Yeah that's what immediately came to mind. This must be part of their effort to merge Chrome OS into Android. On the Chrome OS side they already said are going to be replacing the kennel and other system stuff with Androids guts.
That's sad news. ChromeOS is much faster and more efficient than Android. Turning off the Android subsystem in low-end Chromebooks is a huge performance boost, even when no Android apps are open.
To be fair, that’s likely because the Android subsystem is a virtual machine - not running multiple sets of system services / CPU emulation on a computer will make it faster pretty much universally.
It's not just the virtualization, ChromeOS has had a lot of work put into performance. The low-end ARM Chromebooks use the same hardware as budget Android devices, and they're noticeably faster. My Android phone uses more RAM doing nothing from a fresh boot than those Chromebooks even have.
That’s a good point actually. Windowed app performance on Android apps is especially bad since they’re not designed for it (most of my experience is on Android-x86, but window resizing performance is not great)
Fuchsia as the core makes much more sense. It replaces Linux for a start and completely changes the security model to something a LOT more defendable among a bunch of other benefits.
I worked on Android at Google until 2023 and can 99.999% confirm for you Fuchsia, as the outside understands it is DOA. (i.e. as some sort of next gen OS, and if not that, some kernel that's on track to replace Linux in Android)
Long story short is you can imagine in 2019 there was X amount of engineers, 95% on Android and 5% on what you'd call Fuchsia.
The central argument up top became about why the renegade band that split off from Android/Chrome etc. to do Fuchsia in...early to mid 2010s?...and if it was going to provide a significant step forward. This became framed in terms of "$ of devices shipped", in which case, there was no contest.
Funnily enough this very article is about N dominos down from there (de-investment in Fuchsia, defenestration of head software guy of Android/Chrome/Chrome OS etc., ex. Moto hardware guy is in charge now)
Don't read this comment too closely, I was not in the room. For example, I have absolutely no actual quotes, or relayed quotes, to 100% confirm some set of individuals became focused on # of devices shipped.
Just obsessive enough to track wtf was going on, and on big enough projects, and trustworthy and hard working, and clearly without party or clique, such that I could get good info when asked, as it was clear my only concern was making things that were good and making sure all of Google's products could be part of that story.
Thanks for that insight. Obviously there’s a lot of context in there that isn’t at all clear outside.
One part I find hard to reconcile with all of that is that even just looking at public facing stuff alone it seems to be under VERY active development.
You're seeing the public facing side of it as a wholesale Android replacement, think of this repo as the tip of the iceberg: well, it used to be, but the rest of the iceberg disappeared.
It's still shipping, successfully, on millions(?) of devices yearly via Nest Hubs and such. Never say never. But all public-facing signs are fairly clear, the big move is ChromeOS into Android, not Android onto Fuchsia - and note how invested Google is in the Nest Hubs (read: not at all, languished for years now)
(I'm also curious if we could get a stats-based thing on, say, 2019 vs. 2024, My out-of-thin-air prior would be 30% more activity in 2019 than now. But I also figured there was 10 commits a day now, not 100.)
(I tried checking out the whole repo, but then all the apps on my macbook informed me en masse there was 0 disk space left :X Doesn't look like there's a GitHub mirror)
(cheers btw, you're my kind of people, one of the more soul-sucking parts of Google was finding out that kind of person is few, and far between) (i.e. curious and into It, not just here to make your boss or partner happy)
I guess that’s the thing, when I now look at the commits it’s way past what’s reasonable for nest. I see chromium is rolled back in for example, flutter is back in there, everything seems to be getting the bazel treatment, I see a bunch of non publicly announced releases this year… like things are clearly happening on some level in a way that’s not entirely consistent with the idea of a product that is in the midst of a death roll.
Do you think it’s possible that thinking evolved slightly beyond the number of devices shipped in the meantime perhaps?
I’d always been on the opinion of even just assuming they got to a point where the whole starnix linux syscall compatibility layer thing (which is what I see a lot of recent commits pointing towards) to a good point and stopped that it would still make sense in so many use cases that it would have been justified.
It would also change the number of devices shipped question from 1 dying product line to billions overnight which certainly might change the conversation and furthermore would put them into a pretty unique commercial position for more high assurance computing given the security model which would have a lot of follow on effects presumably
Also thanks again for taking the time to answer, you’re right I am genuinely very curious about this.
This is very good news. Especially in light of recent attention given to the possibility of CPU shortages. Lots of programming tasks can be done comfortably on a smartphone. For example, no build front end programming. The description "desktop view" is unfortunate since it calls to mind a browser mode where the site is displayed as it would be on a desktop. And this is something completely different. I do hope this mode does not require an external display because it would be quite useful even with the phone's native display. Especially given their hypixel density and the availability of reading glasses.
They could be implying it would help with shortages by making it so that the CPUs already in phones are better utilized, decreasing the demand for new CPUs.
I’m not sure I follow on the cpu shortage front. Phone cpus by their nature are attached to a degrading-over-time battery, and are much more power constrained… I have an already 6 year old i7 in my desktop… it can keep up with modern software still in a “I don’t even think about it” manner, which is to say I cranks through anything other than a large numerical simulation (dang Intel, I would have needed to go to an i9 to get AVX-512 back then I think).
Anyway I could happily get a couple more years out of as a main PC, then it will probably have a few years in it as a hand-me-down or tv computer.
That said, I generally agree that, I mean, we’re going to get phones anyway so it is nice to get something useful out of them.
It's weird. Android Authority already released a small article some days ago, with video, screenshots, and IIRC showing the way to enable it on the Android 16 preview [0]
I use what I call “pseudo DeX” on my Galaxy Tab S8+ constantly. It’s basically the entire DeX laptop like UI without the requirement to use an external monitor (there’s an actual name for it I can’t remember).
It’s what Stage Manager on iPads should have been: a regular, boring laptop mode to make multitasking on a large tablet screen usable without Apple unnecessarily trying to put their own unique spin on it.
Funny you mention stage manager, i remember the absolute online letdown/meltdown that happened when it didn't ship with the iPadOS version it was scheduled to. The other day i encountered the button for it and completely forgot it existed, but after launching it, I remembered how useless it is.
I used it fairly regularly with a device called NexDock, which is essentially just a laptop shell that acts as a screen, a keyboard, a track pad, and a battery for a USB-C connected device. I mostly used it for web browsing, chatting, and Termux (usually SSHing into another system, but not always).
Since I got my hands on a Daylight Computer, I have basically been doing the same thing but with a tablet Android environment instead of DeX. It's been nice, but I would love a nicer window manager when I have a keyboard and mouse connected.
Yes! Have been using it since my first pair of 'AR' glasses when I want to get work done anywhere without dragging my laptop (corp or personal). If I ever find a folding bluetooth keyboard that can "lock" to remain stable in my lap, I'll be particularly happy.
I do sometimes. If I go to a friend's house with a big-screen TV and stereo, I can connect my USB-C dock, plug in the hdmi cable, and control from a mouse or the phone. Nice big display with multiple windows. Same for when I stay at hotels. I believe you can still get phones that have an HDMI out that's not DeX, but then you just see a scrunched up mobile phone display on a big-screen TV and no multiple windows.
I switched from a lifetime of iPhones to an android phone last year, just because of folding phones. They are amazing and IMO the reason why Apple is going to have issues as these get cheaper (unless they release a folding phone too). Now that I have all this screen estate the current UI feels limiting often.
I switched from iPhone to android a month ago and it was so awful that I just went back to using my old phone. I treat the android device as essentially a powerbank with a camera, and even that it's bad at. plug it into my PC to transfer pictures? no response
Curious to know what phone you got. A Pixel 9 with GrapheneOS is so much better than any iOS devices from my experience. But since users you have more freedom on Android, this will depend on what you do with it (e.g me, I use Syncthing to locally sync all my files and photos with several devices -- no cloud / subscription needed).
Is your PC a Mac? Apple doesn't support MTP because they want iPhones to look good or something. Every other OS with a reasonably complete Desktop Environment will allow mounting an Android device as what appears pretty much as a standard USB drive. It's part of why I prefer Android. Using an iPhone on Linux/BSD is just not worth the hassle.
> mounting an Android device as what appears pretty much as a standard USB drive
AFAIK Google got rid of built-in support for this in Android Jelly Bean. Additional tricks are needed to make later versions of Android behave as a USB Mass Storage device. If it works for you out of the box, I suspect it may be specific to your Android distro.
They're talking about MTP, which is supported by every modern (and old) Android device AFAIK. It's not exactly a USB Mass Storage device, but as long as you're not on a Mac, it behaves basically the same as one.
Ah, I was mistaken. I thought they were saying that the reason Apple supports MTP (as opposed to UMS) is not that they want to make iPhones look good, but for some other unspecified reason (which I assumed was patent licensing). But they were actually saying that Apple does not even support MTP.
I think it’s more that MTP is an awful protocol than anything else. It’s slow and flaky even under OSes that support it. It’s shocking to me that with all of the brilliant people working for Google, nobody has managed to figure out a better replacement.
Maybe I've just been extraordinarily lucky but it's been nether of those things for me. It's also far superior to Apple's go through iTunes/Finder garbage protocol IMO.
Not saying that Apple has anything better, but I really don’t feel like the problem is adequately solved on Android either.
The easiest thing in my mind would be to use USB mass storage, with the storage presented to the connected computer being virtualized with a layer reconciling changes with actual storage on the fly (which the current MTP implementation already does anyway), solving the problem that USB mass storage traditionally has arising from two systems mounting the same chunk of disk at once.
That would work everywhere and remove the need for a bizarre protocol borrowed from Windows XP.
why would I sync them using an app I need to install on both devices, an additional third party I have to deal with, when there's zero technological reason I shouldn't be able to literally just plug it in with its charging cable? it's just overcomplicating matters
I just tried syncthing, and first of all I do not trust the fork of the app present on the app store, second of all, christ is it slow. why would I ever rely on this when I should be able to just use a usb cable? it's like trying to say that you should just screen mirror all your content to your TV rather than use a HDMI. bizarre
I've swapped dozens of users from iOS to Android in the last year or so and nobody has had issues. Over the years I've helped hundreds of people migrate. Most everyone really likes the freedom to use different apps or workflows.
The only folks who ever have problems are people who need to be told how to use their devices. Choices confuse them so android is overwhelming, which is understandable. That's where iOS excels. iOS dictates how users can do things, which works for some people but also atrophies people's understanding of technology. People learn to do as they're told, not how to think about what's going on. Apple's walled garden makes people worse at technology.
Also sounds like you bought a garbage bargain android device. Idk how something can barely work as a camera/powerbank unless user error is present.
>The only folks who ever have problems are people who need to be told how to use their devices.
While this may be the case - many iPhone users love their phones (and iOS) for a different reason.
I've been with Android for some time: rooting, custom builds, different launchers, you name it. And it was fun back when I was in my early 20s, when had the time for this and when it was something new (HTC One, the very first model was my last Android phone).
Then I've bought iPhone 6 (I had switched from Arch to macOS few months earlier) and tried a few android phones since.
I simply don't need those "workflows".
I need about a dozen apps (the ones I use almost daily), I want them to be thought through (like Drafts) and I want my OS to work and behave the same way at least 5 years later (not to mention security updates and such).
This is where iPhone delivers and where Android quite often fails. I have iPhone 13 now and I can be sure that even few years from now everything will just work the same way does now.
you p much repeated what i said. you want to be told how to use your phone. you'll use the apps that you're given to do the tasks they decide you can do on your phone. that's fine. that's why stock ios exists.
but the person i was replying to was acting like android doesn't work. They were trying to do things that their chosen walled-garden(apple/ios) prevents them from doing, then blaming anything but their walled-garden. they were showing clear bias.
>you p much repeated what i said. you want to be told how to use your phone. you'll use the apps that you're given to do the tasks they decide you can do on your phone. that's fine.
No, I have said entirely different thing.
Try to climb off you horse and maybe you will notice the difference between "apps you are given" and "apps I decided to use that are available on the market".
>but the person i was replying to was acting like android doesn't work
Well, that person was too emotional and given us almost no details.
But to be honest the way Android behaves (unless you want to hack most of it) - it can be described as "doesn't work" from iOS user's perspective. And no, not because of "walled garden" or some other bs you imagine. Most of the time android phones (yes, even top models) simply lag (or start lagging over the time). Not to mention that the base line quality of software is simply lower than on iOS.
>they were showing clear bias.
And so are you. You are doing _exactly_ the same when writting things like "walled-garden" and "you want to be told"
get your head out of your own arse. it's got fuck all to do with needing to be told what to do; you should see the level of customisation I have set up on my laptop. the overriding issue here is that if you're doing things on your phone that require massive customisability then you're doing something wrong. phones are for calling, photos, music and occasionally looking something up. almost anything else you should be doing with a keyboard and mouse. a phone that you have to constantly dig through the settings and install a million utility apps to make bearable is a bad phone. a phone you have to pay a grifter to transition you to using is a bad phone
>Idk how something can barely work as a camera/powerbank unless user error is present.
I literally explained this in the comment. the device doesn't connect to my laptop when I plug it in, meaning that I can't transfer photos off it easily
your entire comment smells viciously of "oh my god! how dare he not have had a good experience with android. my poor baby android..."
if I was biased I wouldn't have bought an android in the first place
you're clearly using it wrong and blaming the device.
multiple people have explained to you that you're the issue and your response is to get angry, throw around insults, and reiterate that you're using it wrong.
you bought into a walled garden, then acting like everything outside your self-imposed garden is wrong.
it's telling that you've not actually addressed anything I said. you're just repeating yourself and appealing to the authority of others. you've quite clearly decided that Android is your "team" and you're just going to aggressively defend it and insult anyone who threatens that, and yes, you too were throwing around insults, just because they were less explicit does not mean you get to play as if you're the adult in the room
there's a difference between liking a walled garden and preferring a phone that just works pleasantly with all the features you need straight out of the box, and the fact that you're choosing to misunderstand this shows that you're just completely unobjective. and of course you are, you've literally explained your vested interest in this. it's like trying to argue atheism to an evangelical priest
besides, if we were talking about tablets or laptops or anything that you might actually want to do work on, then a walled garden is a huge issue, a massive dealbreaker. but as far as I'm concerned you're kidding yourself if you think your phone needs a wider pool of features than a Nokia from 2007
I have been an iPhone user since 2009, but take 'Android-excursions' every few years. I am currently using a Pixel 9 and I can't see why it would be worse than an iPhone. Functionality-wise they are pretty much on-par. Sure, there are some differences, Pixels have much better AI functionality, iPhones better Mac integration. But I don't see a clear advantage of either, except that Android hardware is much more affordable (you can pick up a still pretty-ok Pixel 8a new for 379 Euro here currently) and Android has more customizability (but good out-of-the-box defaults).
And you have the bonus that with a Pixel you can remove big tech from the equation when needed with GrapheneOS.
That said, I would only recommend people to buy Pixel or Samsung A5x or up. They are the only Android phones that have reliable monthly updates [1], plus they are the only two brands that are not vague about having a truly separated secure enclave (Titan M2/Knox Vault respectively). Other vendors don't really talk about it and probably only use ARM TrustZone.
[1] Pixel is the only phone that gets them really on time, but with Samsung it's normally within a month on A5x and the flagships.
is it a skill issue that it doesn't just plug and play into my laptop? is it a skill issue that swiping from the left goes back to the previous page and swiping from the right also goes back to the previous page? is it a skill issue that google translate requires me to have the google search app installed? and that the google search app puts a big fuck off search bar in the middle of my home screen, of which the only simple way to remove is to delete the app?
Yes. It literally protects your precious photos from being stolen if you plug your phone somewhere else, but the only thing you need to pull down the notification bar and tap to allow the file transfer.
Like it notifies you when you plug it in, if you didn't notice it even once - how can it be not a skill issue?
> is it a skill issue that swiping from the left goes back to the previous page and swiping from the right also goes back to the previous page
... in what app? If this is Chrome then ask Google why. Or install Firefox, DuckDuckGo or whatever else.
> is it a skill issue that google translate requires me to have the google search app installed
Yes, Google tries to stick it's d** everywhere. Just like Apple, though you don't talk shit about Greatest Jobs' Company, because you like it.
BTW, I have an official Google Translate app and I don't have the Search bullshit on the home screen. I literally have nothing except DDG and Camera shortcuts. Android 12, Moto G8. Because you know, you can disable apps.
by plug and play I obviously wasn't referring to the laptop just offering up my photos unlocked. I was talking about plugging it in, unlocking the device and nothing happening. there is no notification, and nothing in the notification bar. this would never happen on an iPhone. this should have been very obvious to anyone paying even the slightest attention
>... in what app? If this is Chrome then ask Google why. Or install Firefox, DuckDuckGo or whatever else.
in every app. it's a feature of the system, just like you can swipe from the side of the screen in almost every app on iOS. why on earth would I have said it if it was just in one app? again, this should have been very obvious to you
>Just like Apple, though you don't talk shit about Greatest Jobs' Company, because you like it.
what is with all this Android white-knighting? it's an operating system, not a protected species. I literally chose to buy an Android phone when I could have bought an iPhone, and somehow I'm biased? I could not care less about this pathetic semi-religious Android vs Apple war that you've got going on inside your head. they're not sports teams, they're tools, and unless you've got a very very specific use case, this tool's main feature should be the rapid, pleasant usability of a few simple features. they should not require concerted effort and research to set up. there are major issues with Apple, and there are major issues with Google, but for what I want in a phone, Apple makes a better OS. for what I want in a laptop, Apple makes a terrible OS.
