11 ms·

Google is building its own DeX: First look at Android's Desktop Mode

448 points by logic_node 1y ago

xnx 1y ago
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.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  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..
  - packetlost 1y ago
    I mean, what I really want is chromebook shaped shell that I slot my phone into for travel with an extended external battery.
  - stanac 1y ago
    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).
    - rs186 1y ago
      Well, MS did make that, sort of. https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9464639/microsoft-windows-10-mobile-continuum-hands-on https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9464639/microsoft-windows...
      - wkat4242 1y ago
        Yes the problem with continuum was just the huge lack of ARM-capable windows software at the time. I think it would have fared a lot better today.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - Melatonic 1y ago
    LG phones had a pretty good "desktop mode" that activated when you plugged it into a big screen. Sadly like many of their great features it was not well known....
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      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 :(
  - xnx 1y ago
    > Android has supported basic peripherals and screen mirroring for a decade at least 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.
    - eru 1y ago
      Yes, I recently tried it with the Pixel 8a. It sort-of works. And fortunately, it doesn't just mirror the screen, but lets you extend it.
  - codethief 1y ago
    > 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.
- mrheosuper 1y ago
  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.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
refulgentis 1y ago
Welcome to ChromeOS 2.0
- bobajeff 1y ago
  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.
  - Miraste 1y ago
    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.
    - odo1242 1y ago
      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.
      - nashashmi 1y ago
        Yup, the android vm is too much for a chrome pc unless it’s a high end device. I can’t imagine android going faster than chrome at a native level either.
      - Miraste 1y ago
        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.
        odo1242 1y ago
simpaticoder 1y ago
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.
- pram 1y ago
  Phones also have CPUs, JFYI.
  - trealira 1y ago
    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.
    - loa_in_ 1y ago
      I don't see what else they could mean, really
- bee_rider 1y ago
  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.
- 1y ago
dboreham 1y ago
Is this an AI-generated article? Article about novel UI with no screenshots??
- tecleandor 1y ago
  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] 0: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-desktop-mode-leak-3550321/
  - matt_heimer 1y ago
    Thanks for that. I hadn't seen a nexdock before.
- twiclo 1y ago
  The article seems to just repeat the first couple of sentences over and over.
moolcool 1y ago
> Google Is Catching Up to Samsung DeX Does anyone use DeX?
- szszrk 1y ago
  Of course. Yet it's still a fraction of userbase. I chose Motorola for the same reason (they have their own variant of dex which works smooth).
- ewoodrich 1y ago
  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.
  - longtimelistnr 1y ago
    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.
  - mrheosuper 1y ago
    What should have been is MacOS on ipad. Even the ipad has the same CPU.
- Zambyte 1y ago
  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.
the_clarence 1y ago
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.
- davidcollantes 1y ago
  How does this relates to the submission's "Desktop View"? Genuinely trying to find the connection.
  - 6510 1y ago
    The desktop view is for larger screens, it is somewhat similar to fordable phones.
    - layer8 1y ago
      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.
      - 6510 1y ago
        It at least has similar down sides -.-
      - figers 1y ago
        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
        layer8 1y ago
voidUpdate 1y ago
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
- bgnn 1y ago
  This is for when you connect it to a large screen
- alias_neo 1y ago
  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?
  - 112233 1y ago
    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.
  - bgnn 1y ago
    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!
enragedcacti 1y ago
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. source for planned integration: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/392521081?utm_source=syndication#comment3 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/392521081?utm_source=...
- chneu 1y ago
  Dex is annoyingly close to being really useful. I think Samsung recently added a "desktop Dex" mode that's supposed to be less mobile-ui. I haven't tried it tho.
  - asabla 1y ago
    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
    - fenced_load 1y ago
      Just FYI, Dex is really fluid on flagship devices.
      - causality0 1y ago
        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.
jasonlotito 1y ago
Pretty sure Windows Phone did this over a decade ago. I mean, say what you want about Windows Phones, but yeah, this was a thing.
- nashashmi 1y ago
  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.
- buzzerbetrayed 1y ago
  As someone who likely never would have bought a windows phone, I sure wish Microsoft would have stuck with it
- runjake 1y ago
  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. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G
  - rcmjr 1y ago
    It did. I have the 950xl and the display dock. At the time, it was such an awesome feature that the world and how we work was not ready for yet. https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Display-Dock-Lumia-HD-500/dp/B01I749CKO https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Display-Dock-Lumia-HD-500/d...
    - runjake 1y ago
      Freaking cool. I don't know how I missed/forgot this, having been so immersed in the Windows Phone world. Thanks! I feel like this is something that could spur Windows/Windows Phone adoption in modern times.
nashashmi 1y ago
I have been waiting for this to go mainstream for nearly six years now. 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.
lanthissa 1y ago
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.
- mushufasa 1y ago
  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.
  - microtonal 1y ago
    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).
    - mark_l_watson 1y ago
      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.
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      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.
mdhb 1y ago
@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.
- jsnell 1y ago
  I'm not surprised, it's a horribly written article, like a paragraph of content stretched out over article-length by AI.
- mnmalst 1y ago
  I agree, can anybody just willy nilly flag any post?
  - mdhb 1y ago
    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.
    - dang 1y ago
      It's not a tiny group 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-phones-into-pcs 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.
SirFatty 1y ago
"Google’s Secret Weapon Against Samsung DeX" 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.
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  Different things. This about the desktop mode of Dex and not phone to pc mirroring
kome 1y ago
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.
