Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Android’s desktop interface leaks

9to5google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 393 posts

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#321

Post by vladvasiliu »

gmueckl wrote: post #271
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elements on the top of the screen have virtually infinite height, and elements in the corners have infinite height and width. You can't aim "too high" for something at the top of the screen. Status bars on top don't make sense if you have tabs on top. Now your tabs are infinitely smaller, and aiming at them requires a lot more effort. Mac's original design had the menubar on top, and its windows didn't have tabs, so…

I wonder how relevant Fitt's law is with bigger screens and the drastically changed ratio between mouse hand movement and cursor movement on screen. It used to be that you could reach a screen corner with a very simple flick of the mouse hand wrist. But that doesn't feel the same way anymore on modern hardware.

Depends on your configuration, I guess. I just tried this with my mx master with its standard resolution (so no ridiculous 800000 dpi gaming mouse) on a 4k 32" at 100% under windows. I can easily reach a corner with a quick flick of the wrist.

On my laptop's FHD screen it's even better.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#322

Post by ezst »

jeroenhd wrote: post #315
heavyset_go wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why buy a used phone that will stop receiving updates, can't be fixed or upgraded and can't run whatever you want on it when you can use a real computer instead?

The chances of the 50 euro laptop getting Windows 10 updates longer than a second hand Samsung phone are slim. As for "can't be fixed or upgraded", ask any macOS user.

Who in their right mind would put Windows on such a device, though? This is THE hardware generation that Microsoft painted a target on with their planned obsolescence strategy. I don't know if there can be a clearer signalling that it is to be avoided at all costs.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#323

Post by orthoxerox »

orbital-decay wrote: post #317
orthoxerox wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would put all bars at the top. On a touch-enabled screen it's much easier to touch something at the top than something next to the keyboard, so I move the taskbar to the top on all my Windows two-in-ones. Shout out to https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher for forcing this behavior even on Windows 11.

Why not at the side, though? Better use of the vertical space and no issues with touchscreens (interactable items on top, hand reaching from the side). That's how I do it on every desktop/laptop machine I own.

I don't remember why I did that, tbh. Having it at the side works as well, I agree.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#325

Post by realusername »

gf000 wrote: post #88
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…

A 2-3 generation old pixel on the second hand marker is not expensive at all though. And you easily add a mouse/keyboard just fine to it.

Old pixels don't have HDMI output, I learned it the hard way when the screen of my Pixel 3a died.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#326

Post by thiht »

userbinator wrote: post #274

Essentially a clone of Windows 11, and those screenshots make me realise just how much I hate the rounded corners, borderless vagueness, and excess padding of "modern" UI. For contrast, this UI is more my style: https://serenityos.org/screenshot-b36968c.png

Is this serious? Looking at this I feel both bored to death (think "Severance gray office hell" boredom) AND overwhelmed because of the tons of decorations and useless creases and crappy icons and awful text and unnecessary affordances that only made sense 30 years ago when no one knew how to use a computer. Ugh

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#327

Post by torginus »

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…

What I don't get is why they don't design UIs with a status bar on the side - you have so much waster horizontal real estate both in landscape monitors, with every website, code editor having huge bars on the either side of the text.

Smartphones are portrait screens and its clear that having only that much horizontal real estate is enough.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#328

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

thiht wrote: post #326
userbinator wrote: post #274

Essentially a clone of Windows 11, and those screenshots make me realise just how much I hate the rounded corners, borderless vagueness, and excess padding of "modern" UI. For contrast, this UI is more my style: https://serenityos.org/screenshot-b36968c.png

Is this serious? Looking at this I feel both bored to death (think "Severance gray office hell" boredom) AND overwhelmed because of the tons of decorations and useless creases and crappy icons and awful text and unnecessary affordances that only made sense 30 years ago when no one knew how to use a computer. Ugh

I agree with the parent comment, but I understand that someone who did not grow up with UIs that looked like that would think otherwise. I do feel that Windows 2000 was peak UI for desktop operating systems, but it's probably due to a combination of nostalgia and the fact that I deeply dislike modern Electron-based UIs with too few decorations and an overly minimalistic and non-customizable "we know best" attitude.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#329

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

kelnos wrote: post #111

I enjoy cool features like this, but as usual, I'm wary of the consequences. Android is becoming more and more locked down like iOS. Even if it weren't, it's still always been more locked down than a standard desktop or laptop machine running an operating system of the user's choice. With the advent of smartphones and tablets, already I see non- and semi-technical users often dropping their laptop or desktop and just…

I am with you, and for this reason I really want them to fail. The PC is currently still a platform where the user has a relatively large amount of control and digital autonomy, and as long as a sizeable part of the population keeps using it, companies and government institutions cannot ignore it and must support it.

Once 90% of all internet clients are iOS or Android the open internet is dead, and the concept of a general purpose computer on which you can run any computation you want is also inaccessible to the average person. From that point on, everything is a service that you rent from either Apple or Google.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#330

Post by nkrisc »

torginus wrote: post #327
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…

What I don't get is why they don't design UIs with a status bar on the side - you have so much waster horizontal real estate both in landscape monitors, with every website, code editor having huge bars on the either side of the text. Smartphones are portrait screens and its clear that having only that much horizontal real estate is enough.

I always put my taskbar on the side, both on MacOS and Windows. Well, I used to on Windows but apparently that’s too much to ask from Windows 11.
Post reply on HN