>Android 12, Moto G8
you're 2 versions of Android behind what I have and you expect to speak as an authority on this?
> in every app. it's a feature of the system, just like you can swipe from the side of the screen in almost every app on iOS. why on earth would I have said it if it was just in one app? again, this should have been very obvious to you
No, it's not obvious for me. None of my Android phones behaved so and I don't think I can remember such behaviour on any other I saw or used.
> I literally chose to buy an Android phone when I could have bought an iPhone, and somehow I'm biased?
Yes, you are. You somehow equate your personal experience with the one unknown model and make to all Android phones ever. And despite people telling you what you are clearly missing something - you stubbornly insist it's not you but the Android.
> you're 2 versions of Android behind what I have and you expect to speak as an authority on this?
And my daily driver is Moto G54, Android 14. Any other pathetic excuses?
> is it a skill issue that it doesn't just plug and play into my laptop?
But it is builtin android feature. You connect to laptop and notification pop up asking if you want to mount as usb transfer mode or just charge.
> is it a skill issue that swiping from the left goes back to the previous page and swiping from the right also goes back to the previous page?
Its probably your specific vendor option and you certainly can change it. But its definetly not universal android thing as it doesnt do anything from edge swipe by default.
> is it a skill issue that google translate requires me to have the google search app installed?
Its just regular app - it doesnt need anything additional.
> and that the google search app puts a big fuck off search bar in the middle of my home screen
Apps which places widgets on homescreen asks for permission unless you checked a checkbox to always allow.
And all widgets can be removed from the screen anyway. These is no such thing as mandatory non removable widgets in Android.
So yeah, it looks like a skill issue if you are more familiar with how another system works and doesnt want to invest to figure out how to do the same in the Android. The UI is different and less familiar for you, but you can literaly do all the things as on iPhone, just in a different way.
I want my photos on my laptop. why would I go to the trouble of messing around trying to find an app, installing it on both devices, trusting some additional third party with my photos when I can just plug it in and transfer?
The screen of foldable phones is still smaller than most tablets, and there’s a reason iPads offer something like Stage Manager for (larger) external screens (disregarding for the moment its janky implementation). Meaning, the screen size of foldable phones doesn’t change that much about the usefulness of being able to connect to a desktop-size screen.
I have the huwai xt fold, folds out to a 10.3 inch screen. I remote to a windows 11 computer and can do full development on it with a folding keyboard with builtin trackpad
I've come to my senses since but it is quite enjoyable to use MANY monitors. One with the website, one with the css, some article about css, mdn, youtube, mail, irc, etc. A single giant display is also something entirely different.
Isn't harmonyOS supposed to be a fully convergent operating system too? I have no perspective on how the device works though, I've been very interested does it run that? Will it have Linux containers?
Haha yeah, I’ve heard that too! Apple might be late to the foldable party, but you know how they do it — show up last and still steal the spotlight. If they really launch one, it’ll probably be super refined… and super pricey. Let’s see if they can change the game like they did with the notch!
If it’s the size of my current phone and folds out to be twice as wide, that sounds kind of nice. Except it would be so thin I worry it would be flimsy and there wouldn’t be as much space for battery (which the open screen would use faster) so wouldn’t I get worse battery life?
Unless you make it twice as thick. Then it’s twice as thick.
And so I’m not sure that bigger screen would justify any of that for me. Now if it was three times as wide that might be significantly nice because now you’re approaching like iPad mini size. But that just makes the thinness/thickness problem worse.
If it’s say half the size of my current phone and then unfolds to be the size of my current phone (game boy SP style) I’m not sure that’s really buying me anything either. My phone is fine, I don’t need a twice as thick half as tall version in my pocket that’s not really gonna help me.
I have heard they’re popular with women which makes a certain amount of sense to me. Because if you’re going to just carry your phone in your bag then the fact that it’s twice as thick doesn’t matter that much but you get the bigger screen.
I’m a phone-in-pocket person.
So I don’t know, it’s just not making a lot of sense to me. But like I said I’ve never used one and it may be one of those things where after a couple of days the light would go on and I would totally get it. I questioned the Apple Watch at first and now I love it. But that’s not always how it goes.
> If it’s the size of my current phone and folds out to be twice as wide, that sounds kind of nice. Except it would be so thin I worry it would be flimsy and there wouldn’t be as much space for battery (which the open screen would use faster) so wouldn’t I get worse battery life?
It isn't. I went from Apple's 16 Pro to an Oppo Find N5. Battery size 16 Pro: 3,582mAh. Though in fairness the Oppo is the same size as an iPhone 16 Pro Max, which has 4,685mAh.
Battery size Oppo Find N5: 5600mAh
56% more than my old phone. 20% more than the 16 Pro Max. Silicon carbon batteries.
It's beautiful what can be done if we go with modern technology and not Apple's profit maximising regurgitation of the same same for many many years.
I'm fine with a heavier ones. And looking at the amounts of iPhones sold (including cases, holders and whatever) the weight isn't a factor for the many.
It's not like Apple hasn't had the ability to release a folding phone since the display technology has existed for years. The tricky part of releasing a folding phone is figuring out how you're going to handle the incredibly high warranty claim rate when screens spontaneously fail.
Apple in particular will get to deal with all the negative PR when people buy their $2000 iPhone Fold and online reports come flooding in for all of the week 1 display failures.
Multitasking on a phone? I know screens are getting bigger, but it seems like a bit much to me... I can understand this on a tablet, but having two windows that im interacting with at the same time on a phone would feel really cramped, unless its one of those fold phones that are 2 or 3 in 1
You plug in a USB-C cable with DP-Alt mode (or whatever phones use) and you have a (4K) display of any size, keyboard and mouse (via the USB hub in the monitor), and webcam, speakers, whatever else that's connected to your monitor/hub/docking station.
The phone just becomes the processing power; essentially an ARM laptop with all of the peripherals external.
I currently using Pixel 9 Pro XL (512GiB) and I imagine it's got more compute power than my ageing 2019 XPS 13.
Conversely, I'm not entirely sure what the use-case is. It couldn't replace my work-laptop with a 20-core CPU and 64GiB of RAM and ARC GPU, running Ubuntu/Gnome that I can also connect to a couple of monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers, webcam, and more with a single cable via a docking station; and if I was going to carry the peripherals needed to do this with my phone, when on the go, I'd just carry a laptop, like I do now.
Curious to hear what the use-case is for people with these desktop/phone crossovers. If it's to cover the use-case where I haven't brought a laptop with me, forgotten it, didn't bring it for weight or whatever; where am I supposed to find these peripherals to use?
A secure device. Pixel with graphene and this thing lets you keep all your classified eggs in one basket, but it is a really hard to pry open basket. At home you can do stuff on it with the same comfort as on PC, but you can always have it in pocket.
So I tried to replace my personal computer with an iPad pro thinking that all I need is some basic apps + a browser. I connect it to a docking station and try to use it as a desktop computer, and I really love being able to take notes with a stylus.
The problem is, the OS is very limiting. The file manager of iOS is extremely dumbed down, even Firefox doesn't work properly on it, and desktop mode with stage manager is just stupid. So yeah, it's not a success so far.
Android though feels more open, so I would give it a try of their desktop mode isn't stupid. Firefox on Android is fully functional at least and that's a great start!
This is purely a UX issue, and there's no particular reason why iOS would even need to be more open to rectify it. They just need to improve the UX.
But, more broadly, the problem is that they can do it for their own apps, but for all the third party ones, it's down to app developers whether they want to put in effort to support keyboard & mouse/trackpad properly. And it's a chicken and egg thing there - relatively few users use it currently, so there's little motivation to add support, which deters more potential users.
Yes you are correct on both accounts. The problem is two different OS approach. What I need is an iPad hardware running macOS actially, with a tablet mode. Same issue with Chrome OS/Android separation.
Funnily enough Windows is the closest to get this right with 2-in-1 tablet/laptops. 2 problems with this: 1- Windows, 2- sub-par HW.
Taking better advantage of a display is nice but imo the really exciting part of desktop mode is the planned integration with Google's Linux Terminal app (i.e. 1st party linux VM support). I have a Samsung DeX device and while you can get a basic dev environment working easily it can be really cumbersome to make it comfortable to use and integrate with your normal tablet workflow. Being able to install full-fat linux apps and run them in a window would be a complete game changer.
I remember when they presented the S10, with the initial implementation of Dex.
It felt so close already back then, sluggish, but still usable. But that initial implementation was running some in-house version of Ubuntu with a custom kernel (if I remembered it correctly).
I just wish this becomes a reality much sooner then later. Especially if I can have my dev environment on some remote VPS with either tunneling, github code spaces or Azure DevBox
Reasonably fluid, but not when it comes to heavy web pages with a lot of 3D. I have an S24U I use in DeX for most of my day but when I do have to switch to my ten inch 6800u laptop it absolutely demolishes the DeX experience. There's still a fractional second of lag that Samsung hasn't done away with yet.
This is the right answer. DeX itself was introduced with the S8 series.
With the S9 they introduced the developer test version of Linux on DeX but it never came to the S8 or S10 and it was already discontinued with the Android 10 update :(
I just wish it would do 4K resolution out of the box.
The hardware can do it, it's just that the system settings won't show you the 4K resolution option for some reason. But you can do some hacks to make it appear and then it works just fine.
You need to install a nondescript app called 'Samsung Good Lock' from the Samsung store (not available in Play store), and use that to side-load an app called 'Multistar', which is an app to tweak display settings. From that side-loaded app you need to tap the 'I Samsung DeX' which does various setting changes to "Make Dex even more friendly", it doesn't specify what it does exactly, but it'll make the 4K resolution option appear in the system settings.
This all feels real sketchy and I don't understand why Samsung doesn't just enable 4K resolution officially, because the hardware is clearly capable of it.
With every OneUI update there are rumors that it'll natively support 4K, but so far that hasn't happened AFAIK. Admittedly I haven't used Dex in a while for myself, but judging from recent Reddit posts this hack is still needed.
Aye, to some degree they are, but I'm also glad that android is open/hackable enough that goodlock lets you add these additional preferences. (I also use it, for me it was for ultrawide resolutions)
According to the Samsung Store it is developed by developer 'Good Lock Labs'. According to this Wikipedia source [0] they developed this app 'in cooperation with Samsung'. Browsing through the sources I did find a 2016 article from Samsung themselves [1] about Good Lock, indeed confirming it is theirs.
Also, it looks like Good Lock is now also available on the Google Play Store, and there it lists Samsung Electronics as the developer [2].
I guess this does make it less sketchy of an app to use, but it still feel wrong to have to do so many weird steps to get a menu option working.
Last I used it, I still wouldn't want to write code on Dex. But it was great for everything else. I could definitely complete just about any other tasks I needed with it. It was a little clunky, but doable; teams calls, getting into internal tools for triaging systems issues, the company CRM, all that stuff.
It's not a full laptop replacement, but at least for me it's good enough at what it does that I can just take my phone or tablet with me on short vacations and not be paranoid that I'm gonna have to do something complicated like log into my bank or write some verbose emails that I'm normally afraid to do from my phone. In those instances, plugging one of them into a KVM and Dex mode is sufficient to get over the hump.
Rumor is Samsung won't support Google's Linux Terminal (at least for their existing phones) since their Knox conflicts with the Android Virtualization Framework :-(.
Honestly I'd like to see Windows 11 running under this as well, but that seems incredibly unlikely.
It was the Ubuntu 16.04 desktop running in a LXD container. It crashed when the tablet went in out of memory, so I had to be careful with what I was running.
Chrome OS allowed this even before 2020. So you could open Linux (even GUI) and android app right next to each other... Had whole JS dev workflow/toolchain running on that ( did not want to clog my main computer with that ). Problem with mixing apps is that for some you have to use mouse/ stylus because their GUI was not meant to be touched.
Security-wise: True; but Android is a gigantic yet well-oiled ecosystem at this point, from silicon designers to manufacturers to vendors to developers, running on handhelds to TVs to wearables to gaming devices (including AR/VR consoles).
> shame that Chrome OS was subsumed by Android
ChromeOS had a decade but Google is wise focus on just one desktop platform. I don't think it should surprise anybody that a platform with 3bn users & 2mn odd apps won out.
Using android on a laptop with a keyboard and mousepad was always an awkward experience. It's kind of like trying to use an iPad as your main computing device. Similarly bad experience.
Similar with a keyboard and mouse with Android TV - I thought it would be useful for YouTube searches etc, the UI is so ill adapted to keyboard I gave up.
It's always funny charging my phone off the USB C for my monitor, nudging my mouse and seeing a pointer appear on the screen though.
When I tried the external display mode on my Pixel 8a, I did some development with a bluetooth keyboard, bluetooth trackball and vscode tunneling into my desktop.
So the development wasn't local, but it was sort-of usable. (And the editing is local in any case.)
I had no idea the vscode tunneling stuff worked in the browser. I thought it was SSH. Do they have some sort of WebSocket proxy? Do you have a link to how to set this up?
They offer both ssh and their own tunnel protocol.
So you start the 'server' on eg your desktop, and that registers with eg GitHub or Microsoft (or perhaps another service, not sure how open the system is), and then you can use any other computer to connect to your system via GitHub or Microsoft (as a proxy, I think). The other computer can either run just a browser, or can run a vscode (which is basically also a browser in the end).
Yes, the nice thing about the tunnels is that the computer you want to develop on doesn't have to be reachable from the internet. It only has to be able to reach the internet. GitHub (or Microsoft) play the man-in-the-middle.
It's really convenient. I often use it to develop from my laptop on my desktop, even when they are on the same local network: because it's basically just as fast, but I don't have to worry about which network I'm on, it just always works (as long as I have Internet access on both machines. But if that ever stops, I'm not really going to develop much anyway.)
I've tried it. I was pretty impressed. I plugged in a USB-C hub with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and everything worked immediately, even the Windows key on the keyboard.
Android has supported basic peripherals and screen mirroring for a decade at least, and several vendors have tried to bring plug-in phones to the market as desktop alternatives. The fact people still find out about this feature today shows how badly the feature was marketed. Samsung Dex is good enough for 90% of office work these days, if not more. For a short time you could even run fully-fledged Ubuntu through DeX, which would've made the phone a full desktop replacement.
I wish there was a phone-laptop-dock solution that wasn't as expensive as an equivalent Chromebook. My phone is more than powerful enough to act as a travel laptop, yet its potential is constrained by a small touch screen..
I always thought that MS will make something like that. Android phone with "business" app store and docking support for external screen and peripherals. IIRC one of the last windows phones was from HP with dock support. I guess after the windows phone they just gave up.... There was an attempt at making dual screen ms android phone which was a failure (at least from business perspective).
Yeah LG had some really great idea and actually went through with them into actual product (kudos for taking the risk there). But they were horribly bad at selling them, in many cases at the execution of the idea, and also at continued support. This automatically shifted some great ideas into the worthless gimmick category :(
> My phone is more than powerful enough to act as a travel laptop, yet its potential is constrained by a small touch screen..
In case glasses are an option, I heard that Xreal glasses can be hooked up to Android phones directly. Such a setup with a proper Android desktop mode (or even better: a Linux VM with all one's dotfiles and everything) would be fantastic IMO.
sadly that "windows" key is what i dont like on Android
I use Moonlight to remote to my desktop. Moonlight on Windows can capture Windows key(and some other shortcut like alt-tab) and redirect to remote machine.
Moonlight on Android can't do that, the dev this is Android issue and can't do anything about it.
They did. The lumia had this feature. It also had a liquid cooling system. But the windows computer was quite limited. This was before they migrated to windows one core.
I'm not aware of any Windows Phone implementation like this that existed commercially. Can you point me to it?
The first modern thing like this that I can recall is the 2011 Android-based Motorola Atrix phone[1] that presented a DeX-like desktop (well before DeX!).
It used an Ubuntu-based desktop. It was really, really good, but never got traction.
It was called "Continuum" and was introduced with Windows 10 Mobile. Worked pretty smoothly but it couldn't run win32 application only the new modern UWP apps. Introduced 6 Oct 2015 alongside the Nokia Lumia 950/950 XL. Discontinued when Windows 10 Mobile reached end of support in Dec 2019.
UWP was limited because it was the subset that could run on PC, Xbox, Phone, and HoloLens. Being able to make one responsive app and deploy it across that ecosystem was pretty awesome.
But when you kill the non-PC platforms, you're just left with a reduced capability version of windows apps
this done well is a transformational thing, its just no one has been willing to invest yet, but the compute on a phone is now good enough to do most things most users do on desktop.
I can easily see the future of personal computing being a mobile device with peripherals that use its compute and cloud for anything serious. be that airpods, glasses, watches, or just hooking that device up to a larger screen.
theres not a great reason for an individual to own processing power in a desktop, laptop, phone, and glasses when most are idle while using the others.
in a sense apple is already doing this, since there's shared chip tech in the laptops and phones.
