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

371–380 of 393 posts

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#371

Post by fhcbix »

batrat wrote: post #303

Samsung should not give up DEX, is mature and works exceptionally well with applications that are supported (wireless DEX with my samsung tv works great). Knowing Google, they will give up after 5 iterations or updates will be very slow. It is good for the ecosystem, I hope it will become more mainstream.

Dex and Android desktop mode are not a single new thing, but multiple features that partially have been in Android for years, like external screens, resizable windows and the (currently rather limited) external screen drawer.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#372

Post by joe_mamba »

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…

That's a nicely thought out setup, but why would other people want to do that hassle, instead of just getting a cheap laptop, which is what most people do?

You're making up niche scenarios for the sake of winning an argument, but you don't daily drive, you don't dog-food yourself, they're only good as concepts on paper, but not in practice.

The market for people buying obsolete phones to connect to their TV as their daily driver workhorse computers is insanely small, even on quirky HN let alone outside this bubble. So who do you think you are convincing/converting with this?

Like the most popular Androids are Samsungs and Samsung has been shipping DEX on their flagships since for-ever, and how many of their users actually use it? Or how many buy them just for that feature alone? You haven't discovered an untapped market here that will replace PC/laptops for most average people.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#373

Post by joe_mamba »

adrian_b wrote: post #172
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…

Actually many ridiculously expensive "flagship" smartphones do not have DisplayPort and some do not have even USB 3. The chances to find DisplayPort in what nowadays have become medium-price smartphones, i.e. $500 to $600, are about as good as finding DisplayPort in a "flagship".

Which flagships (other than Apple), don't ship with display output?

AFAIK Samsung, Google and all major Chinese brands have display output on their flagships.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#374

Post by joe_mamba »

jeroenhd wrote: post #316
olyjohn wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why though? You can do so much more with a laptop than be trapped in Google's walled garden.

It heavily depends on where you live, but plenty of poorer areas that never had much desktop computer penetration because of affordability are going app-first. Richer countries are going app-first for things like banking and government ID too, because the security situation with locked-down phones is a lot better than on the desktop where FreeFortniteRobloxUpdate.exe can drain your savings without you ever noticing i…

>Might as well save some money by not having to get a laptop for doing your taxes once a year. Most normal people don't really care about Google's walled garden. That's a tech person thing.

Most "normal people" don't use their phones hooked to their TVs as desktop computers. It's a very niche scenario.

They use their old laptop or tablet from school, university or hand-me-down from parent/relative for that task, since we're going with your assumption of living in a rich country where access to cheap hardware is abundant and 50 Euros is a very basic dinner for 2, so unlikely for people's livelihoods to be threatened by skimping 50 bucks once in their lifetime on some personal computing device besides their phone.

And in the specific case of living in a rich country, you might not even need to spend that 50, since I am yet to meet anyone who in case of need, can't just get a old computer for virtually free as hand-me-down from parent/friend/relative where it's collecting dust, if you just need a PC to do your taxes once a year. It's a lot more realistic scenario than people hooking up phones to TVs to do their taxes.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#375

Post by modeless »

jeroenhd wrote: post #318
modeless wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiding the bottom bar doesn't solve the problem because it still takes the corners away. You can't put UI there because the bottom bar will come up and cover it when you mouse into the corner. The OS is taking all four corners for itself. Greedy! Apps should have that space. Apps are what we are here to use and the OS is getting in the way.

macOS doesn't seem to care and that's what all the designers use. I'm guessing people think it's pretty? The dock would also better if it weren't stretched to the entire screen width by default but perhaps Google is planning to use that space for something. It's also possible they're going to remove the top bar at some point, that'd make the UI standard Windows-shaped. The Gnome trick for the dock is to only show the…

MacOS is stuck in the past with the top menu and Dock. I don't think they're brave enough to change anything now.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#376

Post by digiown »

palata wrote: post #369
digiown wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also a third party should not be able to inspect my device and discriminate against my owned device. The device should attest its authenticity to me (or my organization that owns it) alone. Arguably, this is a social/political problem more than a technical one, but it tends to have a similar effect by imposing a cost on having control over your own computing (now you need to carry two phones). Also while you can…

Yeah I agree with that as well. Fine if Google wants to lock some stuff on Android, but a bank should not be able to prevent me from using GrapheneOS (or Linux, or whatever I want). Is that what you are saying or did I misunderstand?

Yeah, but the whole point of Google's locked down system and integrity APIs is to offer a way to subjugate users and transfer power from the users to the providers. Arguably it shouldn't work in an ideal competitive market where most consumers are intelligent, but it is how it is in our world.

Banks, governments, and anything else that's required to participate in society should not depend on proving the loyalty of my device to Google or any other entity that isn't me.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#377

Post by TeMPOraL »

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…

Samsung did not forget, and did it right with DeX.

They did, however, get some of the interactions wrong (not to mention, handling of display resolution), so in the end, you can't exploit Fitt's Law in DeX either.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#378

Post by heavyset_go »

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.

I'm running bleeding edge Linux on computers I bought in 2006.

Meanwhile, the phone I bought a year ago is stuck on a 3 year old non-LTS kernel point release, and it will be forever.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#379

Post by heavyset_go »

backscratches wrote: post #308
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?

Old computers also stop getting microcode updates fairly quickly.

This is a real issue and I don't know why you got downvoted

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#380

Post by buu700 »

Anvoker wrote: post #175
makeramen wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that I can unlock and relock the bootloader is not a security issue or a risk. People who don't know what that means cannot possibly do it by mistake. The second sentence is false. Lots of people blindly follow things and don't understand consequences until they brick their devices. Those who don’t break something won’t notice if they’ve silently backdoored themselves. People asking for support after getti…

> The second sentence is false. Lots of people blindly follow things and don't understand consequences until they brick their devices. Those who don’t break something won’t notice if they’ve silently backdoored themselves. "Lots of people", how many though? Can that number be reduced? What number would be acceptable? I feel like it _has_ to be possible to devise an unlocking procedure that dissuades most people from…

After a certain point, someone else's insistence on self-harm ceases to be a good excuse to infringe on my freedom. We don't ban hammers because some people accidentally damage their property/body, and it's a lot easier to do that with a hammer than an unlocked bootloader.
Post reply on HN