- microtonal 1y ago
  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: https://www.androidpolice.com/android-15-linux-terminal-app/ 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!
- thesuperbigfrog 1y ago
  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).
- charcircuit 1y ago
  >They’re built mainly for consumption, not creation. This is true for almost all computers. That doesn't mean you can't use a computer built for consumption for creation.
  - kome 1y ago
    strong disagree, computers are built for creation and work, not mindless consumption.
lillecarl 1y ago
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 :)
- saratogacx 1y ago
  The original Samsung DeX dock for the S8 was exactly that. USB-C and had a fan in the stand to keep the phone cool. https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-dex-first-impressions-review/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-dex-first-impre...
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    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.
- MetaWhirledPeas 1y ago
  > 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.
johnea 1y ago
Once again, goggle catches up with linux features from 10 years ago. Just one example article, using a chroot environment: https://www.nextpit.com/turn-your-android-device-into-a-linux-pc-without-rooting 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.
- lucasoshiro 1y ago
  This is a concept that seems to be ressucted from time to time... The first I remember was Motorola Atrix, launched in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G
- charcircuit 1y ago
  And yet Android was used by billions of people without a desktop mode existing. Ubuntu Touch is behind in the core things users actually value.
  - johnea 1y ago
    > Ubuntu Touch is behind in the core things users actually value Indeed, the primary "core thing" missing is being manufactured and dictated to "the market" by a multi-billion $ monopoly...
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      Canonical is (currently) a multi billion company and there is not a monopoly in phone manufacturers
NBJack 1y ago
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.
- halyconWays 1y ago
  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?
  - cakealert 1y ago
    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. It's not perfect but usable.
  - NBJack 1y ago
    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.
smusamashah 1y ago
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. https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/virtual_display.md https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/virtual... https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/6032 https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/6032
0xbadcafebee 1y ago
....and it's not wireless?! even Android Auto has a wireless mode...
- neogodless 1y ago
  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?
maelito 1y ago
Worked more than one year on Dex years ago. Developed a million-user website with Tmux. 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.
- eru 1y ago
  These days, I would just use a vscode tunnel from Android to develop on a real computer, but edit locally. I've done that with my Pixel 8a connected to external screen and input devices. Works ok.
  - 72deluxe 1y ago
    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.
SoftTalker 1y ago
[flagged]
- Ylpertnodi 1y ago
  At least you put the 'didn't read' part at the top, unlike many that put 'reason; don't read', after the (long) info. Tx.
czhu12 1y ago
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
nsonha 1y ago
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.
- nalinidash 1y ago
  Ubuntu Touch has this feature >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.
  - nsonha 1y ago
    Ubuntu Touch is not that usable as, say, a dev machine, cannot run docker for example.
hollowturtle 1y ago
Imagine Apple doing something like that, with MacOS now having some UI that is similar to iOS one might think could be the case in the future
- Jyaif 1y ago
  Why sell one device when they can sell two? They'll only do it if they don't have a choice.
tjpnz 1y ago
Adopting this feels like a very risky proposition given Google's tendency to drop support for things. Samsung have supported DeX for almost a decade now.
haolez 1y ago
My main issue with Android as a daily driver for desktop computing is the input latency. Even in high end devices, it's noticeable when typing and very noticeable for things like Alt-Tab and other desktop shortcuts. I wonder if this is fixable or if this is inherent to Android's architecture.
- 72deluxe 1y ago
  I noticed on lesser devices that their word-wrapping algorithm is very very slow, so inputting a large block of text in a native Android text box got slower and slower and slower and slower.
pcchristie 1y ago
Re-posting this at top level, curious what others think. 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.
- ejj28 1y ago
  I think it would end up exactly like the last time they tried that with the mobile-oriented Windows 8. Nothing has changed since then that would make an attempt any easier. Windows has far too much legacy cruft and everything's spread across a dozen different GUI toolkits and design languages. They still haven't even managed to completely eliminate Control Panel after 13 years of trying.
  - adithyassekhar 1y ago
    I think the bigger issue will be sabotage from Google just like last time. Who would use a phone without google maps or YouTube?
    - benoau 1y ago
      It's worse even than the "vital apps" ecosystem - who would leave their preferred "walled garden" when so many dials have been set to make that the maximum frustration?
    - idkfasayer 1y ago
      [dead]
- oofbaroomf 1y ago
  > I wondered if Microsoft would...do this properly No.
bufferoverflow 1y ago
I've been using BlueStacks X to run android apps on desktop. Seems to work okay.
- neogodless 1y ago
  So you install BlueStacks X on any monitor or screen, and then plug it in via USB-C, and you don't need a computer?
ankurdhama 1y ago
The clock and notification area are still at top doesn't make sense. These should move to taskbar in desktop mode.
apitman 1y ago
The excitement I feel about this shows how effectively Google and Apple have stockholmed us. We have supercomputers in our pockets and we can't even use them for some of the most fundamental computing tasks.
- robertoandred 1y ago
  What do you consider to be a fundamental computing task?
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    They're pretty clearly listing "hooking it up to a keyboard and monitor to run software" as one of them.
- OhMeadhbh 1y ago
  [flagged]
matt3210 1y ago
This must be a video game since they laid off most of the people after it was made
qalmakka 1y ago
Finally! This is just shy of being 10 years late though. Lots of people would basically stop buying laptops with something like this on their phones (and that's why Apple will never do it)
- nasretdinov 1y ago
  I don't think 10 years ago phone CPUs were close to desktop in terms of single-core performance, but thanks to Intel now they are
andrewstuart2 1y ago
I could be remembering incorrectly, but wasn't this also a thing back in the Droid Bionic days? I remember being super thrilled at the idea of using my phone on a bigger external screen as another linux computer or TV screen.
- neogodless 1y ago