I still will prefer the form factor of a laptop for anything serious though; screen, speakers, keyboard.
Yes you can get peripherals for a phone, yes I have tried that, no they're not good. Though perhaps with foldable screens this could change in the future.
Apple is intentionally hampering the desktop experience on the iPad and is very late in brining Stage Manager to the iPhone (the rumor is now iOS 19). Until there is serious competition (this and/or improvements to DeX, Apple will drag their feet because they want to sell you three compute device categories (or four if you count the Vision Pro).
So true! I have experimented with plugging an iPad Pro into an Apple 7K Studio Monitor with keyboard and an Apple Trackpad and Stage Manager: close to being generally useful, but I also get the idea that Apple is purposely holding back to prevent reducing Mac sales.
That is why I am rooting for Samsung DeX and what Google is offering: Samsung and Google can make money for their own reasons making a universal personal digital device.
Also, stage manager is not a good way of doing real work. It's with good reason that people abhor it on the Mac. On an iPad with no better alternative it's workable but not great.
True! Apple’s already ahead with the shared chip setup between Macs and iPhones. But yeah, for real work, nothing beats a proper laptop — big screen, keyboard, good speakers. I’ve tried using a phone with accessories too… not the same vibe. Maybe foldables will change that someday!
They have the hardware. They don’t provide ANY software for this kind of thing though. And there is a very real chance it could cannibalize some Mac sales.
I’ve always wondered if this kind of thing is actually that useful, but it’s not even an option for me because of the above.
Seems surprising Google didn’t act on this earlier. But maybe they didn’t want to cannibalize the Chromebooks?
I get the feeling very very few people know this exists at all on some Samsung phones. I’ve asked some tech-y people with Samsungs about it before and they didn’t even know it existed.
this done well is a transformational thing, its just no one has been willing to invest yet
I think we've seen this before. Back before phones were "smart" there was one (Nokia, maybe?) that you could put on a little dock into which you could plug a keyboard and monitor.
Obviously, it didn't take off. Perhaps it was ahead of its time. Or, as you say, it wasn't done well at the time.
Phones accepting Bluetooth keyboard connections was very common back in my road warrior (digital nomad) days, but the screen was always the annoyance factor. Writing e-mails on my SonyEricsson on a boat on the South China Sea felt like "the future!"
Slightly related, I built most of my first startup with a Palm Pilot Ⅲ and an attached keyboard. Again, though, a larger screen would have been a game changer.
> I think we've seen this before. Back before phones were "smart" there was one (Nokia, maybe?) that you could put on a little dock into which you could plug a keyboard and monitor.
There have been multiple attempts at this over the years.
AIUI, the main problem in the cell phone era is that by the time you create a notebook shell with an even halfway-decent screen, keyboard, battery, and the other things you'd want in your shell, it's hard to sell it next to the thing right next to it that is all that, but they also stuck a cheap computer in it (and is therefore no longer a dock). Yeah, it's $50 more expensive, but it looks way more than $50 more useful.
What may shift the balance is that slowly but surely USB-C docks are becoming more common, on their own terms, not related to cell phones. At some point we may pass a critical threshold where there's enough of them that selling a phone that can just natively use any USB-C dock you've got lying around becomes a sufficient distinguishing feature that people start looking for it. Even just treating it as a bonus would be a start.
I've got two docks in my house now; one a big powerful one to run the work-provided laptop in a more remote-work-friendly form factor, and fairly cheap one to turn my Steam deck into a halfway-decent Switch competitor (though "halfway-decent" and no more; it's definitely more finicky). We really ought to be getting to the point that a cell phone with a docked monitor, keyboard, & mouse for dorm room usage (replacing the desktop, TV, and if whoever pulls this off plays their cards right, the gaming console(s)) should start looking appealing to college students pretty soon here. The docks themselves are rapidly commoditizing if they aren't there already.
Once it becomes a feature that we increasingly start to just expect on our phones, then maybe the "notebook-like" case for a cell phone starts to look more appealing as an accessory. We've pretty much demonstrated it can't carry itself as its own product.
That would probably start the clock on the "notebook" as its own distinct product, though it would take years for them to finally be turned into nothing but shells for cell phones + a high-end, expensive performance-focused line that is itself more-or-less the replacement for desktops, which would themselves only be necessary for high-end graphics or places where you need tons and tons of storage and you don't want 10 USB-C drives flopping around separately.
BTW you don't even need a dock if you have a USB-C monitor with USB and audio ports, which is not that uncommon. The monitor acts like a USB hub, so if you plug in your keyboard and mouse that's your computer essentially
I remember there was a fad I think in 2009 or 2010 where a bunch of Android manufacturers released 'laptops' (just a display and keyboard) with a dock connector in the back that was meant to turn the phone into a laptop basically
> I think we've seen this before. Back before phones were "smart" there was one (Nokia, maybe?) that you could put on a little dock into which you could plug a keyboard and monitor.
Still in the "smart" era, but the Motorola Atrix allowed that, but with its own laptop form factor dock.
I had one of these Atrix and laptop docks. It was really good, but sadly way ahead of its time. The desktop was a Debian-based Linux desktop and you could install various ARM packages. Unfortunately, the phone just wasn't powerful enough at the time. The touchpad was also not brilliant compared to Macs (probably better than Windows touchpads of the time). I sold it on ebay to a guy who plugged his Raspberry Pi into it, since the Atrix dock used mini HDMI and microUSB connectors. This has obviously been replaced in the modern age with USB-C.
I am pretty sure that modern phones are more than powerful enough! My wife's iPhone 16 Pro Max would be amazingly useful if not limited by iOS (which always feels like it's hiding true capabilities behind an Etch-A-Sketch interface to me). If you could plug the iPhone in and run a macOS desktop (which hasn't really changed for 15+ years), that'd be great. Thanks in advance.
I have a POCO F7 Ultra which is powerful enough to run LLMs via PocketPal and could easily replace my daily laptop or PC for work if it wasn't scuppered by USB2 on the USB-C port. If I could easily run ollama on the phone via a web interface I would because it's faster than my main PC for LLMs I think!
On Android you can go into Developer settings and force enable the ability to use desktop mode but sadly I can't without proper display support on the USB C.
I think power was a real problem. A 2010 phone was bit as close to a laptop in performance.
An M4 Mac is way more powerful than an iPhone 16, but the iPhone is powerful enough to prove a much better experience on normal tasks compared to what that 2010 phone could at the time.
Basically I think everything has enough headroom that it’s not the compromise it would’ve been before. The biggest constraints on an iPhone’s performance are the battery and cooling. If you’re plugged in the battery doesn’t matter. And unless you’re not playing a fancy game cooling may not be an issue due to headroom.
Agreed. For this reason I'm quite excited about glasses like the Xreal One Pro. Having to carry around with me just my phone, a pair of glasses and a lightweight Bluetooth keyboard would be a game changer for me in terms of ergonomics.
Do you have this yet? I wonder how well it works in practice. I know some people using it with DeX but they're pretty expensive (around $400 I think) so I didn't try it myself.
> the compute on a phone is now good enough to do most things most users do on desktop.
Really, the compute on a phone has been good enough for at least a decade now once we got USB C. We're still largely doing on our phones and laptops the same things we were doing in 2005. I'm surprised it took this long
I'm happy this is becoming a real thing. I hope they'll also allow the phone's screen to be used like a trackpad. It wouldn't be ideal, but there's no reason the touchscreen can't be a fully featured input device.
I'm fully agreed with you on the wasted processing power-- I think we'll eventually head toward a model of having one computing device with a number of thin clients which are locally connected.
This concept has been floating around for a long time. I think Motorola was pitching it in 2012, and I'm sure confidential concepts in the same vein have been tried in the labs of most of the big players.
> I hope they'll also allow the phone's screen to be used like a trackpad. It wouldn't be ideal, but there's no reason the touchscreen can't be a fully featured input device.
I might have misunderstood but do you mean as an input device attached to your desktop computer? Kdeconnect has made that available for quite some time out of the box. (Although it's been a long time since I used it and when I tested it just now apparently I've somehow managed to break the input processing half of the software on my desktop in the interim.)
Yes! I enjoy KDEConnect a lot for that :) With the phone being the computer, the latency can probably be made low enough that it just feels like a proper touchpad
:D I avoid Samsung products but I'm happy that at least exists. I hope it's not patented, and Google is both able to put the same thing into Android, and that it's available in AOSP
Yes it can, it can also become a keyboard in fact.
One thing I'm kinda missing is that it doesn't seem to be able to become both at the same time on a system that has the screen space for that. Like a tablet or Z Fold series.
> We're still largely doing on our phones and laptops the same things we were doing in 2005. I'm surprised it took this long
Approximately no-one was watching 4k feature-length videos on their phones in 2005, or playing ray traced 3d games on their laptops.
Sending plain text messages is pretty much the same as back then, yes. But these days I'm also taking high resolution photos and videos and share those with others via my phone.
> I hope they'll also allow the phone's screen to be used like a trackpad.
Samsung's DeX already does that.
> I'm fully agreed with you on the wasted processing power-- I think we'll eventually head toward a model of having one computing device with a number of thin clients which are locally connected.
Your own 'good enough' logic already suggests otherwise? Processors are still getting cheap and better, so why not just duplicate them? Instead of having a dumb large screen (and keyboard) that you plug your phone into, it's not much extra cost to add some processing power to that screen, and make it a full desktop pc.
If we are getting to 'thin client' world, it'll be because of 'cloud', not because of connecting to our phones. Even today, most of what people do on their desktops can be done in the browser. So we likely see more of that.
> Approximately no-one was watching 4k feature-length videos on their phones in 2005, or playing ray traced 3d games on their laptops.
Do people really do this now? Watching a movie on my phone is so suboptimal I'd only consider it if I really have no other option. Holding it up for 2 hours, being stuck with that tiny screen, brrr.
I can imagine doing it on a plane ride when I'm not really interested in the movie and am just doing it to waste some time. But when it's a movie I'm really looking forward to, I'd want to really experience it. A VR headset does help here but a mobile device doesn't.
you position it vertically against something in bed and keep it close enough (half a meter) so that its practically same size as tv which is 4-5 meters away and you enjoy the pixels. i love doing this few times a week when im going to sleep or just chilling
We were watching videos and playing games on our laptops in 2005. Of course they mostly weren't 4K or raytraced, don't be silly.
The thin client world is one anticipating a world with fewer resources to make these excess chips. It's just a speculation of what things will look like when we can't sustain what is unsustainable.
> We were watching videos and playing games on our laptops in 2005. Of course they mostly weren't 4K or raytraced, don't be silly.
The video comment was about phones. The raytracing was about laptops.
Yes, laptops were capable of watching DVDs in 2005. (But they weren't capable of watching much YouTube, because YouTube was only started later that year. Streaming video was in its infancy.)
> It's just a speculation of what things will look like when we can't sustain what is unsustainable.
Huh? We are sitting on a giant ball of matter, and much of what's available in the crust is silicates. You mostly only need energy to turn rocks into computer chips. We get lots and lots of energy from the sun.
How is any of this unsustainable?
(And a few computer chips is all you save with the proposed approach. You still need to make just as many screens and batteries etc.)
Our disagreement is probably in the "mostly only need energy to turn rocks into computer chips". I think our economy is a lot more fragile and complicated than that. And that economy relies on non-renewable resources which are dwindling, in a world which is posed to offer less of its renewable resources, which includes people and their labor. (This is a compounded problem, since people and their labor are what would drive recycling, say, to extract gold from old chips.) And important knowledge (say, about how to make CPUs) is something that can be lost with just an unlucky coincidence, or something like another world war.
You don't need to imagine a total economic collapse. Take any resource that goes into a chip, and contrive any reason we'll have to consume significantly less of that resource. How do you solve that?
Well, we have highly-redundant compute-per-person. I personally have nine pretty capable computer chips to my person, just in the building I'm in. That's a lot, and that represents an excess in resource consumption. A phone-as-motherboard laptop solves one of those chips. If we make the same games we're making today but we go back a decade or two in graphics, then we can have fewer consoles and gaming PCs, too.
I'm not saying "one chip for many devices" is a panacea. There are other things we might do. Maybe laptops and phones can be made to have display input, for example.
> And that economy relies on non-renewable resources which are dwindling, [...]
We are sitting on a giant ball of matter. None of our resource use is actually using up material, we are just transforming matter.
We might be running out of resources that are cheap and easy to transform (eg cheap oil), but all of these are problems we can fix with enough energy. And eg solar power is going to provide more and more cheap energy. Fusion is also going to come to the rescue in a few decades (and we already had nuclear fission for ages.)
The economy is pretty resilient. Not even a global pandemic left all that much of a mark three years later.
> Take any resource that goes into a chip, and contrive any reason we'll have to consume significantly less of that resource. How do you solve that?
With substitution, economising and ingenuity. Eg early transistors were made of gallium, but we use silicon these days. That's a substitution.
> Well, we have highly-redundant compute-per-person. I personally have nine pretty capable computer chips to my person, just in the building I'm in. That's a lot, and that represents an excess in resource consumption.
Less than you'd think. These days, the main expense is for the power to run your chips, less so than the energy to make the chips. And having redundant chips around that aren't turned on doesn't cost any of the former.
> If we make the same games we're making today but we go back a decade or two in graphics, then we can have fewer consoles and gaming PCs, too.
Btw, that's one of the answers about what people would do in case of resource shortage for making chips.
> I'm not saying "one chip for many devices" is a panacea.
And I'm saying it would only save you a few chips, but wouldn't save you on batteries nor screens etc.
(And even a 'dumb' screen needs quite a few chips these days.) Hey, even Apple's chargers have more powerful chips in them these days than their first stand alone computers a few decades ago had.
---
Btw, you can economise on powerful chips even more, if you do most of the heavy computing in the cloud: even your combined phone/laptop/desktop chip would still be idle most of the time. The cloud can eg use one million chips for three million people. That's even better than one chip for one person (which you touted as better than nine computers for one person.)
I think ultimately, we disagree about whether or not it's inevitable that we end up having an economy that can transform sunlight into a perpetual recycling machine. I think that's not inevitable, especially in a scenario where we're left dealing with a climate collapse.
Having 'target display mode' on laptops and whatnot is one way that would save the chips that go into screens, which is why I mentioned it above. I agree that computing in the cloud can also reduce the number of chips used (although that does rely on chips to keep the internet going, etc.)
> I think that's not inevitable, especially in a scenario where we're left dealing with a climate collapse.
A 'climate collapse' is extremely unlikely. Look at studies on the (prospected) economic impacts of climate change. Wikipedia has an article on it, for example.
In any case, the forecasts expect something like perhaps 20% total reduction in GDP over say the next 100 years compared to the scenario without global warning. (But that's on top of our regularly scheduled single-digit percent per year regular economic growth.)
20% is a huge impact! It's bigger than Brexit. But it's also only about as big as the per capita gap between the US and the UK. And the UK is far from a collapsed nation.
And: in case you want to mention that the economy ain't everything. Yes, I totally agree. That's why my argument works in reverse: the economy can only function when the environment hasn't totally collapsed. Thus if leading experts project around a 20%-ish reduction in GDP, that means that the don't project a collapse in the environment.
As a sanity check: financial markets also don't seem to expect a collapse of the global economy anytime soon.
The future of personal computing is being dictated by the economics of it, which are that the optimal route to extract value from consumers is to have walled-garden software systems gated by per-month subscription access and/or massive forced advertising. This leads to everything being in the cloud and only fairly thin clients running on user hardware. That gives the most control to the system owners and the least control to the user.
Given that all the compute and all the data is on the cloud, there is little point in making ways for users to do clever interconnect things with their local devices.
I've heard so many "The future of personal computing" statements that haven't come true, so I don't take much stock in them.
I remember when everyone thought we were going to throw out our desktops and do all our work on phones and tablets! (Someone who kept insisting on this finally admitted that they couldn't do a spreadsheet on a phone or tablet.)
> Given that all the compute and all the data is on the cloud, there is little point in making ways for users to do clever interconnect things with their local devices.
IMO, it's a pain-in-the-ass to manage multiple devices, so IMO, it's much easier to just plug my phone into a clamshell and have all my apps show up there.
> we were going to throw out our desktops and do all our work on phones and tablets! (Someone who kept insisting on this finally admitted that they couldn't do a spreadsheet on a phone or tablet.)
We're almost there. The cool kids are already using 12" touchscreen ARM devices that people from 10 or 20 years ago would probably think of as tablets. Some kinds of work benefit greatly from a keyboard, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want oneall the time - I still think the future is either 360-fold laptops with a good tablet mode (indeed that's the present for me, my main machine is a HP Envy) or something like the MS Surface line with their detachable "keyboard cover".
Well, the MacBook Air is pretty much an iPad that swapped its touchscreen for a keyboard (and trackpad).
> I still think the future is either 360-fold laptops with a good tablet mode (indeed that's the present for me, my main machine is a HP Envy) or something like the MS Surface line with their detachable "keyboard cover".
