Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 Released with Redesigned Greeter, Various Improvements

Marius Nestorby Marius Nestor0
Ubuntu Touch OTA-21

The UBports Foundation announced today the release of the OTA-21 software update for their Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system for supported devices.

Still based on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) operating system series, the Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 update is here one and a half months after Ubuntu Touch OTA-20 with more improvements and various bug fixes.

Highlights include a redesigned greeter (PIN/password entry screen), a new Tamil font, a new magnetometer and compass plugin for all Halium 9 or later based devices, and the ability to clear the lists of recent or missed calls.

“Most notably the style of the Greeter (the thing that is shown when the screen is about to be unlocked) has improved significantly to give a more modern and slick appearance. It shows a different style depending on if PIN or password unlock has been selected,” said the devs.

Moreover, the Storage overview page in System Settings has been revamped in OTA-21 to better detail how much space is occupied by the Ubuntu Touch core files and the system partition layout.

Among the issues fixed in this update, there’s support for setting up a Google account, microphone access in the default web browser, user metrics (a.k.a. the circle statistics on the lock screen) for all Halium 9 or later based devices, as well as a weird animation bug in Clock app’s timer mode.

Also improved in OTA-21 is MMS support to allow Ubuntu Touch to notify users to re-download a MMS if it wasn’t received properly. Starting with this update, Ubuntu Touch switches to the libmedia-hub-qt Qt-based client library for the media-hub service to improve playback of remote media, support volume changing from within apps, support playback speed changes, and support playback of multiple concurrent videos in the same app.

During this cycle, the UBports Foundation made some progress to improving automatic installation and updating of Ubuntu Touch on Halium 10 devices, though this is not visible to ordinary users yet. Also, they are working hard to port Ubuntu Touch to the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) operating system series.

The Ubuntu Touch OTA-21 update is rolling out today and through the next week to all supported devices. To update, visit the Updates screen in the System Settings app. Please note, that the PinePhone and PineTab devices are updated independently of the rest of the officially supported devices.

Last updated 2 years ago

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com