  Back in 2011 the Atrix could support a desktop mode with a dock, but not simply by plugging in a USB cable. There was also a Motorola Ready mode which I experienced briefly on a Moto G that I bought but returned because the screen was horrid mush! (Not all Moto G, some had nice screens, but that particular one was a lower resolution, slow LCD screen with a lot of ghosting.) But if I remember, Ready isn't really a standalone thing. It's more like what Microsoft Phone Link does - e.g. running your phone "desktop" but on another computer. But I think I'm remembering wrong... so maybe newer ones are a bit more like this - https://www.tomsguide.com/news/i-spent-a-few-days-with-motorolas-ready-for-desktop-mode-its-not-ready-for-anything https://www.tomsguide.com/news/i-spent-a-few-days-with-motor...
holografix 1y ago
Wait till John Solomon finds out about this!
penguin_booze 1y ago
As long as its primary/blessed development language remain Kotlin, the Android ecosystem will remain inaccessible to me. It's not that I can't learn Kotlin, but I don't want to. When I want to develop an application on my desktop, it boils down to just `g++ ...` it, if I chose to. That is to say, I don't need GBs worth of download and a blessed IDE and gluttonous build system (the abomination called Gradle) to make my application. So, Android spreading everywhere is not good news for me. It's OK on my phone - I only use it, not do much development on it. Well, I could have, but not with something I consider as reasonable effort.
- satvikpendem 1y ago
  Because Linux terminal is coming to Android (and since Android is Linux), you can run whatever you want, not just Kotlin.
Farbklex 1y ago
I am hearing about Google developing a desktop mode for probably 10 years now. I'll just stick to Dex which has been available since forever until Google finally figures their shit out.
filleokus 1y ago
Every year or so I've been toying with the idea of a thin client dev environment. Smallest possible device that can run Linux (or a RDP client) and support being plugged in to a single USB-C dock cable (display, usb for keyboard/mouse and power). Maybe this is the answer? Even though I don't need the screen, the footprint of a smartphone is smaller than almost all SBC supporting the above requirements.
- znpy 1y ago
  > Even though I don't need the screen The screen could be used as a touchpad
- eb0la 1y ago
  I had a project related to this in a big telco about 10 years ago. We used Citrix because a lot of apps were not native (yet). Women in tech loved the concept: instead of carrying a laptop they could use the medium-size tablet we provided and have a wireless mouse and keyboard both at the office and at home. We also provided a monitor for both home and the office. The project didn't lauch commercially because in our tests the microusb to micro-hdmi cables caused a lot of issues and management decided against it.
ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
I will never use Android on the desktop as long as Play Integrity is a thing.
soapdog 1y ago
Is it just me or people here also think that the end game for this is to replace Chrome OS on Chromebooks.
zombot 1y ago
Of course they will enshitten it into unusability, but in theory they could put one over on Apple with this. It's "only" the software that stops Apple's iDevices from being usable as development platforms or general purpose computers. Google could offer something here that Apple won't.
- fergie 1y ago
  OTOH this seems like exactly the sort of thing that Apple could suddenly announce at a september event. As you say, there are no hard technical barriers to getting this working.
  - zombot 1y ago
    Apple may come up with new surprises but I would be very surprised if this came to pass.
tw04 1y ago
This is the thing that bummed me out the most about Microsoft exiting the phone market. I know Windows isn’t super popular around here, but the idea of carrying one device that I can just dock to work on always intrigued me. There’s just no way this is taking off with any significant market share in the business world anytime soon being android only, and Apple will never adopt it because they want you to buy 3 different devices. Such a great concept, and with the performance of mobile chips getting so good, very viable.
- maratc 1y ago
  The problem with this idea is that it's unattainable. Let's start with something simpler: a living room. There's no universal design that would fit just any living room. The layout and the set of furniture that would work for my living room will not work for yours. Size, shape, windows, doors, connection to other spaces - everything matters. If you want a great design for your living room, you literally need to start from your specific living room. There's a great idea -- why don't we come with a resizable (reflowable?) design that could fit any living room in the world? While this idea might be entertaining for an engineer's mind, it doesn't work in practice, unless you can settle for just a mediocre design. Also, being intellectually honest, we need to attack the strongest Apple we can imagine, not a weak Apple that's easy for us to attack. And that strongest Apple will never adopt this idea because they aim to design the best computer/phone/tablet that they can, and in order to design that they need to start with the computer/phone/tablet. The idea of a phone connecting to a display/keyboard/mouse and becoming a computer has the problem that you could either optimize your design for what you have with a phone, or for what you have with a display and peripherals. It will never be as good as the system designed from the ground up to be just a single thing. It's always nice to have options, but there won't be any mass adoption for the mediocre combo. It was dead in the water with Palm Foleo in 2007, it's just as dead in the water 18 years later.
  - prettyStandard 1y ago
    I'm sorry but I remain unconvinced. Do you have any examples of desktop UI interfaces that are impossible to create in a Dex like experience, that is possible on Linux, Mac, and Windows desktop experiences? Or is it that mobile apps will never work great/ideally on desktop? And if that's the case, how is that worse than not having them at all? Maybe there is a scenario I'm not seeing here.
ryandvm 1y ago
I don't know. Google is always building lots of stuff and most of it gets shelved before it ever sees the light of day, and 75% of what does get released gets shuttered within 5 years. The reality is if it isn't ads or ads adjacent, Google will lose interest. And based on their historical revenue I suppose they ought to continue with this model.
- dmos62 1y ago
  I wish they'd open-source what they're shuttering. Would be a win-win as far as I can tell.
  - christkv 1y ago
    If they did it would probably have to be rewritten as it probably depends on a ton of internal google systems.
    - dmos62 1y ago
      You're right. I guess this illustrates a downside of closed-source and walled-gardens.
  - beernet 1y ago
    How is it a win for Google to release something open-source that had potentially cost them lots of money? Even if they don't need and pursue it anymore, why would they just give it to the competition? It's always easily said to "just open-source" it but Google is a business and owes outside software developers nothing.
    - mystified5016 1y ago
      How can another company compete with a product Google no longer offers? There is no competition because Google quit competing. If Google spins up a project and then abandons it, how could they possibly be harmed by someone else offering a comparable product? Google has already accepted a total loss on the product, there's really nothing for them to lose here.
simultsop 1y ago
The idea of a unified computer, resembles also with the idea when iPhone merged, calculator, mp3 player and phone. With ubuntu's try a decade ago, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/ it was obvious there is a market for this. But the ecosystem chain beats it all. Everyone will wait for their favorite OS to catchup.
olau 1y ago