I think people still want to use different form factors in the future. There's different uses for a phone, a tablet, a laptop and a desktop.
I do agree that laptops might get better tablet modes, but if you want to have a full-sized comfortable-ish keyboard, the laptop is gonna be more unwieldy than a dedicated tablet.
The only thing you save from running your desktop (or even laptop) form factor off your phone is the processor (CPU, GPU, RAM). You still have to pay for everything else. But even today the cost of desktop processing components that can reach phone-like performance is almost a rounding error; just because they have so much more space, cooling and power to play with.
(Destop CPUs can be quite pricey if you buy higher end ones, but they'll outclass phones by comical amounts. Phone performance is really, really cheap in a desktop.)
> I think people still want to use different form factors in the future. There's different uses for a phone, a tablet, a laptop and a desktop.
> The only thing you save from running your desktop (or even laptop) form factor off your phone is the processor (CPU, GPU, RAM). You still have to pay for everything else.
Having used the same device as my tablet/laptop/desktop for a few years (previously a couple of generations of Surface Book, now the Envy, in both cases with a dock set up on my desk), I never want to go back. It just makes using it so much smoother, even compared to having tab sync and what have you between multiple devices. It's not a money thing, it's a convenience thing, which is why I think it'll win out in the end.
I think as hardware continues to get thinner and lighter, the advantage of a tablet-only device compared to a tablet/laptop will disappear, and as touchscreens get cheaper, there'll be little point in laptop-only devices. I definitely still want an easy way to take a keyboard with my device on the train/plane, and I don't know what exact hardware arrangement will win out for that, but I'm confident that the convergence will happen. I think phone convergence will also happen eventually, for the same reason, but how that will actually work in terms of the physical form factor is anyone's guess.
> Having used the same device as my tablet/laptop/desktop for a few years (previously a couple of generations of Surface Book, now the Envy, in both cases with a dock set up on my desk), I never want to go back. It just makes using it so much smoother, even compared to having tab sync and what have you between multiple devices. It's not a money thing, it's a convenience thing, which is why I think it'll win out in the end.
Yes, that's useful. But eg ChromeOS already gives you most of that, and a bit of software could get you all the way there.
> I think as hardware continues to get thinner and lighter, the advantage of a tablet-only device compared to a tablet/laptop will disappear, and as touchscreens get cheaper, there'll be little point in laptop-only devices.
I agree with the latter, but not the former. There are mechanical limits to shrinking a keyboard, and still preserve comfort.
(And once you have the extra space from a keyboard, you might as well fill it up with more battery. But I'm not so sure about that compared to the argument about physical lower bounds on keyboard size.)
> eg ChromeOS already gives you most of that, and a bit of software could get you all the way there.
I don't understand what you mean here. If you're talking about some kind of easy sync between devices software, people have been trying to make that work for decades, but they not haven't succeeded but haven't even really made any progress.
> There are mechanical limits to shrinking a keyboard, and still preserve comfort.
Maybe, but those limits are plenty big enough for a tablet - particularly with the size of phones these days, a tablet smaller than say 10" is pointless, and the keyboards on 11" laptops are fine. Now making a device that can work as both a phone and a laptop-with-keyboard will probably require some mechanical innovation, yes, but that's the sort of thing that I suspect will be figured out sooner or later, e.g. we're already seeing various types of folding phones going through the development process.
11" laptops are not fine to type on all day unless you give them huge bezels (even the 11" macbook which did have those huge bezels was space-constrained on the less important keys). Ergonomics is really important.
Sure it's fine to get by for an hour or two but spending 8 hours 5 days a week on one is a really bad idea and will provide a great path to crippling RSI. In fact using any laptop that much is a bad idea, due to the bad posture it provides (with the screen attached to the keyboard). This is why docking stations are still so important.
> 11" laptops are not fine to type on all day unless you give them huge bezels (even the 11" macbook which did have those huge bezels was space-constrained on the less important keys). Ergonomics is really important.
Well, it depends on personal preferences.
I usually go for at least 15" in my laptops, but I can believe that other people would be fine with 11" for what they are doing.
The laptop / tablet hybrid is a valid form factor, and these systems are reasonably successful in the market.
Of course, that doesn't mean that they are the right device for everyone.
> Some kinds of work benefit greatly from a keyboard, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want oneall the time
I would say most kinds of work.
Even if you're just on teams discussions - a real keyboard is much more productive than messing around on a touchscreen. Same with just reading. Sometimes I read a forum thread on my phone and then when I get back to the real computer I'm surprised how little I read and how much it felt like.
The only thing where I don't see this being the case is creative work like drawing where a tablet is really perfect, much better than a wacom or something.
> (Someone who kept insisting on this finally admitted that they couldn't do a spreadsheet on a phone or tablet.)
I think that's to generative AI, I would expect people to gradually replace manually creating a spreadsheet with 'vibecoding' it.
> IMO, it's a pain-in-the-ass to manage multiple devices, so IMO, it's much easier to just plug my phone into a clamshell and have all my apps show up there.
ChromeOS already works like that, when you log in on different devices, without having to physically lug one device around that you plug into different shells.
Laptops + docking stations are usually just as fast as a desktop. You can buy $10,000 desktops that are much faster (50+ cores, and a lot of RAM), but most developers don't find them enough faster to be worth it. (in my benchmarks rebuilds with 40 cores finished faster than rebuilds using all 50, for a 10+million line C++ project) It is easier to have everything locally where you are. If like many of us you sometimes work from home remote into a different machine is always a bit painful.
I think this is a really good take - Apple especially (but Google too) aren't gonna naturally invest time and resources into software that'll make you less likely to buy more of their hardware.
That said, market incentives can and do change pretty fast. Especially with climate change, and current tension in global supply chains, we could see a shift away from hardware caused by taxes or pirce hikes (I'm not saying we will though).
That'd be a game changer for how much companies might invest in changing what computing looks like.
A laptop wins everytime because I don't have to carry around all my peripherals and set em all up again. Unless there's going to be dock setups in every conference room, coffee shop, table in my house, airplane, car, deck, etc, a laptop makes more sense.
Than what do you save? Only the system-on-a-chip (CPU, GPU, RAM).
And the hardware to get an SoC with phone-like performance in a laptop or desktop form factor is relatively cheap, just because you have so much more space and power and cooling to work with.
(Your laptop-shell definitely needs its own power supply, whether that be a battery or a cable, because the screen alone will take more power than your phone's battery can provide for any sustained period of use.)
Right but if it's the same as a laptop why not just use a laptop?
The only things I can think of are you really want to keep all the data on your phone and don't want to use cloud sync solutions (Dropbox etc.), or you really want to save a couple of hundred dollars getting a (probably terrible) laptop without a motherboard. Not very compelling IMO.
Surely long term it'd be cost? A screen and a keyboard in a laptop shell should be a lot cheaper that a screen, a keyboard, RAM, SSD, fans etc in a laptop shell.
Those other parts of the laptop are cheap though. Sure not free, but chromebooks can be had new for just a few hundred $$$ (they don't need a fan either). If you want a fast laptop you need to spend a lot of money, but a fast laptop has the ability to have better RAM, SSDs and such than your phone because there is more space in that form factor and so if you want fast you are back to laptop while if you don't need fast your laptop is cheap.
Since Windows has started this iteration of their move to ARM, I wondered if Microsoft would be the first to do this properly, by building an adaptable/mobile Desktop/UX to Windows 12 (or 13), pumping up the Microsoft Store, and then relaunching the Windows (Surface, I guess) Phone with full fat Windows on it.
In a way it's the same strategy that Nintendo used to re-gain a strong position in gaming (including the lucrative Home Console market where they'd fallen to a distant last place) - drafting their dominance in Handheld into Home Console by merging the two.
> I can easily see the future of personal computing being a mobile device with peripherals that use its compute and cloud for anything serious. be that airpods, glasses, watches, or just hooking that device up to a larger screen.
I don't see that at all.
That's because I think over time the processing power of a eg laptop will become a small fraction of its costs (both in terms of buying and in terms of power).
The laptop form factor is pretty good for having a portable keyboard, pointing device and biggish screen together. Outsourcing the compute to a phone still leaves you with the need for keyboard, pointing device and screen. You only save on the processor, which is going to be a smaller and smaller part.
> theres not a great reason for an individual to own processing power in a desktop, laptop, phone, and glasses when most are idle while using the others.
Even in your scenario, most of your devices will be idle most of the time anyway. And they don't use any energy when turned off. So you are only saving the cost to acquire the processor itself.
Desktop computer processors that can hit the computing power of a mobile processor are really, really cheap already today.
You are ignoring data location and software installs.
Having all your data always with you stored locally (on your phone) is simpler than syncing and more private than cloud.
One OS with all your software. No need to install same app multiple times on different devices. Don't need to deal with questions like, for how many devices is my license valid for. However, apps would need to come with a reactive UI. No more separate mobile and desktop versions.
Example, you take a photos on your phone, dock it at your desk or laptop shell, and edit them comfortably on a big screen, with an app you bought and installed once. No internet connection is required.
A docking station could be more than just display and input devices. It could contain storage for backing up your data from the phone. Or powerful CPU and GPU for extended compute power (you would still use OS and apps/games on your phone with computations being delegated to more powerful HW).
This could replicate many things cloud offers today (excluding collaboration). No need to deal with an online account for your personal stuff. IMO, it would probably be less mystical than cloud to most users.
> Having all your data always with you stored locally (on your phone) is simpler than syncing and more private than cloud.
You need to sync it anyway. Having that phone with you all day also means exposing it to a lot of risk involving theft, drops and other kind of damage. You need that sync for backup purposes.
I agree actually having it on the phone is great though. I use DeX a LOT, it's a great way of working when I don't have my laptop with me but do have a docking station available (e.g. at the office when I forget my laptop or just dropped in unplanned)
Backup is a simple one way sync, but like you said, it is needed. It could still be private, if backup to another of your devices is made when your phone connects to your home WiFi.
You can (in principle) back of over the cloud and still have everything private. Encryption and open source software can handle that. (You want the software to be open source, so you can check that it's really end-to-end encrypted without a backdoor.)
Of course, that scenario would only become the norm, if there's mainstream demand for that. By and large, there ain't.
> You are ignoring data location and software installs.
Caching works well for that.
> Having all your data always with you stored locally (on your phone) is simpler than syncing and more private than cloud.
Have a look at how GMail handles this. It has my emails cached locally on my devices so I can read them offline (and can also compose and hit-the-send-key when offfline), but GMail also does intelligent syncing behind the scenes. It just works.
> Example, you take a photos on your phone, dock it at your desk or laptop shell, and edit them comfortably on a big screen, with an app you bought and installed once. No internet connection is required.
My devices are online all the time anyway.
> A docking station could be more than just display and input devices. It could contain storage for backing up your data from the phone.
I'm already backing up to the Cloud automatically. And Google handles all the messy details, even if my house burns down.
> Or powerful CPU and GPU for extended compute power (you would still use OS and apps/games on your phone with computations being delegated to more powerful HW).
How is that different from the ChromeOS scenario, apart from that the syncing in your case doesn't involve the cloud?
> This could replicate many things cloud offers today (excluding collaboration). No need to deal with an online account for your personal stuff. IMO, it would probably be less mystical than cloud to most users.
No, it would be more annoying, because I couldn't just log in anywhere in the world, and get access to my data. And I would have to manually bring devices in contact to sync them.
You can build what you are suggesting. And some people (like you!) will like it. But customers by-and-large don't want it.
Cache invalidation is hard. Offline-first is also hard and expensive to develop. Single source of truth + backup is simpler.
> No, it would be more annoying, because I couldn't just log in anywhere in the world, and get access to my data. And I would have to manually bring devices in contact to sync them.
You are traveling without your phone? I don't always have an unlimited internet when traveling. If you loose your phone while traveling there's a good chance you won't be able to log in due to 2FA anyway. Devices just have to connect to the same local network to sync. Phone probably connects to your WiFi automatically when you come home. Syncing over internet is also possible.
I'm just saying it could be done. Not that everybody would use it or like it. Although, I imagine getting rid of one dependency (cloud) and having more control would be a plus to some.
Cloud is not magically without issues. People do get locked out their cloud account due to some heuristics flagging it, payment issues, user errors or even political reasons. And it can take a very long time before you get it resolved. Last year there was even a story on HN about Google Cloud accidentally deleting customer's account and deleting all their data.
> But customers by-and-large don't want it.
Do you have any data backing this up?
Phone centered solution could be more cost effective. A casual user would only need a phone, a backup solution (either cloud based or an external drive connected to a network) and a bigger display with input devices (portable or desktop). Possibly one less subscription they have to pay and lower HW costs.
> Cache invalidation is hard. Offline-first is also hard and expensive to develop. Single source of truth + backup is simpler.
Yes, cache invalidation isn't trivial. But it's a software problem that you can solve (for your particular application, or with a library for many similar applications) with enormous economies of scale.
> I'm just saying it could be done. Not that everybody would use it or like it. Although, I imagine getting rid of one dependency (cloud) and having more control would be a plus to some.
Ok, no objection there. Yes, some people would like this.
My point is that cloud first, and local caching that lets you work offline (like what you get with GMail and Google Docs) works well enough for most people, that there's probably not enough market share left over for your offline-first dream to get the economics of scale.
Though it's probably still more than possible in the same way that running your desktop on Linux was feasible from the 1990s onwards: at times a bit clunky, but if you are willing to put up with it, totally doable. Been there, done that.
> Phone centered solution could be more cost effective. A casual user would only need a phone, a backup solution (either cloud based or an external drive connected to a network) and a bigger display with input devices (portable or desktop). Possibly one less subscription they have to pay and lower HW costs.
If you need an external display anyway (and a battery, if you want a laptop form factor), adding a bit of compute power to turn it into essentially a ChromeBook is close enough to free. You don't even need that much computing power, because instead of offloading the computation onto your phone (like your scenario), you offload the heavy lifting into the cloud (basically our real world right now for most people).
The HW costs aren't that much lower, because low performance chips are already pretty cheap.
> But it's a software problem that you can solve ... with enormous economies of scale.
Can be a problem for software that doesn't have such economies of scale.
Cloud is cheap for very basic usage, but costs can increase noticeably when workload increases.
Regarding UX. Some things work better in the cloud while some tasks are not so well suited for the cloud (e.g. latency sensitive tasks, task that require non trivial amount of data transfer between the user and the could).
I have no idea how many casual users would be affected by one or more of these things, if any. Phone centered user could still use cloud for some things. Maybe there would be enough interest, if polished solution becomes available. It could be you are right, I don't really know.
Well, they are a generation ahead in many perspective than desktop UIs, so.
E.g. android/ios has better security than Windows/GNU Linux/MacOS, much more reliable suspend/wake functionality, much better battery management, etc.
Like it's a 50/50 chance my laptop with Win 11 will wake up fully charged or fully discharged in the morning, and whether it will be kind enough to actually be ready for work, or I can go brew a coffee before it's ready..
I strongly agree, and have felt this way for a long time. We are being sold many processors, each placed into their own device. The reality is our phone processor could be used to run our TVs, streaming devices, monitors, VR glasses, consoles, laptops, etc. That's less profitable, however.
With cables, yes. And LG did that for a while in fact, they had a VR headset that would plug into the phone: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/lg-360-vr-review/ It wasn't a success but this was more software-related and also some hardware-skimping. It was a good idea, it just seems like the devs forgot to actually try using it before declaring it a finished product.
But wireless the lag is so bad that it's not really usable. Like Wireless DeX. Definitely not good enough for processor-less VR glasses (even the wireless VR streaming from meta does require significant processing power on the glasses end).
@dang why is this flagged? The flagging system on this site is so incredibly bad. It’s always a tiny handful of users trying to control what others can see with zero logical consistency.
In practice it bears almost zero resemblance to its stated functionality and instead is really just an extension of personal preferences of a tiny minority of people. It’s embarrassingly unfit for purpose. This happens all the time where stories get flagged for no reason.
It's not a tiny minority of people. The karma threshold for flagging is deliberately kept low so this isn't the case.
> This happens all the time where stories get flagged for no reason.
It's not for no reason—it just feels that way when you see flags on an article that you think is a good one for HN.
Judging from what else the same users have flagged, along with the responses you got in this thread, my guess is that they thought the submitted article (https://www.squaredtech.co/googles-desktop-view-android-phon...) wasn't good enough for HN. Indeed, it has the markings of blogspam (content lifted from other sources).
Normally we'd leave the flags alone on a post like this, but the comments in this thread are surprisingly good, so I've turned off the flags and replaced the URL with an earlier article which has the same material and which in fact, it (almost?) looks like the other article was cribbed from.
Your response to the prior implied flagging is based on a deliberate choice of karma, to widen the gate on who can flag.
I was asking if there is not an inverse function, which would be a higher karma unflag operation, on the assumption people who flag up are being somewhat incautious and a smaller set of people could say "no, this is worth seeing"
I have no problem with flagging per se, or with my own ability to see flagged content.
I flagged earlier because the first submission appeared to be blogspam by a new account posting only from that domain. The replacement article from Android Authority is much better.
