partially in both Android and Windows phone, and a universally accessible, completely unified notification system for all apps that was somewhat similar to Android’s offering, but considerably more feature-rich back then.

In case this has started to sound too much like a walk down smartphone memory lane to you and you’ve started to wonder if we have forgotten that this post is about Ubuntu Touch rather than other operating systems, that’s not the case, we assure you! We’ve brought it all up for good reason, as you’ll shortly see for yourself.

The User Interface

What Canonical has tried to do with Ubuntu Touch is bringing all the aforementioned innovative features of these operating systems together in a way to make them all compliment each other, rather than becoming a hodgepodge of everything but the kitchen sink. Though that’s not to say that they have merely ripped off everything from existing or past operating systems without adding anything of their own. On the contrary, despite taking at least one of the best features from each of the aforementioned operating systems, Ubuntu Touch successfully makes an impression of its own. It looks and feels very much Ubuntu – very much Unity, and in a great way!

Welcome Screen

When you power on the device, you’ll be greeted by a Welcome screen that speaks out Ubuntu, thanks to its choice of nature-inspired wallpapers in Ubuntu’s warm, natural colors. Then there’s the sole information widget that is currently a static placeholder but once fully implemented, it will cycle through a lot of information relevant to both your online and offline activities, ranging from the number of messages, calls and social media updates waiting for you, to the distance you’ve walked (which will be monitored by the device’s GPS when this feature becomes functional).

For most of us, phones are purely personal devices, while tablets are often shared by family members or borrowed by friends to do some casual browsing or watching videos, and Ubuntu Touch takes this into account. That’s why the tablet variant comes with pretty much the same multi-user login interface that Ubuntu offers in its desktop OS, complete with a Guest account for the latter scenario. In the Developer Preview, the multiuser feature isn’t fully implemented, and logging in as any user brings you to the same home screen merely with different wallpapers, but this is bound to change in a more stable release, with each user profile having its separate personal content much like in Ubuntu for desktop.

The phone version supports only a single user, and swiping leftward from the right edge of the screen gently slides the Welcome screen away to reveal the home screen. Sounds familiar? It’s the same gesture-based UI we’ve seen in the Nokia N9 running MeeGo. Using this gesture felt extremely comfortable on our Nexus 4 due to the way its front glass curves smoothly on both sides of the bezel without any raised surface to bump in the way.

Home Screens

Once you unlock the device, you’ll land on a gorgeous Home screen that looks unmistakably similar to the Unity dash from Ubuntu’s desktop OS, complete with horizontal content groups to keep it all organized.

Scrolling sideways from the Home screen reveals similarly categorized screens for People, Music, Apps and Videos, providing you with quick access to your contacts and content without even having to launch any app first. This content-centric interface is in sheer contrast with Apple’s “There’s an app for that!” philosophy and from the looks of it, it’s definitely much more intuitive and immersive. Apart from scrolling between the different home screens, you can also scroll some of the individual content groups on each screen sideways in a carousel view, as shown in the screenshot above for the Favorite People group. This is similar to the design language used by Apple in the latest versions of some stock iOS apps, most notably the revamped iOS 6 App Store.

Apart from the differences due to screen size and orientation, all of these screens are identical on both phones and tablets. The Home screen is populated with groups for quick access to your frequently used apps, favorite contacts, people you’ve recently been in touch with, the music you’ve recently listened to, and the videos currently popular online.

When you swipe to another home screen, you’ll briefly see a bar at the bottom with buttons for all your home screens for quickly jumping to them, as you can see on the Home screen in the screenshot above.The People screen shows you your favorite contacts on top, with recently contacted ones below them, complete with the content of your actual recent interactions with them. Below that, there’s yet another section for your recently added contacts to make accessing them even quicker, and finally there’s an alphabetically organized list of all your contacts.The Apps screen isn’t a mere grid of your apps either; instead, it lists all your currently running apps (if any) on the very top for quick access, followed by the most frequently used ones below them. Next are all the apps you have installed, and lastly there are the apps available for download.

The Music and Videos screens both offer similar groups for featured, recently watched, newly released and top charting/most popular music and videos respectively. Much of all this content other than the currently running, frequently used and installed apps is static in this preview, but it’ll update based on your device use in stable releases.