I recently bought a second-hand Microsoft Surface tablet, installed Debian and now run GNOME on it. The first time it came up and I logged into a familiar GNOME environment was a profound experience. I was pretty sure what was going to happen, but it still took me by surprise. So I don't think the convergence idea is necessarily bad. It's perhaps somewhat niche, and it's not easy to pull off. I almost never use a phone, so for me the major selling point of my tablet is no Android oddities or second-rate citizen vibes. I don't need to wade through an app store to do simple things. I'm not depending on a hardware vendor where support stops a few years down the road. Plugin a keyboard and mouse, and it's just like any other computer with a really small screen. I already have a desktop computer, so it doesn't replace anything, but the familiarity is still nice. The touch experience is not as polished as Android. It's fine for my purposes, though. I'm mostly using the tablet as a night-time reader for epubs - dark background, light level at minimum, and then it works surprisingly well for when I wake up and need something to do before I can fall asleep again.
- wltr 1y ago
  Would love to read some blog about that, just in case you have.
- neogodless 1y ago
  Was this a Surface RT (very old ARM - Nvidia Tegra), Surface Pro (Intel), or Surface X (ARM - SQ1 / SQ2)?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
garylkz 1y ago
Remind me about Fuchsia in 3 years
dhosek 1y ago
Kind of reminds me of my dream in 2001 (although at that time, the core device was a Palm Pilot, not a phone): I want something that I can carry in my pocket and use anywhere, but I can also sit at a desk and connect to a display, keyboard and mouse (I’d prefer a trackpad now) and have a full computing experience. 24 years later and we’re slowly creeping towards that dream. I had hoped that the fact that iOS was based on MacOS meant that the iPhone was going to get there sooner rather than later, but not so much.
palata 1y ago
Important to me: is that part of AOSP, or is that part of the proprietary Google stuff?
danans 1y ago
Many of the comments here talking about how phone hardware is capable enough to run a desktop - thereby obviating the need for a separate desktop/laptop - are missing the fact that consumers actually want multiple devices. Also, no consumer electronics company ever makes a successful business model on selling less stuff that does the same thing. There are real functional/usability reasons for having a separate device (with its own compute/storage) in a laptop form factor, and furthermore if we are honest, laptops are a kind of student/professional fashion accessory (especially Macs), a social-signal that you are a "knowledge-worker". As a result, that form factor is not going away anytime soon. What Google are doing seems less about the "desktop mode" for Android (though that's a necessary technical step) than it is about having a unified consumer OS experience between Android and ChromeOS, which according to reports, they are planning to merge.
- vlovich123 1y ago
  > thereby obviating the need for a separate desktop/laptop - are missing the fact that consumers actually want multiple devices Do they? What I want is the power of the desktop available when I have access to it (SW & HW), but if the phone is powerful enough (maybe with a small accelerator box for dGPUs to handle gaming/AI), I’m not really seeing the value of multiple devices; it’s just more clutter and stuff to maintain (e.g. SW context, more HW things that can break & require repair, etc). I’m already using remote VSCode to always program on my home desktop computer regardless where I am because it’s easier than juggling clones across machines and forgetting to sync somewhere.
  - danans 1y ago
    > Do they? What I want is the power of the desktop available when I have access to it (SW & HW), but if the phone is powerful enough (maybe with a small accelerator box for dGPUs to handle gaming/AI), I’m not really seeing the value of multiple devices Isn't that "small accelerator box for dGPUs" another device? That seems like adding more complexity, not less. Based on what you shared, I don't think you are representative of the majority of the consumer computing device market. There are real human factors (functional and social) that have resulted in the current laptop and desktop form-factors, and why many attempts to completely replace either have failed. > I’m already using remote VSCode to always program on my home desktop computer regardless where I am ... Are you doing your remote VSCode session on a phone? You must need at least a 13" laptop (or phone dock device with a screen/keyboard/battery) for that. At that point, why not just use a laptop, and avoid the complexity of plugging/syncing with a phone?
cvhc 1y ago
I really look forward to desktop experience on Android tablets. For personal use, 2-in-1 (laptop+tablet) conceptually makes a lot of sense. But I think 2-in-1 laptops go the wrong way -- they are full laptops with bad tablet experiences (because of weight, or desktop-first Windows OS). But I want a good tablet in 80% of time. If Android have reasonably good desktop support (e.g., keyboard, mouse, window management), a tablet with a detachable keyboard will be enough to cover the rest 20% of use cases where I want a laptop.
- fifteen1506 1y ago
  Agreed, mostly. I've still some issues regarding the "you won't have root on your device" thing. However, if the whole stack is open-source and included in stock Android and appears in GOS, it will make me less wary of jumping to it. PS: currently using Tuxedo 2-in-1!
ge96 1y ago
It does seem odd to have what is pretty much a laptop and then plug your phone into it. Granted I have wanted this feature for a while/what I messed around with when I had my PinePhone Pro eg. running VS Code on it and I can't remember if I got a VM running on it or not. I've done it with an old 4GB ram Chromebook using GalliumOS. I will say I probably didn't get a VM running on the PPP.
game_the0ry 1y ago
When I first saw samsung, I was sure we would soon see a world where laptops were obsolete bc you would just plug your phone into some dock attached to a keyboard, mouse, and display, and that would be your workflow. I am surprised it never came to fruition. I guess its more profitable for manufacturers to push you to get a range of devices in all form factors (macbook + ipad + iphone).
- hollerith 1y ago
  >more profitable Or, most people keep essentially no important data on their devices (everything is in clouds) so there is no need to manually sync data between a person's devices, eliminating the main benefit to having fewer devices.
hagbard_c 1y ago
So who'll create a useable fold-up Fresnel-lens cover to turn that high-res high-dpi phone screen into something resembling a smallish monitor? I run Termux and sometimes Linux deploy on Android devices which turn these into fairly close equivalents to general-purpose pocket computers but even for my good eyes a somewhat bigger screen size at the native resolution would be preferable. Double the apparent size, keep the resolution and you'll get a perfectly useable 12" monitor.
foobarbecue 1y ago
Wish they would just adapt a full-featured Linux distro. It seems to me the only difference between a phone with an extra screen, and a laptop with a SIM card, is the relative balance of power been the user and the vendor (Android restricts user capabilities for the benefit of Google). How do we get back to the place where people expect a computer to have any number of peripherals, and be under the control of the user...?
- vdfs 1y ago
  https://plasma-mobile.org https://plasma-mobile.org Does seem decent but the problem no major phone maker support it or make phones for it, in fact even linux desktop doesn't have may laptops/desktops "official" support,

