Many years ago I used to play around with CyanogenMod and Linux.
Life with work and a family became too busy to fuss with that stuff, but I'm rapidly approaching the point where abuse from android and Microsoft make using a less polished OS worth the bother.
If this allows one to still have (linux terminals?), then its (fine?) but Klaster_1 suggests that installing software would become hard without OS vendor blessing.
I mean, is this OS literally just android with a more desktop like UI?
Didn't Samsung have something like this called (just searched) Samsung Dex?
What I would prefer is a linux device phone being more widespread than Android PC. Linux in PC is mostly pretty good.
We probably need some good linux phones. One of the biggest issues I find is that they are really price-y so even though I don't want much specs, I find it troubling to justify a 2x price increase in such sense.
> Didn't Samsung have something like this called (just searched) Samsung Dex?
I have absolutely no interest in expanding the use of Android in my life. I am, in fact, far more interested in going the other way and trying to reduce my reliance on any locked down platforms.
So you may want to consider GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone). By the way, they have a real desktop mode with desktop apps, not mobile apps on a large screen.
Is it going to be the same future as Fuchsia OS? There were some good ideas in that one, but then one day it sort of disappeared. Not that that was surprising - Google is good at that.
Oh, I see Google's angle now. They want to make android a viable desktop OS in order to have more users using android Chrome rather than Windows Chrome, because the former lacks extension support, and thus ad blockers. Of course, you can still install brave or kiwi browser or Firefox to your heart's content, but most people won't. It's brilliantly simple. It's not too bad for power users, they'll probably use a different browser, or for developers, given the work they're putting into the Linux containers, but for most users...we'll see the expected result.
The Android system is such a pain to work with. I’m curious to see whether they actually fixed the fundamentals making it unappealing for general purpose computing or they just stuck Android onto Chromebooks (guessing the latter).
This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget. If you can just plug your phone into a screen you do not need to buy a separate laptop anymore. The browser extensions are the most important part because that is what makes a computer useful. I am glad to see they are thinking about this.
You can get a monstrously powerful MacBook almost new for under $500. And that includes display, keyboard, touchpad and speakers. And a whole lot more.
This has existed for more than a decade. Even my old Samsung S10+ had this feature. It's called Samsung DeX and it is not some handicapped environment like iPad OS either, you can actually get real work done, especially if you're a software engineer.
So you need to buy a phone, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. And you need a desk where to put the stuff, which is not a given if you are part of a poor family with several kids.
A cheap android phone and a cheap chinese laptop with 16GB of ram is about 300 EUR where I live, and you can use it wherever you want.
> The browser extensions are the most important part because that is what makes a computer useful.
What year were you born? I ask not to lambast but because given infinite time, I doubt I would come to the same conclusion. To me (a 37-year old) that statement sounds like someone who grew up with Chromebooks in school
The Chrome Extensions support is the interesting part here. That's often the dealbreaker for using mobile devices as computer replacements.
Google's had this weird situation where Android and ChromeOS overlap more every year. At some point maintaining two operating systems with converging feature sets seems wasteful.
My guess: ChromeOS probably survives for the education market where manageability matters more than capabilities. But for consumers? Android on a big screen with keyboard and mouse might just be good enough.
It really does look to be a rewrite of ChromeOS to make it a native Android experience with very few tweaks to the User experience that I can see.
I think it's a good idea on Google's part. The trend of consumers using mobiles as their one and only computing experience is still strong.
This will blend the experience consumers have between desktops and their primary computing platform.
It's a trend with Apple as well. It can be seen in iOS/macOS 26 Tahoe. There's lots of untapped potential in those iPads with M-series CPUs. We've also had rumors of a "MacBook Air Lite" sporting a cellphone A-series CPU. The convergence is happening.
I would love to be able to do more with my Google Pixel phone. Right now, the MacBook is my primary workstation, but the possibility of an even more "mobile" productivity setup is very enticing. Now if only I could get an Android tablet with the new "Terminal" feature in Android 15...
It is interesting to consider the different developments happening with the big mobile orgs regarding the convergence computing paradigm:
- Samsung’s Dex has been out for a while
- independent devs have been working on Linux “as an app” for some time
- Android desktop interface in this article
- Apple developing video output on iPhones
- Apple working on a Macbook with a mobile chip
- another exciting thing is XR devices and mobile computing
- my concern is convergence computing will reduce the importance of desktop interfaces and the freedom we have to install whatever applications we want
I enjoy cool features like this, but as usual, I'm wary of the consequences.