The current screen arrangement is in order of Music, People, Home, Apps and Videos, with Home being the default central screen. While keeping the Music and Videos screens apart on opposite ends might seem counter-intuitive, it has probably been done to provide quicker access to the People and Apps screens from the Home screen. One way to solve this would be adding the ability to loop through all the screens infinitely by swiping in the same direction, or allowing users to rearrange the screens in an order of their choice.

Launcher

Having quick access to all your installed apps from anywhere in the OS can be a real timesaver. On most mobile operating systems, you need to go to the home screen or app list to launch an app, which adds a step to the process. The Ubuntu Touch Launcher solves this by providing you an omnipresent list of apps that you can bring up from anywhere in the OS with a rightward swipe from the left edge of the screen. It works the same way as the Unity launcher in Ubuntu for desktops does when set to auto-hide.

If you don’t lift the finger from the screen after the launcher shows up, you can move your finger vertically over the app icons to directly launch any app, as shown in the second screenshot above. This saves you yet another step, making the overall experience of launching an app both quicker and more fluid.

Context-Sensitive Search

Just like the search box in Unity dash, Ubuntu Touch comes with a universal context-sensitive search feature in form of a button built right into the top status bar to find anything, anywhere. This feature can be used on any screen that supports searching for content. While it is still available in the status bar on app screens, it’s not functional for any of the apps at the moment, but we’re guessing that’s only a limitation in this preview, and it’ll likely work for apps supporting search in a stable release.

The feature works as you type, updating the results with each keystroke. Searching on the Movies screen shots movie results, while using the feature on the Contacts screen shows matching contacts. You also get to see a history of all your recent searches upon tapping the search box, allowing you to quickly search for those items again.

Keyboard

The keyboard is fairly basic for now. While it looks pretty OK, it offers no advanced features like gesture-based typing, autocorrect, suggestions, emoji etc. This could also be a developer preview limitation.

When it comes to the typing experience itself, it was rather OK on the phone, but the width of keys, the placement of the second and third rows, and the lack of any feedback made it more difficult to type on a tablet in our experience. To sum it up, the keyboard can use a lot of improvement and we hope it is revamped significantly in a stable build.

Notifications & System Settings

The right section of the status bar lets you quickly access notifications from all your communication apps, date and time, events and appointments from your calendar, and important controls for various system features such as Wi-Fi networks, flight mode, volume, brightness and battery level. While the drop-down nature of this feature is quite obviously inspired by Android’s notification shade, the implementation is significantly different. Unlike Android, neither all notifications nor all settings and toggles are shown in the same view. Instead, you can simply tap on the status bar area containing these icons, and the ‘Device’ dropdown will let you access all the individual sections. In addition to that, you can also drag down from any individual icon to reveal its own screen directly. You can even switch it during the gesture to any of the other available options by swiping sideways, as long as your finger is still in the upper half of the screen.

The Messages dropdown consolidates notifications related to all your communication from all the relevant applications, ranging from missed calls on phone or Skype and text messages to emails, Facebook messages, Twitter mentions and potentially more. You can clear notifications using Android-like sideways swipe gestures, or tap on them to reveal options that allow you to respond to them directly based on the notification type.

The Sound section lets you quickly mute/unmute your device, or adjust its volume. Similarly, the Networks section shows you all available wireless networks and lets you quickly connect to any of them.

The Battery dropdown shows you the current battery charge level, though in the preview, neither the icon nor the notifications section shows any information about whether the device is currently charging or not. The Date and Time section shows you a digital clock surrounded by a beautifully stylized analog one, along with the current date and day, and all your calendar appointments.

Overall, this is an impressively designed feature of the OS, as it keeps relevant actions grouped together and avoids clutter while still providing you quick access to all of them. It seems more like a blend of the classic system tray concept and the modern dropdown notifications and system settings center.

Also, when you receive a notification, it is displayed in form of an on-screen popup. In the preview, this feature is only working for the received text messages, and you’ll shortly see it in action when we take a look at the Messaging app.