I’m against smartphones. Sure, they’re a technological marvel, but they’re also incredibly dumb in practice. They’re built mainly for consumption, not creation. They feel like walled gardens that limit freedom and stifle creativity. The hardware might be amazing, but the software is awful. In the end, they mostly just make our kids dumber.
What I’d really like is a personal computer I can plug into a screen to work, then carry with me when I’m done. That would be a real step forward in personal computing. It would make laptops unnecessary.
This would be close to it. Google added a Linux VM to Android 15 QPR2. You can already try it on Pixel devices by enabling it through the developer options:
As linked somewhere else in the thread, Google wants to extend it to run (non-Android) Linux desktop apps besides Android apps. So once this is refined, plugging in an Android phone will give you a general-purpose desktop.
This is largely due to the popularity of full touchscreen smartphones compared to those in the past that had hardware keyboards (for example Blackberry and Palm Treo devices).
Devices with hardware keyboards were easier to use for creation (especially writing) and more of the software was focused on creation because of the more limited media processing capabilities of those devices (e.g. less processing power, less memory, more restricted media codecs at that time).
Have you never heard of categories such as "gaming pcs" or "netbooks" whose name literally describes how people will consume using it. Laptops advertise how long you can consumes using it's battery life in terms of movies and music.
Look at the ultra-compact form factor minipcs from e.g. beelink and gmktec. It's pretty much what you describe, and is an actual computer that you can run real operating systems like Linux on. The form factor is roughly 4" x 4" x 1.5", so fits in a pocket. On the low end, you can get an N150 with 8GB DDR4 for ~$125 on Amazon, which is still monstrously powerful for productive desktop use.
Something like a Steam Deck or RoG Ally could also fit the bill. Gaming handhelds seem to be turning into "phones but if they didn't suck" (i.e. didn't run Android/iOS).
This is the only natural path if mobile chips are going to keep getting faster, everyone with a flagship phone is "wasting" so much good compute resources that never gets utilized.
I wonder if we'll see USB-C docks for phones with fans blowing at the device for improved thermals.
If they nail the Linux container UX as well as ChromeOS it would motivate me to buy a top-tier device rather than my sluggish Fairphone 4, right now I don't see the usecase other than good camera.
Imagine thst a large userbase could just skip the laptop and desktop in favor of a USB-C dock and a decent display :)
Yes I have several of those and they still work with my S23. Not sure why they don't sell them anymore. It was a great idea. The fan is even dynamic, it knows how hot the phone is (even if it's in a case so the phone must be reporting it over USB somehow).
There was a second version which was flat so you could use the phone as touchpad. But it was thick, lacked ethernet port so it wasn't really worth it IMO. When you use a dock it's trivial to use a mouse, way better than any touchpad.
> everyone with a flagship phone is "wasting" so much good compute resources
Are they though? Phones already have a broad range of uses. I've seen people try to make laptops out of them and it just doesn't make sense for a number of reasons:
- As screen size goes up so do battery requirements, so you're already paying for a screen, a chassis, and a physical keyboard. Why not go the whole way and pay for the silicon?
- When your phone is being a PC it's no longer being a phone; you can't do phone calls and camera photos (at least not well) while it's a PC.
I have a Samsung and use Dex occasionally, but the uses are limited. In my case it's to check personal emails, which is not allowed on the corporate network. But outside of cases like this I can't imagine ever preferring Dex to a laptop or a dedicated computer. It's much better at being a phone.
If people waste fancy silicon on phones, yes very much. While people use browsers and apps they're hardly multitasking like you would with a modern computer. A lot of good horsepower left for more advanced use cases.
I'm a developer so I have my needs which are unlikely to be "completely fulfilled" by a Phone-as-computer either.
However "as screen size goes up so does battery requirements", my thought was to keep the device docked in a Dex dock with PD and a fan for cooling, and since the resolution on modern phones is so damn crazy, as long as the device screen isn't pumping pixels when connected it should be fine to do 2k.
While it's a PC it's docked so you can't take calls on the phone easily (unless you have a long cable) but you could with a headset. Now I am not talking about the Dex implementation, I'm in the "what can be" discussion for the future.
For "normal people" a good Android desktop would be a lot better than not having a "desktop setup" at all. They don't have to buy a new device but can still get a mouse/keyboard/display combo and so some "productivity tasks".
I tried Dex out on a S10 or something but it wasn't enough for me other than as a cool gimmick, but I definitely see a usecase that could become widespread.
> If people waste fancy silicon on phones, yes very much.
The silicon only has to be fancy, because phones are so constraint in terms of space, power and cooling.
Getting phone-like performance in a desktop or laptop form factor and power and cooling budget is a lot simpler and cheaper.
> They don't have to buy a new device but can still get a mouse/keyboard/display combo and so some "productivity tasks".
The point was that they do have to buy a new device. The only thing they don't have to buy is new silicon. But that's trivial compared to everything else.
Thanks for your in-depth simplification of thermal budgets and updating me on the hardness of buying processes silicon? How do you know what the person I replied to mean when I don't?
At least here, everyone I know and see does 'phone calls' with whatsapp and ear buds; I never see anyone holding a phone to their ears or using the GSM network to call actual numbers and I see a lot of people. Also, most prefer text chat anyway. This includes my 80+ parents. I wouldn't need a calling sim if not for sms from some vital services for quite a few years now. It being docked or not makes no difference for that; I wouldn't notice if my phone didn't have built in speakers: for calls we use bluetooth headphones, for music a Bluetooth speaker.
I travel a lot and do not like carrying things, so xreal and phone are more than enough for coding while going day long, easily augmented with a small power bank (unlike a laptop), with all of that fitting in my pockets after I drop my luggage at the hotel. Most my colleagues have macbooks and while they have good battery life, it is no comparison: the search for places with power outlets starts when I am not even at 50%. It is not an apples to apples as I do a lot of compute in the cloud, but even with that on the laptops, they still last a lot shorter and you cannot plug in normal power banks.
Do you actually work on the xreal like this, in DeX? I really wonder what it's like. They're so expensive it's hard to invest in one (I don't have America-level purchasing power)
Yes, it works very well. The new ones are better, but I have the Air 2 and they work very well for this, no need for taking my laptop anywhere anymore.
> If they nail the Linux container UX as well as ChromeOS
…
>Imagine thst a large userbase could just skip the laptop and desktop in favor of a USB-C dock and a decent display :)
Yeah - I don’t think the user base interested in container UX is “large” in relation to the mobile world.
Also, who wants to carry around a display with its own battery, a keyboard with its own batteries, a mouse/trackpad (batteries) and cables for the above? At some point it’s honestly easier to just grab a MacBook Air and walk out the door.
Umm no, the mouse/keyboard/display combo would be something you have at work and maybe at home... I'm not suggesting people start hauling 27" displays for shits and giggles, computing from a phone doesn't seem that fun.
And I don't know, the container UX people didn't exist for ChromeOS before ChromeOS made it easy to run Linux apps that way so.
But Ubuntu touch, and other native linux phone installs have touted desktop mode over the years.
The h/w 10 years ago was marginal at performing this task, and the non-corporate OSes were, and are, actively suppressed by goggle and the rest of the corporate "phone" development industry. This is an almost identical scenario as M$ dominating the PC manufacturing business, even though they didn't make the h/w.
But this serves as another typical example of how long ago this type of feature could have been available if every new innovation didn't have to be vetted from the perspective of vendor benefit, instead of advancing on the basis of user benefit.
If you haven't tried it, especially if your workplace allows your phone to have access to some corporate data, DeX + a good pair of AR or just integrated display glasses feels like the future.
I run my S23 Ultra with a pair of XReal One's, and a folding Bluetooth keyboard (DeX let's you use your phone as a touchpad). It is really amazing in widescreen mode sitting in a coffee shop, reading through technical documents and answering work email. When I'm done, it can all fold up and fit in a (spacious) pair of cargo shorts.
I think Samsung has played the long game on DeX, with an eye towards their collaborative XR glasses with Google next year. As great as XReal has been, I am eager to see a "first-party" solution.
I tried it for a while with the best AR glasses I could find at the time, XReal Air 2 Pros with an Xreal Beam, and although I could see the potential, it wasn't good enough to get work done. The screen size was too small, the resolution too poor, and it was a little too jittery and unnatural feeling.
Are the Xreal One's that much of a step forward that you can use it for serious work? Even on my Quest Pro I find it just on the edge of being too annoying to do coding-work. Web browsing is decent.
And second question, worth buying the One or waiting for the One Pros?
Xreal One removed the biggest problems with that tech, it's usable now. No more "jittery and unnatural feeling" or stupid dongles/pucks. They put custom silicon in the glasses which stabilizes things and optionally locks displays in space.
I'd say take another look. The beam has a LOT of issues. The One basically says "give me a signal, I'll project it in 2D and track it with 3DoF." Its smooth, and while it can drift a little (it is only an accelerometer), it is stable for me.
I wear glasses with mine, yet I still find it surprisingly crisp for text in ultra-wide mode. I'd say it is a fairly unobtrusive experience. It also helps that the nose pads don't dig into my skin.
That said, if a Quest Pro isn't good enough, I hesitate to recommend it. The FOV is certainly smaller on the One.
Thanks. If you have experience with the Quest Pro would you say the text clarity is a step up with the Ones? Supposedly the One Pros will be even better, and are coming out soon.
That was what SimulaVR was advertising on. Unfortunately it seems things are a lot more difficult than they anticipated and they still have not shipped any devices.
Same with the Immersed Visor. Also still vaporware. They had lots of journalists fly over for a demo that didn't actually work and all they did was show off hardware.
This is the problem. VR/AR can add value but you really have to tailor the experience to it. And it has to be a suitable usecase.
If you just lift over what you have in 2D it becomes only more painful. But this is what most people do. Also many platforms, like Microsoft Mesh. Yes, it's cool that you can join a teams meeting in VR. But until they add something that actually takes advantage of being in VR, all it does is add more friction. Roasting marshmallows and other cutesy minigames does not add any value whatsoever.
I think there’s maybe a case for VR meeting rooms that you kinda teleport into, but anything beyond that is gonna be niche as hell and just a hindrance in every other case. A whole VR office space? Just gets in the way.
And I expect even a VR meeting space would see more use that’s worse than a normal video call but is happening because someone in charge is over the moon for it, than it’d see use in the far rarer cases where it’s really better.
Well, I've done extensive trialling at work during the pandemic (when flying often just wasn't an option at all!) and I do see added value for things like workshops.
Teams has breakout rooms but they are very rigid. You have to switch to one and define them. You can't 'glance over' and see what the other rooms are doing. It's much more flexible to just walk around in a 3D space, work on a shared whiteboard you are standing around, pull in some powerpoints to discuss, and walk over to another group if you're needed (you could see them wave over). At this point it really becomes a real alternative to flying over for a workshop. Thus saving many tonnes of CO2, and much cost in flights and hotels. VR is not quite as good but it's much better at dynamic workshops than a simple video tool like Teams is. Added bonus if you are discussing potential upcoming products that you already have 3D models of. Just picking up a model and going like "Hey why don't we put the USB port on this side", this is really where this shines.
But the tool has to be really good. Other solutions like Arthur, Viverse and Spatial could do it really well (Spatial has since gone full consumer-oriented though and has lost many capabilities for business, it's now more of a luxury VRChat). Mesh can not, it is extremely limited. It's the old AltSpaceVR but dumbed down. It would have been better if they kept AltSpace as it was without messing so much with it.
Speed of light limitations there is fundamental latency that will be noticed if you are not close enough. Many musicians are doing virtual jam sessions and 1000km is about the limit. Music is the most demanding application, depending on how your meeting is run some can handle a lot of meetings. Someone on Mars will forever be limited to just watching a presentation, someone on a different continent will need to raise their hand and be recognized before asking a question.
The issue with this is usually that you can't have power from the powerbank going into the only USB-C socket on the phone while the display signal comes out on the same cable. I think it's technically doable, but not usually with dongles that would fit in your pocket.
Any usb-c docking station should work. (should being key, many are lacking something useful - commonly the monitor port is a usb-A video interface with windows-only drivers not a display port that would just work).
Though I suspect a laptop is still what you want. Your phone will generate too much heat to leave in your pocket. Or maybe some backpack (fanny pack?) wearable?
I actually don't have any sort of Dex/AR setup. Currently only have my phone's screen. Admittedly I've only tested it. Haven't actually done a coding session yet. So total typing time on that keyboard is minimal. So I guess all I can say is I'm happy with the build quality and design. The bluetooth switching between devices is pretty slick.
Scrcpy recently added support for Virtual Display. This allows connecting your phone at any resolution e.g. 1920x1080. But vanilla android by default does not have a taskbar in that mode.
What's strange is that vanilla OS does show a taskbar (tablet mode) if you increase DPI to 600+. Theoretically you can get a taskbar now only if tablet mode taskbar could show up in secondary virtual displays.
Wireless to what? Android Auto uses your car's computer + wifi/BT chip + screen.
If you want to connect to any screen then you cannot rely on wireless connections.
That doesn't mean there couldn't be some future that is wireless, but are there any standard wireless communication protocols that have reached critical mass / popularity?
I have been using code-server (openvscode-server will also do) to run on a remote powerful machine and then connect to it from lesser devices (a phone in desktop mode would be good if I could do it!) via a VPN. Keeps all the source code remote.
Really hopeful this is the next frontier for mobile. Pair this with wider Field of view at glasses and a compact keyboard, and you can have a full it desktop environment in your pocket
None of the mobile Linux distribution is working on this, even though it should be easier for them to fallback to a DE than for Android to invent a new one.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 337 ms ] threadI can’t imagine android going faster than chrome at a native level either.
There is heavy work underway in fuchsia currently to provide Linux kernel comparability via a subsystem they call starnix.
They are already I believe looking at running a version of fuchsia in a vm on Android.
Then there was also a lot of talk about the androidification of ChromeOS.
It sure looks like we are moving towards some kind of cross device OS that is distinctly Google’s without Linux in the future.
Long story short is you can imagine in 2019 there was X amount of engineers, 95% on Android and 5% on what you'd call Fuchsia.
The central argument up top became about why the renegade band that split off from Android/Chrome etc. to do Fuchsia in...early to mid 2010s?...and if it was going to provide a significant step forward. This became framed in terms of "$ of devices shipped", in which case, there was no contest.
Funnily enough this very article is about N dominos down from there (de-investment in Fuchsia, defenestration of head software guy of Android/Chrome/Chrome OS etc., ex. Moto hardware guy is in charge now)
Don't read this comment too closely, I was not in the room. For example, I have absolutely no actual quotes, or relayed quotes, to 100% confirm some set of individuals became focused on # of devices shipped.
Just obsessive enough to track wtf was going on, and on big enough projects, and trustworthy and hard working, and clearly without party or clique, such that I could get good info when asked, as it was clear my only concern was making things that were good and making sure all of Google's products could be part of that story.
One part I find hard to reconcile with all of that is that even just looking at public facing stuff alone it seems to be under VERY active development.
I count 100 commits in just the past 24 hrs here: https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fuchsia/+log and it’s been at that pace for a LONG time.
Which leads me to ask… what is up with it in your opinion because that’s hard to match up with DOA
Also I wasn’t making up the idea that they were in the process of bringing in this “microfuchsia” VM into Android although it’s purpose is unclear.
It's still shipping, successfully, on millions(?) of devices yearly via Nest Hubs and such. Never say never. But all public-facing signs are fairly clear, the big move is ChromeOS into Android, not Android onto Fuchsia - and note how invested Google is in the Nest Hubs (read: not at all, languished for years now)
(I'm also curious if we could get a stats-based thing on, say, 2019 vs. 2024, My out-of-thin-air prior would be 30% more activity in 2019 than now. But I also figured there was 10 commits a day now, not 100.)
(I tried checking out the whole repo, but then all the apps on my macbook informed me en masse there was 0 disk space left :X Doesn't look like there's a GitHub mirror)
(cheers btw, you're my kind of people, one of the more soul-sucking parts of Google was finding out that kind of person is few, and far between) (i.e. curious and into It, not just here to make your boss or partner happy)
Do you think it’s possible that thinking evolved slightly beyond the number of devices shipped in the meantime perhaps?
I’d always been on the opinion of even just assuming they got to a point where the whole starnix linux syscall compatibility layer thing (which is what I see a lot of recent commits pointing towards) to a good point and stopped that it would still make sense in so many use cases that it would have been justified.
It would also change the number of devices shipped question from 1 dying product line to billions overnight which certainly might change the conversation and furthermore would put them into a pretty unique commercial position for more high assurance computing given the security model which would have a lot of follow on effects presumably
Also thanks again for taking the time to answer, you’re right I am genuinely very curious about this.
Anyway I could happily get a couple more years out of as a main PC, then it will probably have a few years in it as a hand-me-down or tv computer.
That said, I generally agree that, I mean, we’re going to get phones anyway so it is nice to get something useful out of them.
Who's having a CPU shortage? You know, factories can produce more CPUs?
Does anyone use DeX?
I chose Motorola for the same reason (they have their own variant of dex which works smooth).
It’s what Stage Manager on iPads should have been: a regular, boring laptop mode to make multitasking on a large tablet screen usable without Apple unnecessarily trying to put their own unique spin on it.