Android is becoming more and more locked down like iOS. Even if it weren't, it's still always been more locked down than a standard desktop or laptop machine running an operating system of the user's choice.
With the advent of smartphones and tablets, already I see non- and semi-technical users often dropping their laptop or desktop and just using their phone or tablet. (I know people who don't even have a laptop/desktop anymore.)
Android having a full desktop interface will just add fuel to this fire, and further normalize running a locked-down OS and device that users don't truly own or control as their only computing platform.
I am with you, and for this reason I really want them to fail. The PC is currently still a platform where the user has a relatively large amount of control and digital autonomy, and as long as a sizeable part of the population keeps using it, companies and government institutions cannot ignore it and must support it.
Once 90% of all internet clients are iOS or Android the open internet is dead, and the concept of a general purpose computer on which you can run any computation you want is also inaccessible to the average person. From that point on, everything is a service that you rent from either Apple or Google.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 58.7 ms ] threadLife with work and a family became too busy to fuss with that stuff, but I'm rapidly approaching the point where abuse from android and Microsoft make using a less polished OS worth the bother.
By the way, you forgot Android itself.
I mean, is this OS literally just android with a more desktop like UI?
Didn't Samsung have something like this called (just searched) Samsung Dex?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Samsung+DeX&t=ffab&ia=images&iax=i...
What I would prefer is a linux device phone being more widespread than Android PC. Linux in PC is mostly pretty good.
We probably need some good linux phones. One of the biggest issues I find is that they are really price-y so even though I don't want much specs, I find it troubling to justify a 2x price increase in such sense.
> Didn't Samsung have something like this called (just searched) Samsung Dex?
It's just a slightly different showcase of the same UI shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzDO-GS-Bm8
That UI is available to test on any Pixel 10 (maybe even any Android 16 device?)
https://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/app/samsung-dex
Windows Phone was on this path ages ago, and looking really good.
I eagerly await one of two dreams (or both):
1. A phone which can seamlessly function as a desktop for my work.
2. A new clamshell Android phone ala Nokia e90, which is good enough for work stuff on the go.
A cheap android phone and a cheap chinese laptop with 16GB of ram is about 300 EUR where I live, and you can use it wherever you want.
Playing gameas or what ? Working with files on Android is a PITA.
What year were you born? I ask not to lambast but because given infinite time, I doubt I would come to the same conclusion. To me (a 37-year old) that statement sounds like someone who grew up with Chromebooks in school
I remember there were some experiments to create a hardware laptop shell to insert smartphone into.
Google's had this weird situation where Android and ChromeOS overlap more every year. At some point maintaining two operating systems with converging feature sets seems wasteful.
My guess: ChromeOS probably survives for the education market where manageability matters more than capabilities. But for consumers? Android on a big screen with keyboard and mouse might just be good enough.
I think it's a good idea on Google's part. The trend of consumers using mobiles as their one and only computing experience is still strong. This will blend the experience consumers have between desktops and their primary computing platform.
I would love to be able to do more with my Google Pixel phone. Right now, the MacBook is my primary workstation, but the possibility of an even more "mobile" productivity setup is very enticing. Now if only I could get an Android tablet with the new "Terminal" feature in Android 15...
- Samsung’s Dex has been out for a while - independent devs have been working on Linux “as an app” for some time - Android desktop interface in this article - Apple developing video output on iPhones - Apple working on a Macbook with a mobile chip
- another exciting thing is XR devices and mobile computing
- my concern is convergence computing will reduce the importance of desktop interfaces and the freedom we have to install whatever applications we want
Android is becoming more and more locked down like iOS. Even if it weren't, it's still always been more locked down than a standard desktop or laptop machine running an operating system of the user's choice.
With the advent of smartphones and tablets, already I see non- and semi-technical users often dropping their laptop or desktop and just using their phone or tablet. (I know people who don't even have a laptop/desktop anymore.)
Android having a full desktop interface will just add fuel to this fire, and further normalize running a locked-down OS and device that users don't truly own or control as their only computing platform.
Once 90% of all internet clients are iOS or Android the open internet is dead, and the concept of a general purpose computer on which you can run any computation you want is also inaccessible to the average person. From that point on, everything is a service that you rent from either Apple or Google.