App Switching

All smartphone and tablet operating systems allow you to launch your apps using one or more methods, but the concept behind launching them is the same – you tap an on-screen object such as an app’s icon, a widget button or a media file, and the relevant app shows up on your screen. When it comes to switching between currently running or recently launched apps though, most operating systems have been struggling with different implementations with varied success, and the overall experience offered by them has mostly felt lacking. webOS initially got this right by treating apps as stacks of cards that you could move off each other to reveal the next one using sideways swipe gestures. Even Android and Windows Phone later implemented part of the same idea in form of their app switching lists. Though the best implementation of the concept that we’ve seen was in MeeGo on the Nokia N9. Canonical has also incorporated what we would call a perfect implementation of the same concept in Ubuntu Touch.

Ubuntu Touch uses two swipe gestures to facilitate app switching. Firstly, you can summon the launcher from any screen with a rightward swipe from the left edge to launch any of the apps that are pinned on it. Furthermore, if you continue the swipe gesture beyond the launcher without lifting your finger, the app that’s currently on the screen will start to slide rightward with an animation, eventually getting sent to background, landing you on the home screen. That’s not all – if you have multiple apps currently running, swiping leftward from the right edge of the screen will let you switch between them instantly and infinitely in a loop, making quick task switching a breeze.

A problem many of us face in iOS, Android and Windows Phone is the lack of distinction between recently launched and currently running apps. Being a pure multitasking OS, Ubuntu Touch gets this one right as well. Your currently running apps are just that – the apps that are actively running, be it in the foreground or in the background. Once you exit them (more on that later), they cease to exist in the task switching interface just discussed above. All your running apps are also listed on the Apps screen, from where you can switch to any of them with a tap. While there’s no section for your recently accessed apps, you instead get a group of your frequently used apps on the Home and Apps screen, which makes more sense; after all, there’s no point in having priority access to any of your recently launched apps that you rarely ever use and merely open, use and close when required.

The task management experience offered by Ubuntu Touch easily puts everything already out there to shame; it feels so natural and intuitive even in this preview, that you can’t help wondering how you were doing without it, and the idea of going back to an OS that doesn’t offer this starts sounding like reverse evolution. Thank you Canonical, for getting this basic feature just right.

Ubuntu HUD

With the exception of the keyboard, what we’ve seen so far has been impressive to say the least, and we’ll even venture to call the app launching and switching process just perfect. Though how about closing any of the running apps, or accessing their settings? This brings us to the Ubuntu HUD.

Apart from the launcher and dash, the HUD found in the desktop version of Ubuntu is another salient feature of the Unity UI, and Canonical has added its touch-friendly implementation to Ubuntu Touch as well. Swiping upward from the bottom edge from any app’s screen brings up an icon in the center of the screen, and taking your finger to that icon without lifting it from the screen brings up the HUD.

The HUD in Ubuntu Touch shows you a horizontal list of your currently running apps on top, similar to the list shown in the iOS app switcher tray on double-tapping the home button. Below that is a list of action shortcuts for your currently running app, though these aren’t functional in the preview. Then there is a horizontal list containing five buttons. We can make out the first three as close, back and help, and the last one as settings, but there’s no hint on the fourth one that features an icon similar to maximizing a window. Only the close button is functional in the preview, so we’ll have to wait for a stable release to see how the other buttons work. At the moment, it isn’t even clear if the other four buttons are system-wide, or meant for the currently active app.

You can dismiss the HUD by swiping downward from its handle near the top edge, just the way you can dismiss the notifications and system settings dropdown with an upward swipe from its handle near the bottom edge. Speaking of the notifications and system settings dropdown, the HUD acts independent of it on tablets and both can be activated at the same time, as you can see in the screenshot below.

In the HUD implementation, we can see the first shortcomings of the Ubuntu Touch user interface. In order to close an app, you have to swipe upward from the bottom edge of the screen, drag your finger to the icon that shows up in the center of the screen, release your finger to bring up the HUD, and then tap the close button from the HUD to finally close the app. With every other feature of app switching so smooth and intuitive, we can’t think of any reason why Canonical opted for such a complicated procedure to close an app. And this becomes even more cumbersome if you want to close multiple apps, as the close button is active only for the app from which you have triggered the HUD; tapping on the app icons on top does show you their own options, but the close button isn’t active for them. Therefore, you have to keep switching to the running apps and repeat the above process for each of them individually to close them. Also, there is no way to switch to any of the running apps from this list directly.

