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Android’s desktop interface leaks

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Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#211

Post by nicoburns »

joe_mamba wrote: post #84
dfajgljsldkjag wrote: post #69

This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget. If you can just plug your phone into a screen you do not need to buy a separate laptop anymore. The browser extensions are the most important part because that is what makes a computer useful. I am glad to see they are thinking about this.

>This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget. If you can just plug your phone into a screen you do not need to buy a separate laptop anymore. Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices. But 50 Euros on the used market got me a retired corporate HP/Dell laptop with 1080p screen, intel 8th gen i5 quad core, 8GB RAM and 256GB NVME on which…

> Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices.

Might well be that this becomes a lot more common on cheaper phones if it becomes a popular feature though. A display port output isn't currently that useful, so it's something it makes sense to cut from budget models. But if this desktop functionality becomes popular that calculus may change.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#212

Post by jeroenhd »

46493168 wrote: post #149
SirMaster wrote: post #147

So would it make sense to sell a folding plastic shell with screen, keyboard and trackpad in it that you can bring in your bag and pull out to plug your phone into it?

This form factor was tried before and it didn’t stick. Why should it be brought back now?

Last time, the hardware was barely capable of driving a 1080p display at a constant frame rate with more than one app open.

These days, phones are more powerful than the laptops they give to kids to study on.

Samsung DeX has existed for years and works as well as it has for ages. We don't need to wait on Google to make this work. At best, Google will make this type of tech available in software so you can Chromecast/Miracast/whatever it to your display when your cheap phone doesn't do DP-Alt mode.

What I think this is more likely to be about is ChromeOS being killed and Android taking its place. It's not secret that Google is working on that, this just seems to be someone dogfeeding the latest build of the desktop Android build.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#213

Post by nicoburns »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #61
Ronsenshi wrote: post #24

Is it going to be the same future as Fuchsia OS? There were some good ideas in that one, but then one day it sort of disappeared. Not that that was surprising - Google is good at that.

Unless Google reorganizes and gets more focused, I'd say they are highly likely to repeat their mistakes. IMHO both Apple and Google are missing a big opportunity here. Both are doing work to blur the lines between desktop and mobile. Both are targeting laptops, ar, phones, and tablets. These are multiple modalities. Or they should be. But because the way both are structured, these are isolated islands with some inte…

For me the best solution would be seperate environments with completely different UIs, but running on the same device (probably in a phone form factor)

Apple's in the best position to offer this because they have both Mobile and Desktop OS's. And their chips are already capable of having two OS's installed side-by-side with a strong security barrier (and also more than fast enough to run a full desktop OS). But alas they haven't attempted it yet.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#214

Post by pluralmonad »

palata wrote: post #130
ece wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vastly superior security doesn't make you give up freedoms for security. But do tell me how successful the war against scams has been for the average user.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. Convincing a user to give their password will always be an issue, that's fundamental. But because phishing exists does not mean that security does not matter. Without security, there is no need to phish, because the system does not protect anything. Once you have a good security, then the best attack is phishing because it's easier to trick the human than the system. This mea…

I think one of the points is that all this attestation stuff does not protect against the majority of the ways users are compromised. Its just remote control with real security benefits, just those benefits largely accrue to companies and at the expense of the user.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#215

Post by jeroenhd »

dizhn wrote: post #115
gf000 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's already here. Android has native terminal in the developer settings and it even has a Wayland graphical environment. I have run Weston with a desktop chromium inside, playing a youtube video with sound.

But no root.

The Android terminal has root access. It's a full Debian VM, with hardware-accelerated Wayland graphics through virgl. Of course, that only works on devices supporting pKVM.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#216

Post by nwah1 »

Dig1t wrote: post #173

What ever happened to fuscia? Wasn’t that supposed to be their long term OS for desktop?

Seemed potentially like a new kernel, rather than a new OS, and thus potentially a replacement for the Android kernel one day.

But that would mean all of the Android SDKs would need to be abstracted away from Linux, but it seems like they abandoned some of that effort and are mostly just emulating Android on Fuschia for now.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#217

Post by [deleted] »

modeless wrote: post #179

They ought to put the status bar at the bottom. All the designers using Macs probably forgot, but Chrome's tab interface was designed for Windows where it could be all the way at the top of the screen. And in general it's more common for desktop apps designed for mouse and keyboard to have frequently accessed UI elements at the top of the window than the bottom. So desktop apps would benefit from being able to use th…

[deleted]

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#218

Post by jeroenhd »

unixhero wrote: post #174

I already have Samsung Dex. Is that the same as this?

Samsung made DeX at some point for the exact same purpose, but that's a Samsung special.

Google already has this in their Pixel phones (8+). Plug a Pixel into a standard laptop dock (may need to enter dev settings and tick the "force desktop mode" toggle) and you're welcomed by pretty much exactly this UI.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#219

Post by bigwheels »

jeroenhd wrote: post #210
joe_mamba wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget. If you can just plug your phone into a screen you do not need to buy a separate laptop anymore. Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices. But 50 Euros on the used market got me a retired corporate HP/Dell laptop with 1080p screen, intel 8th gen i5 quad core, 8GB RAM and 256GB NVME on which…

Resell the 8GB of RAM and buy an even better phone then? That's 150 euros of value right there. Then use the money on a reputable second hand store to buy a used S20 5G 128GB for 150 euros, or a S22 128GB for 145, maybe an S21 Ultra 5G 256GB for 139, and you've got yourself a valiant workstation already (Samsung DeX works great out of the box, no need to wait for Google here). I can also find an S20+ 5G 128GB for 75…

Where is the $150 euros coming from? 8GB of brand new DDR3 or DDR4 is available for $20-$30 from Amazon / Fleabay, and once he sells it the laptop will no longer work.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#220

Post by hu3 »

evanjrowley wrote: post #135
SimianSci wrote: post #83

It really does look to be a rewrite of ChromeOS to make it a native Android experience with very few tweaks to the User experience that I can see. I think it's a good idea on Google's part. The trend of consumers using mobiles as their one and only computing experience is still strong. This will blend the experience consumers have between desktops and their primary computing platform.

It's a trend with Apple as well. It can be seen in iOS/macOS 26 Tahoe. There's lots of untapped potential in those iPads with M-series CPUs. We've also had rumors of a "MacBook Air Lite" sporting a cellphone A-series CPU. The convergence is happening. I would love to be able to do more with my Google Pixel phone. Right now, the MacBook is my primary workstation, but the possibility of an even more "mobile" productivi…

I highly doubt Apple convergence is going to happen.

A fully capable iPad would mean less sales of MacBook Air and so on.

An iPhone with official docking Desktop UI also never going to happen. Same story.

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