448 points by logic_node 1y ago

xnx 1y ago

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.

jeroenhd 1y ago
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..
- packetlost 1y ago
  I mean, what I really want is chromebook shaped shell that I slot my phone into for travel with an extended external battery.
- stanac 1y ago
  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).
  - rs186 1y ago
    Well, MS did make that, sort of. https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9464639/microsoft-windows-10-mobile-continuum-hands-on https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9464639/microsoft-windows...
    - wkat4242 1y ago
      Yes the problem with continuum was just the huge lack of ARM-capable windows software at the time. I think it would have fared a lot better today.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- Melatonic 1y ago
  LG phones had a pretty good "desktop mode" that activated when you plugged it into a big screen. Sadly like many of their great features it was not well known....
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    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 :(
- xnx 1y ago
  > Android has supported basic peripherals and screen mirroring for a decade at least 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.
  - eru 1y ago
    Yes, I recently tried it with the Pixel 8a. It sort-of works. And fortunately, it doesn't just mirror the screen, but lets you extend it.
- codethief 1y ago
  > 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.
mrheosuper 1y ago
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.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

refulgentis 1y ago

Welcome to ChromeOS 2.0

bobajeff 1y ago
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.
- Miraste 1y ago
  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.
  - odo1242 1y ago
    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.
    - nashashmi 1y ago
      Yup, the android vm is too much for a chrome pc unless it’s a high end device. I can’t imagine android going faster than chrome at a native level either.
    - Miraste 1y ago
      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.
      - odo1242 1y ago

simpaticoder 1y ago

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.

pram 1y ago
Phones also have CPUs, JFYI.
- trealira 1y ago
  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.
  - loa_in_ 1y ago
    I don't see what else they could mean, really
bee_rider 1y ago
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.
1y ago

dboreham 1y ago

Is this an AI-generated article? Article about novel UI with no screenshots??

tecleandor 1y ago
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] 0: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-desktop-mode-leak-3550321/
- matt_heimer 1y ago
  Thanks for that. I hadn't seen a nexdock before.
twiclo 1y ago
The article seems to just repeat the first couple of sentences over and over.

moolcool 1y ago

> Google Is Catching Up to Samsung DeX Does anyone use DeX?

szszrk 1y ago
Of course. Yet it's still a fraction of userbase. I chose Motorola for the same reason (they have their own variant of dex which works smooth).
ewoodrich 1y ago
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.
- longtimelistnr 1y ago
  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.
- mrheosuper 1y ago
  What should have been is MacOS on ipad. Even the ipad has the same CPU.
Zambyte 1y ago
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.

the_clarence 1y ago

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.

davidcollantes 1y ago
How does this relates to the submission's "Desktop View"? Genuinely trying to find the connection.
- 6510 1y ago
  The desktop view is for larger screens, it is somewhat similar to fordable phones.
  - layer8 1y ago
    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.
    - 6510 1y ago
      It at least has similar down sides -.-
    - figers 1y ago
      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
      - layer8 1y ago

voidUpdate 1y ago

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

bgnn 1y ago
This is for when you connect it to a large screen
alias_neo 1y ago
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?
- 112233 1y ago
  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.
- bgnn 1y ago
  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!

enragedcacti 1y ago

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. source for planned integration: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/392521081?utm_source=syndication#comment3 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/392521081?utm_source=...

chneu 1y ago
Dex is annoyingly close to being really useful. I think Samsung recently added a "desktop Dex" mode that's supposed to be less mobile-ui. I haven't tried it tho.
- asabla 1y ago
  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
  - fenced_load 1y ago
    Just FYI, Dex is really fluid on flagship devices.
    - causality0 1y ago
      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.

jasonlotito 1y ago

Pretty sure Windows Phone did this over a decade ago. I mean, say what you want about Windows Phones, but yeah, this was a thing.

nashashmi 1y ago
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.
buzzerbetrayed 1y ago
As someone who likely never would have bought a windows phone, I sure wish Microsoft would have stuck with it
runjake 1y ago
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. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G
- rcmjr 1y ago
  It did. I have the 950xl and the display dock. At the time, it was such an awesome feature that the world and how we work was not ready for yet. https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Display-Dock-Lumia-HD-500/dp/B01I749CKO https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Display-Dock-Lumia-HD-500/d...
  - runjake 1y ago
    Freaking cool. I don't know how I missed/forgot this, having been so immersed in the Windows Phone world. Thanks! I feel like this is something that could spur Windows/Windows Phone adoption in modern times.

nashashmi 1y ago

I have been waiting for this to go mainstream for nearly six years now. 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.

lanthissa 1y ago

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.

mushufasa 1y ago
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.
- microtonal 1y ago
  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).
  - mark_l_watson 1y ago
    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.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    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.

mdhb 1y ago

@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.

jsnell 1y ago
I'm not surprised, it's a horribly written article, like a paragraph of content stretched out over article-length by AI.
mnmalst 1y ago
I agree, can anybody just willy nilly flag any post?
- mdhb 1y ago
  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.
  - dang 1y ago
    It's not a tiny group 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-phones-into-pcs 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.

SirFatty 1y ago

"Google’s Secret Weapon Against Samsung DeX" 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.