Since I got my hands on a Daylight Computer, I have basically been doing the same thing but with a tablet Android environment instead of DeX. It's been nice, but I would love a nicer window manager when I have a keyboard and mouse connected.
What is this 1995?
AFAIK Google got rid of built-in support for this in Android Jelly Bean. Additional tricks are needed to make later versions of Android behave as a USB Mass Storage device. If it works for you out of the box, I suspect it may be specific to your Android distro.
The easiest thing in my mind would be to use USB mass storage, with the storage presented to the connected computer being virtualized with a layer reconciling changes with actual storage on the fly (which the current MTP implementation already does anyway), solving the problem that USB mass storage traditionally has arising from two systems mounting the same chunk of disk at once.
That would work everywhere and remove the need for a bizarre protocol borrowed from Windows XP.
certainly not
I've swapped dozens of users from iOS to Android in the last year or so and nobody has had issues. Over the years I've helped hundreds of people migrate. Most everyone really likes the freedom to use different apps or workflows.
The only folks who ever have problems are people who need to be told how to use their devices. Choices confuse them so android is overwhelming, which is understandable. That's where iOS excels. iOS dictates how users can do things, which works for some people but also atrophies people's understanding of technology. People learn to do as they're told, not how to think about what's going on. Apple's walled garden makes people worse at technology.
Also sounds like you bought a garbage bargain android device. Idk how something can barely work as a camera/powerbank unless user error is present.
While this may be the case - many iPhone users love their phones (and iOS) for a different reason.
I've been with Android for some time: rooting, custom builds, different launchers, you name it. And it was fun back when I was in my early 20s, when had the time for this and when it was something new (HTC One, the very first model was my last Android phone).
Then I've bought iPhone 6 (I had switched from Arch to macOS few months earlier) and tried a few android phones since.
I simply don't need those "workflows".
I need about a dozen apps (the ones I use almost daily), I want them to be thought through (like Drafts) and I want my OS to work and behave the same way at least 5 years later (not to mention security updates and such).
This is where iPhone delivers and where Android quite often fails. I have iPhone 13 now and I can be sure that even few years from now everything will just work the same way does now.
but the person i was replying to was acting like android doesn't work. They were trying to do things that their chosen walled-garden(apple/ios) prevents them from doing, then blaming anything but their walled-garden. they were showing clear bias.
No, I have said entirely different thing.
Try to climb off you horse and maybe you will notice the difference between "apps you are given" and "apps I decided to use that are available on the market".
>but the person i was replying to was acting like android doesn't work
Well, that person was too emotional and given us almost no details. But to be honest the way Android behaves (unless you want to hack most of it) - it can be described as "doesn't work" from iOS user's perspective. And no, not because of "walled garden" or some other bs you imagine. Most of the time android phones (yes, even top models) simply lag (or start lagging over the time). Not to mention that the base line quality of software is simply lower than on iOS.
>they were showing clear bias.
And so are you. You are doing _exactly_ the same when writting things like "walled-garden" and "you want to be told"
>Idk how something can barely work as a camera/powerbank unless user error is present.
I literally explained this in the comment. the device doesn't connect to my laptop when I plug it in, meaning that I can't transfer photos off it easily
your entire comment smells viciously of "oh my god! how dare he not have had a good experience with android. my poor baby android..."
if I was biased I wouldn't have bought an android in the first place
multiple people have explained to you that you're the issue and your response is to get angry, throw around insults, and reiterate that you're using it wrong.
you bought into a walled garden, then acting like everything outside your self-imposed garden is wrong.
there's a difference between liking a walled garden and preferring a phone that just works pleasantly with all the features you need straight out of the box, and the fact that you're choosing to misunderstand this shows that you're just completely unobjective. and of course you are, you've literally explained your vested interest in this. it's like trying to argue atheism to an evangelical priest
besides, if we were talking about tablets or laptops or anything that you might actually want to do work on, then a walled garden is a huge issue, a massive dealbreaker. but as far as I'm concerned you're kidding yourself if you think your phone needs a wider pool of features than a Nokia from 2007
And you have the bonus that with a Pixel you can remove big tech from the equation when needed with GrapheneOS.
That said, I would only recommend people to buy Pixel or Samsung A5x or up. They are the only Android phones that have reliable monthly updates [1], plus they are the only two brands that are not vague about having a truly separated secure enclave (Titan M2/Knox Vault respectively). Other vendors don't really talk about it and probably only use ARM TrustZone.
[1] Pixel is the only phone that gets them really on time, but with Samsung it's normally within a month on A5x and the flagships.
Yes. It literally protects your precious photos from being stolen if you plug your phone somewhere else, but the only thing you need to pull down the notification bar and tap to allow the file transfer.
Like it notifies you when you plug it in, if you didn't notice it even once - how can it be not a skill issue?
> is it a skill issue that swiping from the left goes back to the previous page and swiping from the right also goes back to the previous page
... in what app? If this is Chrome then ask Google why. Or install Firefox, DuckDuckGo or whatever else.
> is it a skill issue that google translate requires me to have the google search app installed
Yes, Google tries to stick it's d** everywhere. Just like Apple, though you don't talk shit about Greatest Jobs' Company, because you like it.
BTW, I have an official Google Translate app and I don't have the Search bullshit on the home screen. I literally have nothing except DDG and Camera shortcuts. Android 12, Moto G8. Because you know, you can disable apps.
by plug and play I obviously wasn't referring to the laptop just offering up my photos unlocked. I was talking about plugging it in, unlocking the device and nothing happening. there is no notification, and nothing in the notification bar. this would never happen on an iPhone. this should have been very obvious to anyone paying even the slightest attention
>... in what app? If this is Chrome then ask Google why. Or install Firefox, DuckDuckGo or whatever else.
in every app. it's a feature of the system, just like you can swipe from the side of the screen in almost every app on iOS. why on earth would I have said it if it was just in one app? again, this should have been very obvious to you
>Just like Apple, though you don't talk shit about Greatest Jobs' Company, because you like it.
what is with all this Android white-knighting? it's an operating system, not a protected species. I literally chose to buy an Android phone when I could have bought an iPhone, and somehow I'm biased? I could not care less about this pathetic semi-religious Android vs Apple war that you've got going on inside your head. they're not sports teams, they're tools, and unless you've got a very very specific use case, this tool's main feature should be the rapid, pleasant usability of a few simple features. they should not require concerted effort and research to set up. there are major issues with Apple, and there are major issues with Google, but for what I want in a phone, Apple makes a better OS. for what I want in a laptop, Apple makes a terrible OS.
>Android 12, Moto G8
you're 2 versions of Android behind what I have and you expect to speak as an authority on this?
Except there is a notification for the USB mode.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
And it is this way since 2+ for sure.
> in every app. it's a feature of the system, just like you can swipe from the side of the screen in almost every app on iOS. why on earth would I have said it if it was just in one app? again, this should have been very obvious to you
No, it's not obvious for me. None of my Android phones behaved so and I don't think I can remember such behaviour on any other I saw or used.
> I literally chose to buy an Android phone when I could have bought an iPhone, and somehow I'm biased?
Yes, you are. You somehow equate your personal experience with the one unknown model and make to all Android phones ever. And despite people telling you what you are clearly missing something - you stubbornly insist it's not you but the Android.
> you're 2 versions of Android behind what I have and you expect to speak as an authority on this?
And my daily driver is Moto G54, Android 14. Any other pathetic excuses?
But it is builtin android feature. You connect to laptop and notification pop up asking if you want to mount as usb transfer mode or just charge.
> is it a skill issue that swiping from the left goes back to the previous page and swiping from the right also goes back to the previous page?
Its probably your specific vendor option and you certainly can change it. But its definetly not universal android thing as it doesnt do anything from edge swipe by default.
> is it a skill issue that google translate requires me to have the google search app installed?
Its just regular app - it doesnt need anything additional.
> and that the google search app puts a big fuck off search bar in the middle of my home screen
Apps which places widgets on homescreen asks for permission unless you checked a checkbox to always allow. And all widgets can be removed from the screen anyway. These is no such thing as mandatory non removable widgets in Android.
So yeah, it looks like a skill issue if you are more familiar with how another system works and doesnt want to invest to figure out how to do the same in the Android. The UI is different and less familiar for you, but you can literaly do all the things as on iPhone, just in a different way.
In 2025? I got my first Android phone, what, 15 years ago and I've never transferred files over USB because why would I.
They like to wait until stuff is “ready” to their standard. Android had 3G, 4G, and 5G first. OLED screens too.
Early folders had a lot of issues, but I know a lot of that has been sorted for years.
If it’s the size of my current phone and folds out to be twice as wide, that sounds kind of nice. Except it would be so thin I worry it would be flimsy and there wouldn’t be as much space for battery (which the open screen would use faster) so wouldn’t I get worse battery life?
Unless you make it twice as thick. Then it’s twice as thick.
And so I’m not sure that bigger screen would justify any of that for me. Now if it was three times as wide that might be significantly nice because now you’re approaching like iPad mini size. But that just makes the thinness/thickness problem worse.
If it’s say half the size of my current phone and then unfolds to be the size of my current phone (game boy SP style) I’m not sure that’s really buying me anything either. My phone is fine, I don’t need a twice as thick half as tall version in my pocket that’s not really gonna help me.
I have heard they’re popular with women which makes a certain amount of sense to me. Because if you’re going to just carry your phone in your bag then the fact that it’s twice as thick doesn’t matter that much but you get the bigger screen.
I’m a phone-in-pocket person.
So I don’t know, it’s just not making a lot of sense to me. But like I said I’ve never used one and it may be one of those things where after a couple of days the light would go on and I would totally get it. I questioned the Apple Watch at first and now I love it. But that’s not always how it goes.
It isn't. I went from Apple's 16 Pro to an Oppo Find N5. Battery size 16 Pro: 3,582mAh. Though in fairness the Oppo is the same size as an iPhone 16 Pro Max, which has 4,685mAh.
Battery size Oppo Find N5: 5600mAh 56% more than my old phone. 20% more than the 16 Pro Max. Silicon carbon batteries.
It's beautiful what can be done if we go with modern technology and not Apple's profit maximising regurgitation of the same same for many many years.
I'm fine with a heavier ones. And looking at the amounts of iPhones sold (including cases, holders and whatever) the weight isn't a factor for the many.
Apple in particular will get to deal with all the negative PR when people buy their $2000 iPhone Fold and online reports come flooding in for all of the week 1 display failures.
In addition Apple would be happy if people started upgrading their phones more frequently.
The phone just becomes the processing power; essentially an ARM laptop with all of the peripherals external.
I currently using Pixel 9 Pro XL (512GiB) and I imagine it's got more compute power than my ageing 2019 XPS 13.
Conversely, I'm not entirely sure what the use-case is. It couldn't replace my work-laptop with a 20-core CPU and 64GiB of RAM and ARC GPU, running Ubuntu/Gnome that I can also connect to a couple of monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers, webcam, and more with a single cable via a docking station; and if I was going to carry the peripherals needed to do this with my phone, when on the go, I'd just carry a laptop, like I do now.
Curious to hear what the use-case is for people with these desktop/phone crossovers. If it's to cover the use-case where I haven't brought a laptop with me, forgotten it, didn't bring it for weight or whatever; where am I supposed to find these peripherals to use?
The problem is, the OS is very limiting. The file manager of iOS is extremely dumbed down, even Firefox doesn't work properly on it, and desktop mode with stage manager is just stupid. So yeah, it's not a success so far.
Android though feels more open, so I would give it a try of their desktop mode isn't stupid. Firefox on Android is fully functional at least and that's a great start!
But, more broadly, the problem is that they can do it for their own apps, but for all the third party ones, it's down to app developers whether they want to put in effort to support keyboard & mouse/trackpad properly. And it's a chicken and egg thing there - relatively few users use it currently, so there's little motivation to add support, which deters more potential users.
Funnily enough Windows is the closest to get this right with 2-in-1 tablet/laptops. 2 problems with this: 1- Windows, 2- sub-par HW.
source for planned integration: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/392521081?utm_source=...
I think Samsung recently added a "desktop Dex" mode that's supposed to be less mobile-ui. I haven't tried it tho.
It felt so close already back then, sluggish, but still usable. But that initial implementation was running some in-house version of Ubuntu with a custom kernel (if I remembered it correctly).
I just wish this becomes a reality much sooner then later. Especially if I can have my dev environment on some remote VPS with either tunneling, github code spaces or Azure DevBox
With the S9 they introduced the developer test version of Linux on DeX but it never came to the S8 or S10 and it was already discontinued with the Android 10 update :(
I feel this a lot. I use it daily, mostly as a thin client for remote desktop use but there are little niggles that would make it better. Examples:
- Let me control how the top bar and taskbar are viewed
- Let games capture the mouse in remote desktop (for fps type games)
- Fix the small issues that cause the mouse capture to fail on steam link occasionally
- Fix rendering issues with firefox while in desktop mode
- Let the youtube UI work in a more "desktop" way while in dex mode
These might be mostly app responsibilities, but if they could fix some of this stuff dex would be a dream instead of just being mostly useful.
The hardware can do it, it's just that the system settings won't show you the 4K resolution option for some reason. But you can do some hacks to make it appear and then it works just fine.
You need to install a nondescript app called 'Samsung Good Lock' from the Samsung store (not available in Play store), and use that to side-load an app called 'Multistar', which is an app to tweak display settings. From that side-loaded app you need to tap the 'I Samsung DeX' which does various setting changes to "Make Dex even more friendly", it doesn't specify what it does exactly, but it'll make the 4K resolution option appear in the system settings.
This all feels real sketchy and I don't understand why Samsung doesn't just enable 4K resolution officially, because the hardware is clearly capable of it.
With every OneUI update there are rumors that it'll natively support 4K, but so far that hasn't happened AFAIK. Admittedly I haven't used Dex in a while for myself, but judging from recent Reddit posts this hack is still needed.
It lets people who want to tinker do it, while keeping people who probably shouldn't tinker from doing it.
It's not available in the Google Play store because the play store rules are really stupid. A lot of apps aren't available there.
Also, it looks like Good Lock is now also available on the Google Play Store, and there it lists Samsung Electronics as the developer [2].
I guess this does make it less sketchy of an app to use, but it still feel wrong to have to do so many weird steps to get a menu option working.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Lock [1] https://news.samsung.com/global/make-your-galaxy-smartphone-... [2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samsung.an...
Honestly I'd like to see Windows 11 running under this as well, but that seems incredibly unlikely.
https://9to5google.com/2018/11/09/samsung-linux-on-dex-andro...
It was the Ubuntu 16.04 desktop running in a LXD container. It crashed when the tablet went in out of memory, so I had to be careful with what I was running.
Linux Plumbers Conference 2025 | Adding Third-Party Hypervisor to Android Virtualization Framework
https://lpc.events/event/17/contributions/1447/attachments/1... https://youtu.be/hLdUCrlheKg
Security-wise: True; but Android is a gigantic yet well-oiled ecosystem at this point, from silicon designers to manufacturers to vendors to developers, running on handhelds to TVs to wearables to gaming devices (including AR/VR consoles).
> shame that Chrome OS was subsumed by Android
ChromeOS had a decade but Google is wise focus on just one desktop platform. I don't think it should surprise anybody that a platform with 3bn users & 2mn odd apps won out.
Hopefully they work on that.
It's always funny charging my phone off the USB C for my monitor, nudging my mouse and seeing a pointer appear on the screen though.
https://chromeos.dev/en/linux
https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chrome-os-systems-suppo...
https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-library/guide...
Note specially the parts of WIP, missing features, to be yet done, and so on.
So the development wasn't local, but it was sort-of usable. (And the editing is local in any case.)
So you start the 'server' on eg your desktop, and that registers with eg GitHub or Microsoft (or perhaps another service, not sure how open the system is), and then you can use any other computer to connect to your system via GitHub or Microsoft (as a proxy, I think). The other computer can either run just a browser, or can run a vscode (which is basically also a browser in the end).
See https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/tunnels
Yes, the nice thing about the tunnels is that the computer you want to develop on doesn't have to be reachable from the internet. It only has to be able to reach the internet. GitHub (or Microsoft) play the man-in-the-middle.
It's really convenient. I often use it to develop from my laptop on my desktop, even when they are on the same local network: because it's basically just as fast, but I don't have to worry about which network I'm on, it just always works (as long as I have Internet access on both machines. But if that ever stops, I'm not really going to develop much anyway.)
I wish there was a phone-laptop-dock solution that wasn't as expensive as an equivalent Chromebook. My phone is more than powerful enough to act as a travel laptop, yet its potential is constrained by a small touch screen..
https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9464639/microsoft-windows...
I've only ever used Nexus/Pixel phones which haven't supported USB-C external monitors until just 1.5 years ago with the Pixel 8.
Sadly like many of their great features it was not well known....
In case glasses are an option, I heard that Xreal glasses can be hooked up to Android phones directly. Such a setup with a proper Android desktop mode (or even better: a Linux VM with all one's dotfiles and everything) would be fantastic IMO.
I use Moonlight to remote to my desktop. Moonlight on Windows can capture Windows key(and some other shortcut like alt-tab) and redirect to remote machine.
