When all the hype about the new Ubuntu for phones OS dies down, we’ll be left with a void. Canonical admits it doesn’t currently have a manufacturer or an operator signed up, and it’ll be next year before the first device running the OS natively hits the market. And that’s a long time to wait.

By then, we’ll have seen new versions of Android and iOS, and Windows Phone 8 will likely be firmly entrenched in third place. If the market seems tough for Canonical to break into now, it’ll be far harder in 2014. But that doesn’t mean Ubuntu for phones can’t succeed. It will never make number one, but it doesn’t need to. It can carve out a pretty desirable niche in fourth or even fifth place, appealing to the Linux/Open Source crowd, and the users who don’t want the same phones as their parents and sheep-like peers.

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Canonical’s popular Linux distro Ubuntu has been adapted to run on smartphones, replacing Android. The new OS has a distilled interface, and uses the screen edges in place of buttons. According to Canonical the controls only appear when required and "thumb gestures from all four edges of the screen enable users to find content and switch between apps faster than other phones".

Swiping from the left will display Ubuntu's launcher, while swiping from the top will show system indicators, such as Networks, Date and Time, Sound, and Battery. Swiping from the right will take you back, and the bottom edge will give you access to options inside an app.

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I join colleagues Mihaita Bamburic, Alan Buckingham and Wayne Williams recounting what tech I used in 2012. But unlike them, I made dramatic platform changes, more significant than first using Windows over New Years holiday 1994, buying a reburbished PowerBook in February 1999, adopting Facebook and Twitter in 2006 or purchasing Nexus One in January 2010. Each of these marked major platform changes -- and some not always lasting. Consider this: in early 2012, I owned a 1.8GHz Intel Core i7 MacBook Air, iPhone 4S and iPad 3. I end the year using Chromebook and Android smartphone and tablets.

During the year I moved from OS X and Windows running on Intel to an ARM-and-Chrome OS laptop, and after several failed attempts at adopting tablets (three generations of iPads, really), I embraced not one but two Android slates. I store all my data in the cloud -- local storage is now merely a way station between destinations rather than personal repository. This old dog is learning new tricks, and if I make such dramatic platform changes what does that mean for younger users who are more flexible and not as financially or habitually Apple/Microsoft/Intel committed? Look around, the PC era rapidly evaporates around you and its disappearance will be difficult to ignore in 2013.

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If there's one word that best describes my personal tech use for 2012, change is definitely it. For the most part of the year I "cheated" one platform with another, with no particular personal favorite to get me through (almost) 365 days. Each piece of software and hardware is used for a particular scenario, something that I find rather soothing for my personal early adopter endeavors as well as my sanity. I just can't stand tinkering with the same bit of tech for longer periods of time, although there still is a dear old friend in my life...

My colleagues Alan Buckingham and Wayne Williams already wrote about their personal tech choices in 2012, and now it's my turn. Without further ado here is what I used most throughout the year, starting with my trusty dear old friend.

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In June, I boycotted Apple and completely declared independence in July. But my disdain is personal, I respect other people's fruity tastes. Thus, I found myself inside Apple Store on December 23 ready to buy my daughter her big surprise Christmas gift: white iPhone 5. But I ended up purchasing from AT&T, which experience taught valuable lessons about iPhone gifting and what the carrier can and will do that Apple Store won't or can't.

Simply stated: I wanted iPhone 5 to be a surprise. That meant purchasing the device without activating to her phone number beforehand, thus walking out of the store with an unopened box, which seal she could break on Christmas morning. At Apple Store, one of the red shirts said no way. The phone couldn't leave the premises without being activated. "You could buy an Apple gift card for the same amount", he suggested. What's the surprise in that? Would you rather get the phone or the promise of one? Geez Louise.

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After almost three weeks since Samsung announced the Premium Suite upgrade for the Galaxy S III, the South Korean manufacturer officially revealed that the older Galaxy Note is set to receive the same software treatment alongside the coveted Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade.

The previously available leaked ROMs gave away Samsung's plans to introduce Premium Suite functionality as well the first Jelly Bean iteration for the original Galaxy Note, however details were scarce at the time. Users can now expect to take advantage of a number of new features including Multi Window, which allows to view two apps concomitantly or Popup Browser, Note and Video to display a web page, create notes and watch a video while running other apps.

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Almost two months ago Verizon Wireless announced the HTC Windows Phone 8X, in Blue, Black and Red, for $199.99. The US carrier slashed the price of the smartphone down to a more competitive $99.99 on new two-year contracts, bringing the handset more in line with the other Windows Phone 8 device available right now at the big red, the Lumia 822.

However, the move to halve the price may add even more confusion for prospective customers looking to purchase a new Windows Phone 8 handset. At the $99.99 price point Verizon now offers two similar handsets, the Lumia 822 and the Windows Phone 8x, neither of which sets itself clearly apart from the other in the software or the hardware department.

