Future Androids may let you dock them and use them as a desktop – as standard
  • Pasta DentalEnglish
    23•4 months ago

    Ive never really understood the appeal of desktop modes like this or Dex, like, whenever i am somewhere with a keyboard, a mouse, a monitor with some cables, the likelyhood of there already being a fully working computer are very high, and the chances that the computer works better at what I want to achieve are much higher than my dinky phone with phone apps on it

    • @jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
      47•4 months ago

      Because this pocket computer is your enclave, with your data, and settings. You don’t have to login to someone else’s computer.

    • Quack DocEnglish
      7•4 months ago

      I use it a lot, I keep a little dock with me and a small bluetooth mouse and keyboard, when I’m typing on the go, I can just plug in when I come home and everything is there.

      exact same thing with my emulators. I can also chroot into arch and get a full blown desktop environment if needed

    • DranEnglish
      4•4 months ago

      I think the vision was what Motorola delivered briefly a decade ago with webtop. The original version of it was a chrooted lubuntu with full access to apt, and custom applications that let you render your phone, or phone apps as an application. It was powerful enough to get me through my first 3 years of a computer science program in college with a lapdock as my primary “computer”. (Think a brainless laptop, that you dock your phone into)

      https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/03/motorola-atrix-the-ubuntu-powered-webtop-experience/

      When they moved from android 2.3 to 4.0, they dropped the lubuntu webtop in favor of Android’s tablet mode, which was a huge bummer, and what made me get an actual laptop. Outside of gaming, if that were the average computer paradigm today I’d be a happy camper. Why buy two computers when you can buy one instead?

    • @scarilog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1•4 months ago

      I’m honestly surprised this feature is still around. Don’t get me wrong, I love that it’s available when I get the chance to use it, but it’s so rarely, I question whether the development effort necessary to keep it going is really worth it.

      Edit: completely forgot the value Dex has for Samsung tablets. Happy that they make this feature available on phones too.

    • @shalva97@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1•4 months ago

      because they are powerful. Maybe your phone is slow. My phone can run games at 144fps and does not need to have active cooler, but PC runs at 60C and needs active cooling for a simple YouTube video

  • katy ✨English
    10•4 months ago

    i use dex but if they can find a way to let this desktop mode work with 3rd party launchers unlike dex it’ll be welcome

    • Quack DocEnglish
      1•4 months ago

      it should, AOSP external desktop mode does work with 3rd party launchers, and you can even kinda get it working on samsung, but it was a massive hassle getting it to work for me.

  • @sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4•4 months ago

    I’m impressed how el Reg fleshed out a pretty sparse story with a bunch of relevant (self) links.

    • Quack DocEnglish
      2•4 months ago

      in development options I believe you can enable desktop mode one external display, it’s been around since like A10, and with A12L they really fleshed it out. but A14 was another decent improvement.

      • @we_avoid_temptation@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1•4 months ago

        I’ve seen this option before but most people online say the Pixels only work with DisplayLink. I’m really tempted to order a cable and see if it works

        • @eco_game@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1•4 months ago

          The Pixel 8 and onwards technically support DP alt mode again. I’m not sure about stock, but I believe I read about some people having it just work in Graphene OS.

        • Quack DocEnglish
          1•4 months ago

          Yeah, for sure. The primary issues that Pixel phones do not have DisplayPort out over USB-C enabled. Well, I think the newest ones do.

          You also have the option of using scrcpy for testing this. But it’s a bit of hassle.

    • @woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2•4 months ago

      This has been a thing for a long time

      Yeah, duh. The story is about it no longer being hidden and requiring activation: “Android 10 gained a hidden desktop mode in its developer features, but it wasn’t easy to find.”

  • @FreeLikeGNU@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1•4 months ago

    This makes more sense when coupled with AR glasses (Xreal, Viture, etc) especially when riding in a plane or car for a long trip. With DEX at least, your phone becomes a track pad, but without a typing device it’s a bit limited. Unfortunately many android apps don’t translate well to landscape mode.