Our desktop interface and apps are actually quite different from Ubuntu, though we are an Ubuntu-based distribution.
To give some concrete examples:
- We use our own desktop environment and window manager, Pantheon and Gala, respectively.[1]
- We write many of our own apps in-house or work closely with the third-party apps we ship with. For example, our music player, settings application, and calendaring program (to name a few) are all written completely by us. Our mail program, web browser, and photo management app are developed by third-parties who we have strong developer and personal connections to.
- Similar to the above point, we have our own human interface guidelines[2]. You might find you like it more than Ubuntu's.
- elementary OS is extremely fast and lightweight. Our ISO is ~200 MB less than Ubuntu's, and our OS boots faster and is more responsive. A simple youtube or google search should back me up here.
I hope this was helpful to you and perhaps others. Again, we really appreciate your interest and curiosity. I'd definitely encourage you to give it a whirl once you've aced your exams :)
[1]: http://elementaryos.org/journal/meet-gala-window-manager [2]: http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines
I dont mean it in a "resistance is futile" kind of way - but more in terms of not-immediately-needed kind of way. Especially the browser. Webmail suffices for now - I know people want a Sparrow-like mail app on the desktop, but there is so much more effort that can be put in on projects like color calibration, Redshift-like functionality [1], etc.
You are off to a decent start - I really, really hope that you guys dont start building Twitter apps. Instead you should expose API guidelines for things like Contractor (OSX Services?) and have something like extensions.gnome.org - but maybe in Vala for performance.
Just my $0.02.
I'm not sure what you meant about Contractor, because we definitely do have API guidelines for it.
Also, there is an excellent third-party Twitter app for elementary OS called Birdie: http://birdieapp.github.io/
I appreciate the input :)
Good job btw!