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Concurrent with third-quarter earning results late this afternoon, Red Hat announced plans to acquire ManageIQ, an enterprise cloud provider. The all-cash deal is for $104 million. Red Hat is uniquely positioned, opportunity and risk, for enterprise server consolidation and transition to private clouds -- for which virtualization is a linchpin technology. The Raleigh, N.C.-based company plans to expand its own capabilities by fitting ManageIQ's monitoring and management tools onto existing solutions.

Red Hat's acquisition rides the cusp of a trend. Last month, IDC forecast big cloud-related mergers for 2013 -- totaling $25 billion over 20 months. The analyst firm sees three converging trends vertically related. "The IT industry as a whole is moving toward the mobile/social/cloud/big data world of the 3rd Platform much more quickly than many realize: from 2013 through 2020, these technologies will drive around 90 percent of all the growth in the IT market," Frank Gens, IDC chief analyst, says. "Companies that are not putting 80 percent or more of their competitive energy into this new market will be trapped in the legacy portion of the market, growing even slower than global GDP.

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When Verizon Wireless introduced the Samsung Galaxy Note II, the handset shipped with a fairly restrictive modding setup. It could not be rooted early on and there was also the problem of a tightly locked bootloader, both of which are now sorted out. But after the major obstacles are gone the big red Galaxy Note II Developer Edition surfaces with, you guessed it, an unlocked bootloader. But is it worth it?

The Galaxy Note II Developer Edition comes with the same impressive specifications as the standard version. The smartphone features a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display, 1.6GHz quad-core processor backed by 2GB of RAM and a whopping 3,100 mAh battery. The 16GB of internal storage as well as the microSD card slot are carried over, just like Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz running on top. Fairly straightfoward, except the unlocked bootloader.

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Here's another reason for me to gripe that Google Nexus 4 isn't LTE, despite colleague Mihaita Bamburic insisting it doesn't matter: Strategy analytics predicts that LTE smartphone shipments will reach 275 million units next year. That's triple the number shipped in 2012.

"It is clear that 2013 will be the year of 4G", Neil Mawston, the firm's executive director, says. Still, based on combined analyst forecasts, LTE would only account for about one-quarter of all smartphones shipped.

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If you're looking for a Samsung-made Android smartphone that is bigger than the Galaxy S III yet smaller than the Galaxy Note II, fret not! On Tuesday, the South Korean manufacturer unveiled the Galaxy Grand, which slots right between the two with a 5-inch display.

That's the extent of the comparison between the three handsets, though. The Galaxy Grand may feature a 5-inch display, but it sports an outdated 800 by 480 resolution which is subpar when compared to high-end devices, and is actually closer to many entry level offerings on the market today. The smartphone also ships with a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, aided by a fairly large 2,100mAh battery.

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For an Android manufacturer that supports the modding community, Sony sure knows how to keep customers waiting. Almost two months after the previous announcement, the Japanese corporation released an updated Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade schedule for 2012 Xperia smartphones and, sadly, the news is no better this time around.

The upgrade plans for the company's newest smartphones, the Xperia T, Xperia TX and Xperia V, appear unchanged. The three devices will receive Android 4.1 Jelly Bean "during February and March" 2013, on par with the previous estimate provided by Sony just under two months ago. However, for older smartphones, customers will have to wait a little longer for the coveted upgrade.

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Nearly a month ago, I told you about Microsoft's latest Windows Phone challenge -- titled "Meet your Match". Today the company released some numbers from its latest campaign. Although much of this is speculative, at least it almost certainly went better than the recent spectacular #DroidRage failure.

Windows Phone evangelist Ben Rudolph, who launched the successful "Smoked by Windows Phone" during Consumer Electronics Show 2012, began "Meet your Match" to coincide with the release of Windows Phone 8. This time around, instead of a simple speed test, Microsoft challenged customers to see which device better fit their needs -- Windows Phone 8 or the device they currently use.

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Samsung is yet again in the spotlight with a new, potentially dangerous, security flaw. A developer revealed an exploit at kernel level that allows access to the entire physical memory on a number of popular Exynos-based devices, including the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II.

Thankfully, a developer behind the SuperSU rooting tool, came promptly to the rescue and released an app which can be used by affected users to temporarily plug the security hole.

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Apple started selling its newest smartphone in the People's Republic of China on December 14. Late tonight, the company claims 2 million sales for Friday and the weekend. The announcement comes as rumors mount about slowing sales.

"Customer response to iPhone 5 in China has been incredible, setting a new record with the best first weekend sales ever in China", Tim Cook, Apple CEO, says. "China is a very important market for us", which is quite the understatement. During fiscal fourth quarter China revenue reached $5.7 billion, up 26 percent year over year. iPhone rose 38 percent, Macs 44 percent and iPad 45 percent. For the fiscal year, China generated $23.38 billion revenue, or 15 percent for all Apple. China accounted for more than three-quarters of Asia-Pacific revenue.

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