TiredOfLife 1y ago
Different things. This about the desktop mode of Dex and not phone to pc mirroring

kome 1y ago

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.

microtonal 1y ago
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: https://www.androidpolice.com/android-15-linux-terminal-app/ 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!
thesuperbigfrog 1y ago
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).
charcircuit 1y ago
>They’re built mainly for consumption, not creation. This is true for almost all computers. That doesn't mean you can't use a computer built for consumption for creation.
- kome 1y ago
  strong disagree, computers are built for creation and work, not mindless consumption.

lillecarl 1y ago

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 :)

saratogacx 1y ago
The original Samsung DeX dock for the S8 was exactly that. USB-C and had a fan in the stand to keep the phone cool. https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-dex-first-impressions-review/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsung-dex-first-impre...
- wkat4242 1y ago
  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.
MetaWhirledPeas 1y ago
> 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.

johnea 1y ago

Once again, goggle catches up with linux features from 10 years ago. Just one example article, using a chroot environment: https://www.nextpit.com/turn-your-android-device-into-a-linux-pc-without-rooting 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.

lucasoshiro 1y ago
This is a concept that seems to be ressucted from time to time... The first I remember was Motorola Atrix, launched in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G
charcircuit 1y ago
And yet Android was used by billions of people without a desktop mode existing. Ubuntu Touch is behind in the core things users actually value.
- johnea 1y ago
  > Ubuntu Touch is behind in the core things users actually value Indeed, the primary "core thing" missing is being manufactured and dictated to "the market" by a multi-billion $ monopoly...
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Canonical is (currently) a multi billion company and there is not a monopoly in phone manufacturers

NBJack 1y ago

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.

halyconWays 1y ago
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?
- cakealert 1y ago
  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. It's not perfect but usable.
- NBJack 1y ago
  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.

smusamashah 1y ago

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. https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/virtual_display.md https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/virtual... https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/6032 https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/6032

0xbadcafebee 1y ago

....and it's not wireless?! even Android Auto has a wireless mode...

neogodless 1y ago
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?

maelito 1y ago

Worked more than one year on Dex years ago. Developed a million-user website with Tmux. 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.

eru 1y ago
These days, I would just use a vscode tunnel from Android to develop on a real computer, but edit locally. I've done that with my Pixel 8a connected to external screen and input devices. Works ok.
- 72deluxe 1y ago
  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.

SoftTalker 1y ago

[flagged]

Ylpertnodi 1y ago
At least you put the 'didn't read' part at the top, unlike many that put 'reason; don't read', after the (long) info. Tx.

czhu12 1y ago

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

nsonha 1y ago

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.

nalinidash 1y ago
Ubuntu Touch has this feature >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.
- nsonha 1y ago
  Ubuntu Touch is not that usable as, say, a dev machine, cannot run docker for example.

hollowturtle 1y ago

Imagine Apple doing something like that, with MacOS now having some UI that is similar to iOS one might think could be the case in the future

Jyaif 1y ago
Why sell one device when they can sell two? They'll only do it if they don't have a choice.

tjpnz 1y ago

Adopting this feels like a very risky proposition given Google's tendency to drop support for things. Samsung have supported DeX for almost a decade now.

haolez 1y ago

My main issue with Android as a daily driver for desktop computing is the input latency. Even in high end devices, it's noticeable when typing and very noticeable for things like Alt-Tab and other desktop shortcuts. I wonder if this is fixable or if this is inherent to Android's architecture.

72deluxe 1y ago
I noticed on lesser devices that their word-wrapping algorithm is very very slow, so inputting a large block of text in a native Android text box got slower and slower and slower and slower.

pcchristie 1y ago

Re-posting this at top level, curious what others think. 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.

ejj28 1y ago
I think it would end up exactly like the last time they tried that with the mobile-oriented Windows 8. Nothing has changed since then that would make an attempt any easier. Windows has far too much legacy cruft and everything's spread across a dozen different GUI toolkits and design languages. They still haven't even managed to completely eliminate Control Panel after 13 years of trying.
- adithyassekhar 1y ago
  I think the bigger issue will be sabotage from Google just like last time. Who would use a phone without google maps or YouTube?
  - benoau 1y ago
    It's worse even than the "vital apps" ecosystem - who would leave their preferred "walled garden" when so many dials have been set to make that the maximum frustration?
  - idkfasayer 1y ago
    [dead]
oofbaroomf 1y ago
> I wondered if Microsoft would...do this properly No.

bufferoverflow 1y ago

I've been using BlueStacks X to run android apps on desktop. Seems to work okay.

neogodless 1y ago
So you install BlueStacks X on any monitor or screen, and then plug it in via USB-C, and you don't need a computer?

ankurdhama 1y ago

The clock and notification area are still at top doesn't make sense. These should move to taskbar in desktop mode.

apitman 1y ago

The excitement I feel about this shows how effectively Google and Apple have stockholmed us. We have supercomputers in our pockets and we can't even use them for some of the most fundamental computing tasks.

robertoandred 1y ago
What do you consider to be a fundamental computing task?
- Dylan16807 1y ago
  They're pretty clearly listing "hooking it up to a keyboard and monitor to run software" as one of them.
OhMeadhbh 1y ago
[flagged]

matt3210 1y ago

This must be a video game since they laid off most of the people after it was made

qalmakka 1y ago

Finally! This is just shy of being 10 years late though. Lots of people would basically stop buying laptops with something like this on their phones (and that's why Apple will never do it)

nasretdinov 1y ago
I don't think 10 years ago phone CPUs were close to desktop in terms of single-core performance, but thanks to Intel now they are

andrewstuart2 1y ago

I could be remembering incorrectly, but wasn't this also a thing back in the Droid Bionic days? I remember being super thrilled at the idea of using my phone on a bigger external screen as another linux computer or TV screen.

neogodless 1y ago
Back in 2011 the Atrix could support a desktop mode with a dock, but not simply by plugging in a USB cable. There was also a Motorola Ready mode which I experienced briefly on a Moto G that I bought but returned because the screen was horrid mush! (Not all Moto G, some had nice screens, but that particular one was a lower resolution, slow LCD screen with a lot of ghosting.) But if I remember, Ready isn't really a standalone thing. It's more like what Microsoft Phone Link does - e.g. running your phone "desktop" but on another computer. But I think I'm remembering wrong... so maybe newer ones are a bit more like this - https://www.tomsguide.com/news/i-spent-a-few-days-with-motorolas-ready-for-desktop-mode-its-not-ready-for-anything https://www.tomsguide.com/news/i-spent-a-few-days-with-motor...

holografix 1y ago

Wait till John Solomon finds out about this!

penguin_booze 1y ago

As long as its primary/blessed development language remain Kotlin, the Android ecosystem will remain inaccessible to me. It's not that I can't learn Kotlin, but I don't want to. When I want to develop an application on my desktop, it boils down to just `g++ ...` it, if I chose to. That is to say, I don't need GBs worth of download and a blessed IDE and gluttonous build system (the abomination called Gradle) to make my application. So, Android spreading everywhere is not good news for me. It's OK on my phone - I only use it, not do much development on it. Well, I could have, but not with something I consider as reasonable effort.

satvikpendem 1y ago
Because Linux terminal is coming to Android (and since Android is Linux), you can run whatever you want, not just Kotlin.

