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.
0: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-desktop-mode-leak-3550321/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.
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 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?
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
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..
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.
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...
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.
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.
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 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.
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!
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 :)
refulgentis•4h ago
bobajeff•4h ago
Miraste•4h ago
odo1242•4h ago
nashashmi•4h ago
I can’t imagine android going faster than chrome at a native level either.
Miraste•2h ago
mdhb•4h ago
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.
nashashmi•4h ago
mdhb•3h ago
refulgentis•9m ago
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 quotes or relayed quotes or anything that says 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.