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Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

maruos.com

191–200 of 264 posts

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#191

I am really surprised that the "single computing / storage device" idea which can switch between different screens and input methods seamlessly (and maybe support plug-in CPUs) is just is not happening, though the concept here is a small step in that direction. Having everything in the cloud seems to have made this somewhat redundant for most users, though I still hope one day I can carry all my data around, of cours…

Because fundamentally they always end up being two computers in one, they just share the storage.

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#193

> Maru Mobile is built on the latest Android Marshmallow. Should we tell them?

Preetam, founder / lead dev here: Yeah, yeah, I know. We really need to move our asses over to Nougat already, but its a PITA when we port upwards and there are major changes in the internal framework APIs, forcing us to thoroughly test the whole system again...but we'll get there!

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#194
post #51

Maybe this is the answer to the impending cabin baggage laptop ban. Carry a keyboard and screen in your hold bag, the phone with your data and applications in your pocket.

It may be difficult to explain to a grumpy TSA agent that your device is not in fact a laptop!

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#195
post #43
post #28

If you have a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, you may was well have a computer. Seriously, if you have a laptop-like enclosure for all those things to make them portable, adding a SoC to make it a PC is what, $20-$40 to be on par with this in terms of compute? And last I checked, it's still not The Year Of The Linux Desktop. This is gonna crash and burn.

You don't get the value proposition. This isn't for cost saving, it's for time saving and organization. Here's where we are today: If I spend any significant amount of time away from one of my devices (phone, laptop, desktop), it piles up with dozens of notifications. Even with cloud based apps, there's no shared state. So when I get back to a device, I have to clear away all the notifications, assuming that they mus…

Your post makes me wonder if this constant back and forth switching is actually conducive to productivity.

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#196

Why is it built on Marshmallow instead of Nougat?

Something like this takes a while to build. They likely started before Nougat was released.

Preetam, lead dev here: Correct! Maru started on Lollipop actually and moved to Marshmallow with the 0.3 release. It can be a PITA to port upwards to a new Android version if there are significant changes in the internal system APIs (these are open to rapid change between major versions of Android, unlike the stable app-facing framework APIs). Anyways, hoping to move to Nougat before too long...

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#197

Can this be used with a wired keyboard and mouse on most phones?

Right now no, since Maru uses SlimPort for streaming the desktop to your display. SlimPort eats up the USB pins that you would need for connecting up a wired keyboard/mouse via USB-OTG [0]. Wired keyboard/mouse will become possible when we support other methods for display streaming in the future like wireless.

[0] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/maru-os/rsSpHZ0DIJA/mEfp_J9M...

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, don't install it on anything with data you care about. This isn't exactly a hardened product.

+1! The way I see it, this is a "toy" (for the time being). The "2013 devices" makes me thing that this is a "toy" for people like "us" that have a Nexus rotting away somewhere and "it would be cool to fool around on your 30-inch screen and nothing more! It would be better if they would up-front say "this is not secure", "this is a demo", "this is a toy", "this is not the OS you're looking for". Imaginary CEO-CTO dia…

What's wrong with "2013 devices"? Nexus 5 probably has more alternative OS choices than any other phone available: LineageOS (based on Android 7.1), Ubuntu Touch (UBports continuation of the project), Plasma Mobile, Sailfish, and Maru OS. And what is the real benefit of having a newer device if the old one is still very capable of running modern OSes and applications?

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1! The way I see it, this is a "toy" (for the time being). The "2013 devices" makes me thing that this is a "toy" for people like "us" that have a Nexus rotting away somewhere and "it would be cool to fool around on your 30-inch screen and nothing more! It would be better if they would up-front say "this is not secure", "this is a demo", "this is a toy", "this is not the OS you're looking for". Imaginary CEO-CTO dia…

> The "2013 devices" makes me thing that this is a "toy" for people like "us" that have a Nexus rotting away somewhere I'm writing this on a 2013 Nexus, thank you very much! A year ago it stopped booting and I tried searching for a newer, comparable tablet to replace it: no such device exists. I ordered a replacement main board and couldn't be happier. Until someone makes a new 7-inch tablet with a full HD display, i…

I'm using a N5 as my primary phone... It seems mad to me that the life expectancy of a phone is so short those days. :P

Re: Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone

#200
post #32
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motorola Atrix, Ubuntu Phone, Windows Phone 10 has Continuum. It's been tried before.

Yes, and it took around 20 years to go from the patent for the first underpinnings of applications for phones other than communication in the 1970s to Simon Personal Communicator in the early 90s, and then another 10-15 years for the first smart phones to emerge. If people gave up because it "had been tried before", we wouldn't have any of the technology we had (in fact, we would still be planting crops with wooden s…

Wooden sticks? Crops? Bet they took a few iterations to get right too.
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