Farbklex 1y ago

I am hearing about Google developing a desktop mode for probably 10 years now. I'll just stick to Dex which has been available since forever until Google finally figures their shit out.

filleokus 1y ago

Every year or so I've been toying with the idea of a thin client dev environment. Smallest possible device that can run Linux (or a RDP client) and support being plugged in to a single USB-C dock cable (display, usb for keyboard/mouse and power). Maybe this is the answer? Even though I don't need the screen, the footprint of a smartphone is smaller than almost all SBC supporting the above requirements.

znpy 1y ago
> Even though I don't need the screen The screen could be used as a touchpad
eb0la 1y ago
I had a project related to this in a big telco about 10 years ago. We used Citrix because a lot of apps were not native (yet). Women in tech loved the concept: instead of carrying a laptop they could use the medium-size tablet we provided and have a wireless mouse and keyboard both at the office and at home. We also provided a monitor for both home and the office. The project didn't lauch commercially because in our tests the microusb to micro-hdmi cables caused a lot of issues and management decided against it.

ulrikrasmussen 1y ago

I will never use Android on the desktop as long as Play Integrity is a thing.

soapdog 1y ago

Is it just me or people here also think that the end game for this is to replace Chrome OS on Chromebooks.

zombot 1y ago

Of course they will enshitten it into unusability, but in theory they could put one over on Apple with this. It's "only" the software that stops Apple's iDevices from being usable as development platforms or general purpose computers. Google could offer something here that Apple won't.

fergie 1y ago
OTOH this seems like exactly the sort of thing that Apple could suddenly announce at a september event. As you say, there are no hard technical barriers to getting this working.
- zombot 1y ago
  Apple may come up with new surprises but I would be very surprised if this came to pass.

tw04 1y ago

This is the thing that bummed me out the most about Microsoft exiting the phone market. I know Windows isn’t super popular around here, but the idea of carrying one device that I can just dock to work on always intrigued me. There’s just no way this is taking off with any significant market share in the business world anytime soon being android only, and Apple will never adopt it because they want you to buy 3 different devices. Such a great concept, and with the performance of mobile chips getting so good, very viable.

maratc 1y ago
The problem with this idea is that it's unattainable. Let's start with something simpler: a living room. There's no universal design that would fit just any living room. The layout and the set of furniture that would work for my living room will not work for yours. Size, shape, windows, doors, connection to other spaces - everything matters. If you want a great design for your living room, you literally need to start from your specific living room. There's a great idea -- why don't we come with a resizable (reflowable?) design that could fit any living room in the world? While this idea might be entertaining for an engineer's mind, it doesn't work in practice, unless you can settle for just a mediocre design. Also, being intellectually honest, we need to attack the strongest Apple we can imagine, not a weak Apple that's easy for us to attack. And that strongest Apple will never adopt this idea because they aim to design the best computer/phone/tablet that they can, and in order to design that they need to start with the computer/phone/tablet. The idea of a phone connecting to a display/keyboard/mouse and becoming a computer has the problem that you could either optimize your design for what you have with a phone, or for what you have with a display and peripherals. It will never be as good as the system designed from the ground up to be just a single thing. It's always nice to have options, but there won't be any mass adoption for the mediocre combo. It was dead in the water with Palm Foleo in 2007, it's just as dead in the water 18 years later.
- prettyStandard 1y ago
  I'm sorry but I remain unconvinced. Do you have any examples of desktop UI interfaces that are impossible to create in a Dex like experience, that is possible on Linux, Mac, and Windows desktop experiences? Or is it that mobile apps will never work great/ideally on desktop? And if that's the case, how is that worse than not having them at all? Maybe there is a scenario I'm not seeing here.

ryandvm 1y ago

I don't know. Google is always building lots of stuff and most of it gets shelved before it ever sees the light of day, and 75% of what does get released gets shuttered within 5 years. The reality is if it isn't ads or ads adjacent, Google will lose interest. And based on their historical revenue I suppose they ought to continue with this model.

dmos62 1y ago
I wish they'd open-source what they're shuttering. Would be a win-win as far as I can tell.
- christkv 1y ago
  If they did it would probably have to be rewritten as it probably depends on a ton of internal google systems.
  - dmos62 1y ago
    You're right. I guess this illustrates a downside of closed-source and walled-gardens.
- beernet 1y ago
  How is it a win for Google to release something open-source that had potentially cost them lots of money? Even if they don't need and pursue it anymore, why would they just give it to the competition? It's always easily said to "just open-source" it but Google is a business and owes outside software developers nothing.
  - mystified5016 1y ago
    How can another company compete with a product Google no longer offers? There is no competition because Google quit competing. If Google spins up a project and then abandons it, how could they possibly be harmed by someone else offering a comparable product? Google has already accepted a total loss on the product, there's really nothing for them to lose here.

simultsop 1y ago

The idea of a unified computer, resembles also with the idea when iPhone merged, calculator, mp3 player and phone. With ubuntu's try a decade ago, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/ it was obvious there is a market for this. But the ecosystem chain beats it all. Everyone will wait for their favorite OS to catchup.

olau 1y ago

I recently bought a second-hand Microsoft Surface tablet, installed Debian and now run GNOME on it. The first time it came up and I logged into a familiar GNOME environment was a profound experience. I was pretty sure what was going to happen, but it still took me by surprise. So I don't think the convergence idea is necessarily bad. It's perhaps somewhat niche, and it's not easy to pull off. I almost never use a phone, so for me the major selling point of my tablet is no Android oddities or second-rate citizen vibes. I don't need to wade through an app store to do simple things. I'm not depending on a hardware vendor where support stops a few years down the road. Plugin a keyboard and mouse, and it's just like any other computer with a really small screen. I already have a desktop computer, so it doesn't replace anything, but the familiarity is still nice. The touch experience is not as polished as Android. It's fine for my purposes, though. I'm mostly using the tablet as a night-time reader for epubs - dark background, light level at minimum, and then it works surprisingly well for when I wake up and need something to do before I can fall asleep again.