Moonlight on Android can't do that, the dev this is Android issue and can't do anything about it.
The first modern thing like this that I can recall is the 2011 Android-based Motorola Atrix phone[1] that presented a DeX-like desktop (well before DeX!).
It used an Ubuntu-based desktop. It was really, really good, but never got traction.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G
I feel like this is something that could spur Windows/Windows Phone adoption in modern times.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Continuum
But when you kill the non-PC platforms, you're just left with a reduced capability version of windows apps
The whole point of having USB C phones is to connect to desktop docks and get full featured computers. Instead we have muzzled devices.
I would love something that I can use and maybe even use an RDP on, to function as a full desktop computer.
But like all common sense improvements, some come just too late after the boat has sailed.
I can easily see the future of personal computing being a mobile device with peripherals that use its compute and cloud for anything serious. be that airpods, glasses, watches, or just hooking that device up to a larger screen.
theres not a great reason for an individual to own processing power in a desktop, laptop, phone, and glasses when most are idle while using the others.
I still will prefer the form factor of a laptop for anything serious though; screen, speakers, keyboard.
Yes you can get peripherals for a phone, yes I have tried that, no they're not good. Though perhaps with foldable screens this could change in the future.
That is why I am rooting for Samsung DeX and what Google is offering: Samsung and Google can make money for their own reasons making a universal personal digital device.
I’ve always wondered if this kind of thing is actually that useful, but it’s not even an option for me because of the above.
Seems surprising Google didn’t act on this earlier. But maybe they didn’t want to cannibalize the Chromebooks?
I get the feeling very very few people know this exists at all on some Samsung phones. I’ve asked some tech-y people with Samsungs about it before and they didn’t even know it existed.
I think we've seen this before. Back before phones were "smart" there was one (Nokia, maybe?) that you could put on a little dock into which you could plug a keyboard and monitor.
Obviously, it didn't take off. Perhaps it was ahead of its time. Or, as you say, it wasn't done well at the time.
Phones accepting Bluetooth keyboard connections was very common back in my road warrior (digital nomad) days, but the screen was always the annoyance factor. Writing e-mails on my SonyEricsson on a boat on the South China Sea felt like "the future!"
Slightly related, I built most of my first startup with a Palm Pilot Ⅲ and an attached keyboard. Again, though, a larger screen would have been a game changer.
There have been multiple attempts at this over the years.
https://liliputing.com/5-laptop-docks-that-let-you-use-a-sma...
What may shift the balance is that slowly but surely USB-C docks are becoming more common, on their own terms, not related to cell phones. At some point we may pass a critical threshold where there's enough of them that selling a phone that can just natively use any USB-C dock you've got lying around becomes a sufficient distinguishing feature that people start looking for it. Even just treating it as a bonus would be a start.
I've got two docks in my house now; one a big powerful one to run the work-provided laptop in a more remote-work-friendly form factor, and fairly cheap one to turn my Steam deck into a halfway-decent Switch competitor (though "halfway-decent" and no more; it's definitely more finicky). We really ought to be getting to the point that a cell phone with a docked monitor, keyboard, & mouse for dorm room usage (replacing the desktop, TV, and if whoever pulls this off plays their cards right, the gaming console(s)) should start looking appealing to college students pretty soon here. The docks themselves are rapidly commoditizing if they aren't there already.
Once it becomes a feature that we increasingly start to just expect on our phones, then maybe the "notebook-like" case for a cell phone starts to look more appealing as an accessory. We've pretty much demonstrated it can't carry itself as its own product.
That would probably start the clock on the "notebook" as its own distinct product, though it would take years for them to finally be turned into nothing but shells for cell phones + a high-end, expensive performance-focused line that is itself more-or-less the replacement for desktops, which would themselves only be necessary for high-end graphics or places where you need tons and tons of storage and you don't want 10 USB-C drives flopping around separately.
Obviously the trend didn't take off
Still in the "smart" era, but the Motorola Atrix allowed that, but with its own laptop form factor dock.
https://www.cnet.com/culture/how-does-the-motorola-atrix-4g-...
I am pretty sure that modern phones are more than powerful enough! My wife's iPhone 16 Pro Max would be amazingly useful if not limited by iOS (which always feels like it's hiding true capabilities behind an Etch-A-Sketch interface to me). If you could plug the iPhone in and run a macOS desktop (which hasn't really changed for 15+ years), that'd be great. Thanks in advance.
I have a POCO F7 Ultra which is powerful enough to run LLMs via PocketPal and could easily replace my daily laptop or PC for work if it wasn't scuppered by USB2 on the USB-C port. If I could easily run ollama on the phone via a web interface I would because it's faster than my main PC for LLMs I think!
On Android you can go into Developer settings and force enable the ability to use desktop mode but sadly I can't without proper display support on the USB C.
An M4 Mac is way more powerful than an iPhone 16, but the iPhone is powerful enough to prove a much better experience on normal tasks compared to what that 2010 phone could at the time.
Basically I think everything has enough headroom that it’s not the compromise it would’ve been before. The biggest constraints on an iPhone’s performance are the battery and cooling. If you’re plugged in the battery doesn’t matter. And unless you’re not playing a fancy game cooling may not be an issue due to headroom.
Agreed. For this reason I'm quite excited about glasses like the Xreal One Pro. Having to carry around with me just my phone, a pair of glasses and a lightweight Bluetooth keyboard would be a game changer for me in terms of ergonomics.
Really, the compute on a phone has been good enough for at least a decade now once we got USB C. We're still largely doing on our phones and laptops the same things we were doing in 2005. I'm surprised it took this long
I'm happy this is becoming a real thing. I hope they'll also allow the phone's screen to be used like a trackpad. It wouldn't be ideal, but there's no reason the touchscreen can't be a fully featured input device.
I'm fully agreed with you on the wasted processing power-- I think we'll eventually head toward a model of having one computing device with a number of thin clients which are locally connected.
I might have misunderstood but do you mean as an input device attached to your desktop computer? Kdeconnect has made that available for quite some time out of the box. (Although it's been a long time since I used it and when I tested it just now apparently I've somehow managed to break the input processing half of the software on my desktop in the interim.)
One thing I'm kinda missing is that it doesn't seem to be able to become both at the same time on a system that has the screen space for that. Like a tablet or Z Fold series.
Approximately no-one was watching 4k feature-length videos on their phones in 2005, or playing ray traced 3d games on their laptops.
Sending plain text messages is pretty much the same as back then, yes. But these days I'm also taking high resolution photos and videos and share those with others via my phone.
> I hope they'll also allow the phone's screen to be used like a trackpad.
Samsung's DeX already does that.
> I'm fully agreed with you on the wasted processing power-- I think we'll eventually head toward a model of having one computing device with a number of thin clients which are locally connected.
Your own 'good enough' logic already suggests otherwise? Processors are still getting cheap and better, so why not just duplicate them? Instead of having a dumb large screen (and keyboard) that you plug your phone into, it's not much extra cost to add some processing power to that screen, and make it a full desktop pc.
If we are getting to 'thin client' world, it'll be because of 'cloud', not because of connecting to our phones. Even today, most of what people do on their desktops can be done in the browser. So we likely see more of that.
Do people really do this now? Watching a movie on my phone is so suboptimal I'd only consider it if I really have no other option. Holding it up for 2 hours, being stuck with that tiny screen, brrr.
I can imagine doing it on a plane ride when I'm not really interested in the movie and am just doing it to waste some time. But when it's a movie I'm really looking forward to, I'd want to really experience it. A VR headset does help here but a mobile device doesn't.
The thin client world is one anticipating a world with fewer resources to make these excess chips. It's just a speculation of what things will look like when we can't sustain what is unsustainable.
The video comment was about phones. The raytracing was about laptops.
Yes, laptops were capable of watching DVDs in 2005. (But they weren't capable of watching much YouTube, because YouTube was only started later that year. Streaming video was in its infancy.)
> It's just a speculation of what things will look like when we can't sustain what is unsustainable.
Huh? We are sitting on a giant ball of matter, and much of what's available in the crust is silicates. You mostly only need energy to turn rocks into computer chips. We get lots and lots of energy from the sun.
How is any of this unsustainable?
(And a few computer chips is all you save with the proposed approach. You still need to make just as many screens and batteries etc.)
You don't need to imagine a total economic collapse. Take any resource that goes into a chip, and contrive any reason we'll have to consume significantly less of that resource. How do you solve that?
Well, we have highly-redundant compute-per-person. I personally have nine pretty capable computer chips to my person, just in the building I'm in. That's a lot, and that represents an excess in resource consumption. A phone-as-motherboard laptop solves one of those chips. If we make the same games we're making today but we go back a decade or two in graphics, then we can have fewer consoles and gaming PCs, too.
I'm not saying "one chip for many devices" is a panacea. There are other things we might do. Maybe laptops and phones can be made to have display input, for example.
We are sitting on a giant ball of matter. None of our resource use is actually using up material, we are just transforming matter.
We might be running out of resources that are cheap and easy to transform (eg cheap oil), but all of these are problems we can fix with enough energy. And eg solar power is going to provide more and more cheap energy. Fusion is also going to come to the rescue in a few decades (and we already had nuclear fission for ages.)
The economy is pretty resilient. Not even a global pandemic left all that much of a mark three years later.
> Take any resource that goes into a chip, and contrive any reason we'll have to consume significantly less of that resource. How do you solve that?
With substitution, economising and ingenuity. Eg early transistors were made of gallium, but we use silicon these days. That's a substitution.
> Well, we have highly-redundant compute-per-person. I personally have nine pretty capable computer chips to my person, just in the building I'm in. That's a lot, and that represents an excess in resource consumption.
Less than you'd think. These days, the main expense is for the power to run your chips, less so than the energy to make the chips. And having redundant chips around that aren't turned on doesn't cost any of the former.
> If we make the same games we're making today but we go back a decade or two in graphics, then we can have fewer consoles and gaming PCs, too.
Btw, that's one of the answers about what people would do in case of resource shortage for making chips.
> I'm not saying "one chip for many devices" is a panacea.
And I'm saying it would only save you a few chips, but wouldn't save you on batteries nor screens etc.
(And even a 'dumb' screen needs quite a few chips these days.) Hey, even Apple's chargers have more powerful chips in them these days than their first stand alone computers a few decades ago had.
---
Btw, you can economise on powerful chips even more, if you do most of the heavy computing in the cloud: even your combined phone/laptop/desktop chip would still be idle most of the time. The cloud can eg use one million chips for three million people. That's even better than one chip for one person (which you touted as better than nine computers for one person.)
Having 'target display mode' on laptops and whatnot is one way that would save the chips that go into screens, which is why I mentioned it above. I agree that computing in the cloud can also reduce the number of chips used (although that does rely on chips to keep the internet going, etc.)
A 'climate collapse' is extremely unlikely. Look at studies on the (prospected) economic impacts of climate change. Wikipedia has an article on it, for example.
In any case, the forecasts expect something like perhaps 20% total reduction in GDP over say the next 100 years compared to the scenario without global warning. (But that's on top of our regularly scheduled single-digit percent per year regular economic growth.)
20% is a huge impact! It's bigger than Brexit. But it's also only about as big as the per capita gap between the US and the UK. And the UK is far from a collapsed nation.
And: in case you want to mention that the economy ain't everything. Yes, I totally agree. That's why my argument works in reverse: the economy can only function when the environment hasn't totally collapsed. Thus if leading experts project around a 20%-ish reduction in GDP, that means that the don't project a collapse in the environment.
As a sanity check: financial markets also don't seem to expect a collapse of the global economy anytime soon.
Given that all the compute and all the data is on the cloud, there is little point in making ways for users to do clever interconnect things with their local devices.
I remember when everyone thought we were going to throw out our desktops and do all our work on phones and tablets! (Someone who kept insisting on this finally admitted that they couldn't do a spreadsheet on a phone or tablet.)
> Given that all the compute and all the data is on the cloud, there is little point in making ways for users to do clever interconnect things with their local devices.
IMO, it's a pain-in-the-ass to manage multiple devices, so IMO, it's much easier to just plug my phone into a clamshell and have all my apps show up there.
We're almost there. The cool kids are already using 12" touchscreen ARM devices that people from 10 or 20 years ago would probably think of as tablets. Some kinds of work benefit greatly from a keyboard, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want oneall the time - I still think the future is either 360-fold laptops with a good tablet mode (indeed that's the present for me, my main machine is a HP Envy) or something like the MS Surface line with their detachable "keyboard cover".
> I still think the future is either 360-fold laptops with a good tablet mode (indeed that's the present for me, my main machine is a HP Envy) or something like the MS Surface line with their detachable "keyboard cover".
I think people still want to use different form factors in the future. There's different uses for a phone, a tablet, a laptop and a desktop.
I do agree that laptops might get better tablet modes, but if you want to have a full-sized comfortable-ish keyboard, the laptop is gonna be more unwieldy than a dedicated tablet.
The only thing you save from running your desktop (or even laptop) form factor off your phone is the processor (CPU, GPU, RAM). You still have to pay for everything else. But even today the cost of desktop processing components that can reach phone-like performance is almost a rounding error; just because they have so much more space, cooling and power to play with.
(Destop CPUs can be quite pricey if you buy higher end ones, but they'll outclass phones by comical amounts. Phone performance is really, really cheap in a desktop.)
> The only thing you save from running your desktop (or even laptop) form factor off your phone is the processor (CPU, GPU, RAM). You still have to pay for everything else.
Having used the same device as my tablet/laptop/desktop for a few years (previously a couple of generations of Surface Book, now the Envy, in both cases with a dock set up on my desk), I never want to go back. It just makes using it so much smoother, even compared to having tab sync and what have you between multiple devices. It's not a money thing, it's a convenience thing, which is why I think it'll win out in the end.
I think as hardware continues to get thinner and lighter, the advantage of a tablet-only device compared to a tablet/laptop will disappear, and as touchscreens get cheaper, there'll be little point in laptop-only devices. I definitely still want an easy way to take a keyboard with my device on the train/plane, and I don't know what exact hardware arrangement will win out for that, but I'm confident that the convergence will happen. I think phone convergence will also happen eventually, for the same reason, but how that will actually work in terms of the physical form factor is anyone's guess.
Yes, that's useful. But eg ChromeOS already gives you most of that, and a bit of software could get you all the way there.
> I think as hardware continues to get thinner and lighter, the advantage of a tablet-only device compared to a tablet/laptop will disappear, and as touchscreens get cheaper, there'll be little point in laptop-only devices.
I agree with the latter, but not the former. There are mechanical limits to shrinking a keyboard, and still preserve comfort.
(And once you have the extra space from a keyboard, you might as well fill it up with more battery. But I'm not so sure about that compared to the argument about physical lower bounds on keyboard size.)
I don't understand what you mean here. If you're talking about some kind of easy sync between devices software, people have been trying to make that work for decades, but they not haven't succeeded but haven't even really made any progress.
> There are mechanical limits to shrinking a keyboard, and still preserve comfort.
Maybe, but those limits are plenty big enough for a tablet - particularly with the size of phones these days, a tablet smaller than say 10" is pointless, and the keyboards on 11" laptops are fine. Now making a device that can work as both a phone and a laptop-with-keyboard will probably require some mechanical innovation, yes, but that's the sort of thing that I suspect will be figured out sooner or later, e.g. we're already seeing various types of folding phones going through the development process.
Sure it's fine to get by for an hour or two but spending 8 hours 5 days a week on one is a really bad idea and will provide a great path to crippling RSI. In fact using any laptop that much is a bad idea, due to the bad posture it provides (with the screen attached to the keyboard). This is why docking stations are still so important.
Well, it depends on personal preferences.
I usually go for at least 15" in my laptops, but I can believe that other people would be fine with 11" for what they are doing.
The laptop / tablet hybrid is a valid form factor, and these systems are reasonably successful in the market.
Of course, that doesn't mean that they are the right device for everyone.
I would say most kinds of work.
Even if you're just on teams discussions - a real keyboard is much more productive than messing around on a touchscreen. Same with just reading. Sometimes I read a forum thread on my phone and then when I get back to the real computer I'm surprised how little I read and how much it felt like.
The only thing where I don't see this being the case is creative work like drawing where a tablet is really perfect, much better than a wacom or something.
I think that's to generative AI, I would expect people to gradually replace manually creating a spreadsheet with 'vibecoding' it.
> IMO, it's a pain-in-the-ass to manage multiple devices, so IMO, it's much easier to just plug my phone into a clamshell and have all my apps show up there.
ChromeOS already works like that, when you log in on different devices, without having to physically lug one device around that you plug into different shells.
Also I haven't owned a desktop since 2003, and my last one at work was in 2006, although we may debate laptops with docking station are also desktops.
Desktop LibreOffice works fine on my Librem 5 phone.
That said, market incentives can and do change pretty fast. Especially with climate change, and current tension in global supply chains, we could see a shift away from hardware caused by taxes or pirce hikes (I'm not saying we will though).
That'd be a game changer for how much companies might invest in changing what computing looks like.
And the hardware to get an SoC with phone-like performance in a laptop or desktop form factor is relatively cheap, just because you have so much more space and power and cooling to work with.