One way to fix things here would be to also show a close button in addition to the HUD button when swiping upward from the bottom edge from any app, letting users close it by simply dragging their finger to that close button. Another implementation could be similar to the gesture from the left edge that first brings up the launcher, but later swipes away the app and takes you to the home screen if you continue swiping rightward. The same way, continuing an upward swipe from the bottom edge beyond the HUD icon (preferably positioned lower) could be possibly used to close the app. A similar upward swipe gesture on the app icons in the HUD’s app list could be used to close those apps quickly without having to repeat the entire process for them. Lastly, adding a way to quickly switch to any of the currently running apps from this list could also be useful.

Voice Control

While discussing the HUD, we skipped the last item on it – the command box with a mic icon. We didn’t expect the voice control part to be functional in the preview, but it turns out it is. You can either type a command directly, or tap the mic icon to activate Voice Control. Simply speak into the phone and if it recognizes what you said as a command, it’ll show it to you on the screen. Tapping on it will execute that command.

The available commands vary from app to app, and since most of the apps currently provided in the preview aren’t functional, the commands for these apps will not work either. The feature itself looks promising nevertheless and could be a real timesaver if Ubuntu manages to get it right.

The Apps

So far, we have explored every component of the Ubuntu Touch UI provided in the preview and apart from a couple of shortcomings, it has been fairly impressive. Though the UI alone doesn’t guarantee the success of a platform; availability of quality apps makes a huge difference, and can act as a deciding factor when it comes to consumer adoption or rejection, as we have seen in case of webOS and to some extent, even Windows Phone. Before we move on to the available apps in Ubuntu Touch preview right now, let’s take a look at an interesting feature that’s bound to be immensely useful to many of us.

SideStage View

In any mobile OS that caters to devices of multiple form factors such as smartphones and tablets, running apps built for phones on tablets in a practical and useful manner has been an issue for most operating systems in the past. The iPad still runs iPhone apps in a letterboxed or blown out view, while Android has lately tackled this problem by unifying app development for phones and tablets, and appropriately rendering them automatically based on the device form factor, but this requires developers to build their apps accordingly. Ubuntu tackles this issue in a different way that’s clearly inspired by Windows 8 & RT. Enter SideStage – a feature in the tablet version of Ubuntu Touch that lets users run smartphone apps side-by-side with tablet apps in a pane of their own, as you can see below.

Not only does this allow you to work on multiple apps together, but it also means any apps built only for the phone form factor will work perfectly fine on tablets as well. We can already think of several use case scenarios for this feature, for instance having the calculator handy on the side while you are working on a document involving calculations in the main pane. Similarly, taking notes in the right pane while browsing websites in the main pane can be immensely useful for research. The possibilities are endless.

To use this feature, you simply have to launch or switch to a phone app while a tablet app is already running. This feature is a bit buggy in the preview, and at times apps crash when you attempt to dismiss them by swiping the vertical border rightward. Though once fully fixed in a stable release, it can very well be one of the flagship features of the OS.

Available Apps

Getting back to the apps provided with the preview, many important core apps are missing for now, and some of the included ones are mere placeholder icons or screenshots. Also, no third-party apps are available at the moment, but that’s perfectly understandable at this preview stage.

As mentioned above, there are two types of apps available for Ubuntu Touch when it comes to the form factor – phone apps, and tablet apps. Some of the built-in apps including Browser, Gallery, Camera, Gmail and Music come in both variants depending on the device, meaning launching any of them on the tablet will launch their full tablet version. Many of the other apps including Facebook, Twitter, Phone, Calculator, Notepad, Sharing and Weather only come in phone form factor for now, and launching them on a tablet will always run them in a vertical pane on the right, as we have already seen in the case of Twitter and Notepad in some of the screenshots.

Ubuntu supports both native apps and web apps. In fact some of the working apps available right now such as Twitter, Facebook and Gmail just load the web interface of the relevant service. This is a great way to give a head start to the app ecosystem, as it allows Ubuntu to launch with countless web apps already installed or available for installation, while it catches up with other competitors by working on native apps and sparking third-party developer interest.