wltr 1y ago
Would love to read some blog about that, just in case you have.
neogodless 1y ago
Was this a Surface RT (very old ARM - Nvidia Tegra), Surface Pro (Intel), or Surface X (ARM - SQ1 / SQ2)?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

garylkz 1y ago

Remind me about Fuchsia in 3 years

dhosek 1y ago

Kind of reminds me of my dream in 2001 (although at that time, the core device was a Palm Pilot, not a phone): I want something that I can carry in my pocket and use anywhere, but I can also sit at a desk and connect to a display, keyboard and mouse (I’d prefer a trackpad now) and have a full computing experience. 24 years later and we’re slowly creeping towards that dream. I had hoped that the fact that iOS was based on MacOS meant that the iPhone was going to get there sooner rather than later, but not so much.

palata 1y ago

Important to me: is that part of AOSP, or is that part of the proprietary Google stuff?

danans 1y ago

Many of the comments here talking about how phone hardware is capable enough to run a desktop - thereby obviating the need for a separate desktop/laptop - are missing the fact that consumers actually want multiple devices. Also, no consumer electronics company ever makes a successful business model on selling less stuff that does the same thing. There are real functional/usability reasons for having a separate device (with its own compute/storage) in a laptop form factor, and furthermore if we are honest, laptops are a kind of student/professional fashion accessory (especially Macs), a social-signal that you are a "knowledge-worker". As a result, that form factor is not going away anytime soon. What Google are doing seems less about the "desktop mode" for Android (though that's a necessary technical step) than it is about having a unified consumer OS experience between Android and ChromeOS, which according to reports, they are planning to merge.

vlovich123 1y ago
> thereby obviating the need for a separate desktop/laptop - are missing the fact that consumers actually want multiple devices Do they? What I want is the power of the desktop available when I have access to it (SW & HW), but if the phone is powerful enough (maybe with a small accelerator box for dGPUs to handle gaming/AI), I’m not really seeing the value of multiple devices; it’s just more clutter and stuff to maintain (e.g. SW context, more HW things that can break & require repair, etc). I’m already using remote VSCode to always program on my home desktop computer regardless where I am because it’s easier than juggling clones across machines and forgetting to sync somewhere.
- danans 1y ago
  > Do they? What I want is the power of the desktop available when I have access to it (SW & HW), but if the phone is powerful enough (maybe with a small accelerator box for dGPUs to handle gaming/AI), I’m not really seeing the value of multiple devices Isn't that "small accelerator box for dGPUs" another device? That seems like adding more complexity, not less. Based on what you shared, I don't think you are representative of the majority of the consumer computing device market. There are real human factors (functional and social) that have resulted in the current laptop and desktop form-factors, and why many attempts to completely replace either have failed. > I’m already using remote VSCode to always program on my home desktop computer regardless where I am ... Are you doing your remote VSCode session on a phone? You must need at least a 13" laptop (or phone dock device with a screen/keyboard/battery) for that. At that point, why not just use a laptop, and avoid the complexity of plugging/syncing with a phone?

cvhc 1y ago

I really look forward to desktop experience on Android tablets. For personal use, 2-in-1 (laptop+tablet) conceptually makes a lot of sense. But I think 2-in-1 laptops go the wrong way -- they are full laptops with bad tablet experiences (because of weight, or desktop-first Windows OS). But I want a good tablet in 80% of time. If Android have reasonably good desktop support (e.g., keyboard, mouse, window management), a tablet with a detachable keyboard will be enough to cover the rest 20% of use cases where I want a laptop.

fifteen1506 1y ago
Agreed, mostly. I've still some issues regarding the "you won't have root on your device" thing. However, if the whole stack is open-source and included in stock Android and appears in GOS, it will make me less wary of jumping to it. PS: currently using Tuxedo 2-in-1!

ge96 1y ago

It does seem odd to have what is pretty much a laptop and then plug your phone into it. Granted I have wanted this feature for a while/what I messed around with when I had my PinePhone Pro eg. running VS Code on it and I can't remember if I got a VM running on it or not. I've done it with an old 4GB ram Chromebook using GalliumOS. I will say I probably didn't get a VM running on the PPP.

game_the0ry 1y ago

When I first saw samsung, I was sure we would soon see a world where laptops were obsolete bc you would just plug your phone into some dock attached to a keyboard, mouse, and display, and that would be your workflow. I am surprised it never came to fruition. I guess its more profitable for manufacturers to push you to get a range of devices in all form factors (macbook + ipad + iphone).

hollerith 1y ago
>more profitable Or, most people keep essentially no important data on their devices (everything is in clouds) so there is no need to manually sync data between a person's devices, eliminating the main benefit to having fewer devices.

hagbard_c 1y ago

So who'll create a useable fold-up Fresnel-lens cover to turn that high-res high-dpi phone screen into something resembling a smallish monitor? I run Termux and sometimes Linux deploy on Android devices which turn these into fairly close equivalents to general-purpose pocket computers but even for my good eyes a somewhat bigger screen size at the native resolution would be preferable. Double the apparent size, keep the resolution and you'll get a perfectly useable 12" monitor.

foobarbecue 1y ago

Wish they would just adapt a full-featured Linux distro. It seems to me the only difference between a phone with an extra screen, and a laptop with a SIM card, is the relative balance of power been the user and the vendor (Android restricts user capabilities for the benefit of Google). How do we get back to the place where people expect a computer to have any number of peripherals, and be under the control of the user...?

vdfs 1y ago
https://plasma-mobile.org https://plasma-mobile.org Does seem decent but the problem no major phone maker support it or make phones for it, in fact even linux desktop doesn't have may laptops/desktops "official" support,