(Your laptop-shell definitely needs its own power supply, whether that be a battery or a cable, because the screen alone will take more power than your phone's battery can provide for any sustained period of use.)
The only things I can think of are you really want to keep all the data on your phone and don't want to use cloud sync solutions (Dropbox etc.), or you really want to save a couple of hundred dollars getting a (probably terrible) laptop without a motherboard. Not very compelling IMO.
In a way it's the same strategy that Nintendo used to re-gain a strong position in gaming (including the lucrative Home Console market where they'd fallen to a distant last place) - drafting their dominance in Handheld into Home Console by merging the two.
I don't see that at all.
That's because I think over time the processing power of a eg laptop will become a small fraction of its costs (both in terms of buying and in terms of power).
The laptop form factor is pretty good for having a portable keyboard, pointing device and biggish screen together. Outsourcing the compute to a phone still leaves you with the need for keyboard, pointing device and screen. You only save on the processor, which is going to be a smaller and smaller part.
> theres not a great reason for an individual to own processing power in a desktop, laptop, phone, and glasses when most are idle while using the others.
Even in your scenario, most of your devices will be idle most of the time anyway. And they don't use any energy when turned off. So you are only saving the cost to acquire the processor itself.
Desktop computer processors that can hit the computing power of a mobile processor are really, really cheap already today.
Having all your data always with you stored locally (on your phone) is simpler than syncing and more private than cloud.
One OS with all your software. No need to install same app multiple times on different devices. Don't need to deal with questions like, for how many devices is my license valid for. However, apps would need to come with a reactive UI. No more separate mobile and desktop versions.
Example, you take a photos on your phone, dock it at your desk or laptop shell, and edit them comfortably on a big screen, with an app you bought and installed once. No internet connection is required.
A docking station could be more than just display and input devices. It could contain storage for backing up your data from the phone. Or powerful CPU and GPU for extended compute power (you would still use OS and apps/games on your phone with computations being delegated to more powerful HW).
This could replicate many things cloud offers today (excluding collaboration). No need to deal with an online account for your personal stuff. IMO, it would probably be less mystical than cloud to most users.
You need to sync it anyway. Having that phone with you all day also means exposing it to a lot of risk involving theft, drops and other kind of damage. You need that sync for backup purposes.
I agree actually having it on the phone is great though. I use DeX a LOT, it's a great way of working when I don't have my laptop with me but do have a docking station available (e.g. at the office when I forget my laptop or just dropped in unplanned)
Backup is a simple one way sync, but like you said, it is needed. It could still be private, if backup to another of your devices is made when your phone connects to your home WiFi.
Of course, that scenario would only become the norm, if there's mainstream demand for that. By and large, there ain't.
Caching works well for that.
> Having all your data always with you stored locally (on your phone) is simpler than syncing and more private than cloud.
Have a look at how GMail handles this. It has my emails cached locally on my devices so I can read them offline (and can also compose and hit-the-send-key when offfline), but GMail also does intelligent syncing behind the scenes. It just works.
> Example, you take a photos on your phone, dock it at your desk or laptop shell, and edit them comfortably on a big screen, with an app you bought and installed once. No internet connection is required.
My devices are online all the time anyway.
> A docking station could be more than just display and input devices. It could contain storage for backing up your data from the phone.
I'm already backing up to the Cloud automatically. And Google handles all the messy details, even if my house burns down.
> Or powerful CPU and GPU for extended compute power (you would still use OS and apps/games on your phone with computations being delegated to more powerful HW).
How is that different from the ChromeOS scenario, apart from that the syncing in your case doesn't involve the cloud?
> This could replicate many things cloud offers today (excluding collaboration). No need to deal with an online account for your personal stuff. IMO, it would probably be less mystical than cloud to most users.
No, it would be more annoying, because I couldn't just log in anywhere in the world, and get access to my data. And I would have to manually bring devices in contact to sync them.
You can build what you are suggesting. And some people (like you!) will like it. But customers by-and-large don't want it.
> No, it would be more annoying, because I couldn't just log in anywhere in the world, and get access to my data. And I would have to manually bring devices in contact to sync them.
You are traveling without your phone? I don't always have an unlimited internet when traveling. If you loose your phone while traveling there's a good chance you won't be able to log in due to 2FA anyway. Devices just have to connect to the same local network to sync. Phone probably connects to your WiFi automatically when you come home. Syncing over internet is also possible.
I'm just saying it could be done. Not that everybody would use it or like it. Although, I imagine getting rid of one dependency (cloud) and having more control would be a plus to some.
Cloud is not magically without issues. People do get locked out their cloud account due to some heuristics flagging it, payment issues, user errors or even political reasons. And it can take a very long time before you get it resolved. Last year there was even a story on HN about Google Cloud accidentally deleting customer's account and deleting all their data.
> But customers by-and-large don't want it.
Do you have any data backing this up?
Phone centered solution could be more cost effective. A casual user would only need a phone, a backup solution (either cloud based or an external drive connected to a network) and a bigger display with input devices (portable or desktop). Possibly one less subscription they have to pay and lower HW costs.
Yes, cache invalidation isn't trivial. But it's a software problem that you can solve (for your particular application, or with a library for many similar applications) with enormous economies of scale.
> I'm just saying it could be done. Not that everybody would use it or like it. Although, I imagine getting rid of one dependency (cloud) and having more control would be a plus to some.
Ok, no objection there. Yes, some people would like this.
My point is that cloud first, and local caching that lets you work offline (like what you get with GMail and Google Docs) works well enough for most people, that there's probably not enough market share left over for your offline-first dream to get the economics of scale.
Though it's probably still more than possible in the same way that running your desktop on Linux was feasible from the 1990s onwards: at times a bit clunky, but if you are willing to put up with it, totally doable. Been there, done that.
> Phone centered solution could be more cost effective. A casual user would only need a phone, a backup solution (either cloud based or an external drive connected to a network) and a bigger display with input devices (portable or desktop). Possibly one less subscription they have to pay and lower HW costs.
If you need an external display anyway (and a battery, if you want a laptop form factor), adding a bit of compute power to turn it into essentially a ChromeBook is close enough to free. You don't even need that much computing power, because instead of offloading the computation onto your phone (like your scenario), you offload the heavy lifting into the cloud (basically our real world right now for most people).
The HW costs aren't that much lower, because low performance chips are already pretty cheap.
> But it's a software problem that you can solve ... with enormous economies of scale.
Can be a problem for software that doesn't have such economies of scale.
Cloud is cheap for very basic usage, but costs can increase noticeably when workload increases.
Regarding UX. Some things work better in the cloud while some tasks are not so well suited for the cloud (e.g. latency sensitive tasks, task that require non trivial amount of data transfer between the user and the could).
I have no idea how many casual users would be affected by one or more of these things, if any. Phone centered user could still use cloud for some things. Maybe there would be enough interest, if polished solution becomes available. It could be you are right, I don't really know.
The compute power yes, but the OSs and UX are shit.
E.g. android/ios has better security than Windows/GNU Linux/MacOS, much more reliable suspend/wake functionality, much better battery management, etc.
Like it's a 50/50 chance my laptop with Win 11 will wake up fully charged or fully discharged in the morning, and whether it will be kind enough to actually be ready for work, or I can go brew a coffee before it's ready..
But wireless the lag is so bad that it's not really usable. Like Wireless DeX. Definitely not good enough for processor-less VR glasses (even the wireless VR streaming from meta does require significant processing power on the glasses end).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19328085
> This happens all the time where stories get flagged for no reason.
It's not for no reason—it just feels that way when you see flags on an article that you think is a good one for HN.
Judging from what else the same users have flagged, along with the responses you got in this thread, my guess is that they thought the submitted article (https://www.squaredtech.co/googles-desktop-view-android-phon...) wasn't good enough for HN. Indeed, it has the markings of blogspam (content lifted from other sources).
Normally we'd leave the flags alone on a post like this, but the comments in this thread are surprisingly good, so I've turned off the flags and replaced the URL with an earlier article which has the same material and which in fact, it (almost?) looks like the other article was cribbed from.
I was asking if there is not an inverse function, which would be a higher karma unflag operation, on the assumption people who flag up are being somewhat incautious and a smaller set of people could say "no, this is worth seeing"
I have no problem with flagging per se, or with my own ability to see flagged content.
Samsung has abandoned DeX, attempting to use it (if using Windows 11) the user is instructed to use Phone Link which is not nearly as good, imho.
What I’d really like is a personal computer I can plug into a screen to work, then carry with me when I’m done. That would be a real step forward in personal computing. It would make laptops unnecessary.
https://www.androidpolice.com/android-15-linux-terminal-app/
As linked somewhere else in the thread, Google wants to extend it to run (non-Android) Linux desktop apps besides Android apps. So once this is refined, plugging in an Android phone will give you a general-purpose desktop.
Exciting times!
Devices with hardware keyboards were easier to use for creation (especially writing) and more of the software was focused on creation because of the more limited media processing capabilities of those devices (e.g. less processing power, less memory, more restricted media codecs at that time).
This is true for almost all computers. That doesn't mean you can't use a computer built for consumption for creation.
Something like a Steam Deck or RoG Ally could also fit the bill. Gaming handhelds seem to be turning into "phones but if they didn't suck" (i.e. didn't run Android/iOS).
I wonder if we'll see USB-C docks for phones with fans blowing at the device for improved thermals.
If they nail the Linux container UX as well as ChromeOS it would motivate me to buy a top-tier device rather than my sluggish Fairphone 4, right now I don't see the usecase other than good camera.
Imagine thst a large userbase could just skip the laptop and desktop in favor of a USB-C dock and a decent display :)
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-dex-first-impre...
There was a second version which was flat so you could use the phone as touchpad. But it was thick, lacked ethernet port so it wasn't really worth it IMO. When you use a dock it's trivial to use a mouse, way better than any touchpad.
Are they though? Phones already have a broad range of uses. I've seen people try to make laptops out of them and it just doesn't make sense for a number of reasons:
- As screen size goes up so do battery requirements, so you're already paying for a screen, a chassis, and a physical keyboard. Why not go the whole way and pay for the silicon?
- When your phone is being a PC it's no longer being a phone; you can't do phone calls and camera photos (at least not well) while it's a PC.
I have a Samsung and use Dex occasionally, but the uses are limited. In my case it's to check personal emails, which is not allowed on the corporate network. But outside of cases like this I can't imagine ever preferring Dex to a laptop or a dedicated computer. It's much better at being a phone.
I'm a developer so I have my needs which are unlikely to be "completely fulfilled" by a Phone-as-computer either.
However "as screen size goes up so does battery requirements", my thought was to keep the device docked in a Dex dock with PD and a fan for cooling, and since the resolution on modern phones is so damn crazy, as long as the device screen isn't pumping pixels when connected it should be fine to do 2k.
While it's a PC it's docked so you can't take calls on the phone easily (unless you have a long cable) but you could with a headset. Now I am not talking about the Dex implementation, I'm in the "what can be" discussion for the future.
For "normal people" a good Android desktop would be a lot better than not having a "desktop setup" at all. They don't have to buy a new device but can still get a mouse/keyboard/display combo and so some "productivity tasks".
I tried Dex out on a S10 or something but it wasn't enough for me other than as a cool gimmick, but I definitely see a usecase that could become widespread.
The silicon only has to be fancy, because phones are so constraint in terms of space, power and cooling.
Getting phone-like performance in a desktop or laptop form factor and power and cooling budget is a lot simpler and cheaper.
> They don't have to buy a new device but can still get a mouse/keyboard/display combo and so some "productivity tasks".
The point was that they do have to buy a new device. The only thing they don't have to buy is new silicon. But that's trivial compared to everything else.
I travel a lot and do not like carrying things, so xreal and phone are more than enough for coding while going day long, easily augmented with a small power bank (unlike a laptop), with all of that fitting in my pockets after I drop my luggage at the hotel. Most my colleagues have macbooks and while they have good battery life, it is no comparison: the search for places with power outlets starts when I am not even at 50%. It is not an apples to apples as I do a lot of compute in the cloud, but even with that on the laptops, they still last a lot shorter and you cannot plug in normal power banks.
Yeah - I don’t think the user base interested in container UX is “large” in relation to the mobile world.
Also, who wants to carry around a display with its own battery, a keyboard with its own batteries, a mouse/trackpad (batteries) and cables for the above? At some point it’s honestly easier to just grab a MacBook Air and walk out the door.
And I don't know, the container UX people didn't exist for ChromeOS before ChromeOS made it easy to run Linux apps that way so.
Just one example article, using a chroot environment:
https://www.nextpit.com/turn-your-android-device-into-a-linu...
But Ubuntu touch, and other native linux phone installs have touted desktop mode over the years.
The h/w 10 years ago was marginal at performing this task, and the non-corporate OSes were, and are, actively suppressed by goggle and the rest of the corporate "phone" development industry. This is an almost identical scenario as M$ dominating the PC manufacturing business, even though they didn't make the h/w.
But this serves as another typical example of how long ago this type of feature could have been available if every new innovation didn't have to be vetted from the perspective of vendor benefit, instead of advancing on the basis of user benefit.
Indeed, the primary "core thing" missing is being manufactured and dictated to "the market" by a multi-billion $ monopoly...
I run my S23 Ultra with a pair of XReal One's, and a folding Bluetooth keyboard (DeX let's you use your phone as a touchpad). It is really amazing in widescreen mode sitting in a coffee shop, reading through technical documents and answering work email. When I'm done, it can all fold up and fit in a (spacious) pair of cargo shorts.
I think Samsung has played the long game on DeX, with an eye towards their collaborative XR glasses with Google next year. As great as XReal has been, I am eager to see a "first-party" solution.
Are the Xreal One's that much of a step forward that you can use it for serious work? Even on my Quest Pro I find it just on the edge of being too annoying to do coding-work. Web browsing is decent.
And second question, worth buying the One or waiting for the One Pros?
It's not perfect but usable.
I wear glasses with mine, yet I still find it surprisingly crisp for text in ultra-wide mode. I'd say it is a fairly unobtrusive experience. It also helps that the nose pads don't dig into my skin.
That said, if a Quest Pro isn't good enough, I hesitate to recommend it. The FOV is certainly smaller on the One.
Why don't we have virtual offices to wander around yet?
I worked at a place that used one.
Because the actually functionality they provide is the same as Slack, but worse in basically every way, is maybe why.
If you just lift over what you have in 2D it becomes only more painful. But this is what most people do. Also many platforms, like Microsoft Mesh. Yes, it's cool that you can join a teams meeting in VR. But until they add something that actually takes advantage of being in VR, all it does is add more friction. Roasting marshmallows and other cutesy minigames does not add any value whatsoever.
And I expect even a VR meeting space would see more use that’s worse than a normal video call but is happening because someone in charge is over the moon for it, than it’d see use in the far rarer cases where it’s really better.
Teams has breakout rooms but they are very rigid. You have to switch to one and define them. You can't 'glance over' and see what the other rooms are doing. It's much more flexible to just walk around in a 3D space, work on a shared whiteboard you are standing around, pull in some powerpoints to discuss, and walk over to another group if you're needed (you could see them wave over). At this point it really becomes a real alternative to flying over for a workshop. Thus saving many tonnes of CO2, and much cost in flights and hotels. VR is not quite as good but it's much better at dynamic workshops than a simple video tool like Teams is. Added bonus if you are discussing potential upcoming products that you already have 3D models of. Just picking up a model and going like "Hey why don't we put the USB port on this side", this is really where this shines.
But the tool has to be really good. Other solutions like Arthur, Viverse and Spatial could do it really well (Spatial has since gone full consumer-oriented though and has lost many capabilities for business, it's now more of a luxury VRChat). Mesh can not, it is extremely limited. It's the old AltSpaceVR but dumbed down. It would have been better if they kept AltSpace as it was without messing so much with it.
This is exactly what Librem 5 phone offers. (My daily driver.)
https://forums.puri.sm/t/nine-months-librem-5-as-my-only-pho...
https://forums.puri.sm/t/a-l5-review-1-week-to-my-ready-to-s...
Based on some quick testing this consumes about 1% per minute on my S24 Ultra which makes this scenario unrealistic (at least for me)
Though I suspect a laptop is still what you want. Your phone will generate too much heat to leave in your pocket. Or maybe some backpack (fanny pack?) wearable?
https://www.amazon.com/iClever-Bluetooth-Keyboard-Foldable-S...
Wouldn't recommend for extended typing though.
What's strange is that vanilla OS does show a taskbar (tablet mode) if you increase DPI to 600+. Theoretically you can get a taskbar now only if tablet mode taskbar could show up in secondary virtual displays.
https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/virtual...
https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/6032
If you want to connect to any screen then you cannot rely on wireless connections.
That doesn't mean there couldn't be some future that is wireless, but are there any standard wireless communication protocols that have reached critical mass / popularity?
The only thing that wouldn't work was a ruby CSS library that had a (if processor='arm') {crash()}.
What a pleasure to have a computer in your pocket.
I've done that with my Pixel 8a connected to external screen and input devices. Works ok.
>Use it as a desktop PC
> Connect your device to a monitor or TV, and it expands into a windowed desktop. Productivity like on a traditional PC.