Let’s now take a look at a few of the core apps provided in the preview, which will also highlight some features of the app design language Ubuntu has chosen for the OS.

Browser

There is a functional browser included in the preview, but it doesn’t currently allow you to do much other than entering a URL to visit, and moving back and forth between pages. Tab support and other features are in the works, but haven’t been implemented yet.

As you can notice, there are no buttons or menus here, which is part of Ubuntu Touch’s app design language. Instead, swiping upward from the bottom edge brings up an action bar similar to that found in Windows Phone and Windows 8/RT. To access more features and settings, you have to bring up the HUD by swiping further upward to the HUD icon, as mentioned earlier.

Gallery

The Gallery app is also functional, presenting you with all your photos organized by date in the Events view by default. Here, you’ll see another element of Ubuntu’s design language in action. The top bar shows the name of the current view by default, but tapping on it brings up any other panes available in the app, and tapping on the name of any of them, or simply swiping sideways takes you to that section. This seems to be inspired from Android’s Holo UI, which in itself derives from Microsoft’s Metro design language from Windows Phone and Windows 8/RT.

The other two sections offered by the Gallery include Photos (for viewing all photos together and the Albums view.

Phone & Messaging

The phone app offers basic functionality in the preview to make and receive calls. In the dialer interface, you can either start dialing a number or look one up from the already saved contacts, but the latter option along with the ability to save contacts isn’t functional in the preview.

While in a call, you get buttons to put it on hold, mute your own or the other person’s sound, add someone else to the call to make it a conference call, bring up the dialpad, and access your contact list.

Swiping sideways from the dialer interface brings you to the Conversations view. which is a consolidated list of your call log and recent text conversations, and acts as a messaging app as well. Tapping on any conversation from this list takes you to a view of all your interactions with the selected contact, including messages and calls. Swiping upward from the bottom edge shows you the option to start composing a new message. Whenever you receive an incoming message, you get a nifty notification in the top region of the screen.

Swiping sideways further brings you to the Contacts view, which is a part of the Phone app itself rather than a separate one. This makes perfect sense, as it offers a more content-centric approach by grouping actions for similar content together. An upward swipe from the bottom edge reveals the option to add a new contact.

Notepad & Calculator

These two basic apps are functional in the preview but you can’t save notes for now, and the calculator isn’t displayed properly on the Nexus 4.

Both these apps are available on both phones and tablets in only the vertical phone view.

Gmail, Facebook & Twitter

All three of these apps are basically web apps with their own buttons provided to launch them quickly.

The Gmail app supports full tablet view on tablets, while the Facebook and Twitter apps are available on both phones and tablets in only the vertical phone view. The browser that’s powering these web apps seems to be identifying as an iPhone browser for now, since signing in with your account in the Facebook app brings up an offer to install Facebook for iPhone, though you can easily dismiss it by tapping the Cancel button.

Other web apps available in the preview include Amazon and eBay, which work similarly.

Camera

The preview comes with a functional camera app that can utilize both front and back cameras of the devices. Though we’ll be reviewing the camera in detail once a stable build of Ubuntu Touch is released.

In addition to the above, you’ll also find Music, Media Player, Weather, Sharing, Ubuntu One and Ski Safari among the other native apps, but these aren’t functional at the moment and serve as placeholders.

Our Verdict

From what we’ve seen so far, Ubuntu Touch seems to be a promising contender for the smartphone industry. If Canonical manages to iron out the few shortcomings we mentioned earlier and get the app ecosystem going, it can become a major player in the industry. Though that’s easier said than done, especially the latter part. It’s a little too too early to tell how things will turn out but judging from the preview, Ubuntu Touch certainly has what it takes to become a solid operating system for smartphones & tablets.

If you want to give the OS a try yourself on your Nexus device, we’ve got you covered; just head over to our detailed Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview installation guide.

We have also made a small demo video of Ubuntu Touch Preview running on our Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, that you can check out below.

Read Ubuntu Touch Preview: A Complete Hands-on Feature & Interface Analysis by Haroon Q Raja on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter