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Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

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Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#51

Post by kiicia »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #12
orev wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad reality is that market forces don’t want this to happen, since it would cannibalize sales of those other devices. It’s much better for manufacturers to make sure a phone can only do “phone stuff” and a PC can only do “PC stuff”, because then you need to buy both devices.

I think Google is well-positioned to do it. They have experience with ChromeOS already, and running Linux apps on Android should be at least somewhat plausibly deniable. Google doesn't sell laptops either, so they aren't especially worried about the cannibalization.

Google is in the process of making chrome os just another android device

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#52

Post by grahamj »

I agree that phone manufacturers should focus on features more than performance as it's been more than fine for some time now. I use an iPhone 14 Pro and it's still more than fast enough for everything I do with it.

As for convergence I'm not so sure. The only place I use a desk is at work and even if a phone could optimally run a docker stack and everything else I need there wouldn't really be a benefit to me. I guess taking a phone home instead of the work MBP would be a bit easier but meh, I carry a bag anyway and then I would need something to plug it into at home.

For personal I use my MBP on the couch. If it was a laptop-like dock that my phone slipped into, ok, that would work but A) Apple will never do that and B) what would the benefit be? I doubt it would be a ton cheaper and I'd need to keep my phone more up to date than I do now because I do want a powerful laptop.

In principle I like the idea, but in practice I don't think it would work for me. What I'd be more interested in is running macOS on an iPad.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#53

Post by furyofantares »

amelius wrote: post #35

The irony is that an iPhone is more a Personal Computer than any PC ever was.

Self driving cars are more automobile than automobiles and AI imagery is more CGI than CGI. It's not really ironic, we name things in relation to what came before them, but then often keep working in the same direction.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#54

Post by rchaud »

riehwvfbk wrote: post #41
flerchin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has not been my experience, and I suspect an unusual situation on your part.

You are just thinking iPhone. There are many Android phones on the market that are woefully underpowered for anything beyond store demo mode.

Yeah, iPhones being throttled? Unheard of! /s

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67911517

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#55

Post by kiicia »

mech422 wrote: post #25
mkonecny wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Samsung Galaxy phones have a built in desktop OS called Dex. I remember plugging my monitor usb-c cable to charge my phone and being blown away when a desktop UI appeared on the monitor

that is pretty cool - wonder if it supports keyboard/mouse too ?

Every iOS and android device supports mouse and keyboard at this point

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#56

Post by jeroenhd »

jmkni wrote: post #5

With USB-C, surely we are at the point where we can plug our phones into a hub with a couple of monitors attached and get a proper desktop environment?

Samsung Dex does this pretty well, and has been for ages now. It's an undersold feature in my opinion. Samsung used to experiment with using Ubuntu for their desktop environment but they shut that down a while back (I forgot why, I guess it was too much of a pain to maintain).

Microsoft tried to do it with Windows Phone years ago, but phones were way too slow and Windows on ARM was an even worse prospect at the time, so that died too.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#57

Post by wizzwizz4 »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #22

> When was the last time you felt your smartphone really couldn’t cope? Every day since a couple years now. > I struggle to recall the last time an app jerked and juddered into life. I don’t. But here’s the thing: it wasn’t that way at first. It’s just that over time my phone just slowed down. Purging it of its data and unused software did nothing, I just had less and less available memory over time, and maps grew sl…

Don't bother. Flip phones have enshittified, too. (Alarms don't consistently trigger unless you disable and re-enable them after setting them; sometimes the sound just breaks until the phone's restarted; if any voicemail expires then the phone's voicemail indicator is stuck there forever; J2ME support has been removed, so the only available games are the ones you have to text a premium number to "buy" (even though the software comes pre-installed).)

Multiple different brands have the same buggy OS, even those which used to be household names. This must've saved the companies at least $20 000.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#58

Post by ksd482 »

ghaff wrote: post #30
orev wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad reality is that market forces don’t want this to happen, since it would cannibalize sales of those other devices. It’s much better for manufacturers to make sure a phone can only do “phone stuff” and a PC can only do “PC stuff”, because then you need to buy both devices.

I'm unconvinced. Lots of people are increasingly fine with just phones. My dad I sort of see but I had a co-worker who told me their kid didn't even want a laptop for schoolwork which blew my mind a bit but so it goes. Any hybrid would be a compromise for me. I do have multiple systems--almost certainly more than I need.

orev is not talking about people. He's talking about market forces. That is, device manufacturing companies.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#59

Post by jillyboel »

ghaff wrote: post #30
orev wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad reality is that market forces don’t want this to happen, since it would cannibalize sales of those other devices. It’s much better for manufacturers to make sure a phone can only do “phone stuff” and a PC can only do “PC stuff”, because then you need to buy both devices.

I'm unconvinced. Lots of people are increasingly fine with just phones. My dad I sort of see but I had a co-worker who told me their kid didn't even want a laptop for schoolwork which blew my mind a bit but so it goes. Any hybrid would be a compromise for me. I do have multiple systems--almost certainly more than I need.

> who told me their kid didn't even want a laptop for schoolwork which blew my mind a bit but so it goes

Some people insist on self sabotaging. It's sad.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#60

Post by galangalalgol »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #34
SoftTalker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be somewhat interested. Single-monitor is good enough for most people for home computing stuff. And touch-screen interaction on a tiny screen sucks for anything like spreadsheets, composing documents, dealing with PDFs, or dense forms. I would probably come down to separate devices however, in the interests of security and continuity. A phone is much more likely to be lost or stolen than a computer on a desk at h…

Another thing in favor of separate devices, is that for lightweight usecases that benefit from traditional desktop UX (like spreadsheets, as you mentioned) even cheap PCs have been extreme overkill for the better part of two decades at this point — the latest greatest desktop hardware is barely better than a mid-late Core 2 Duo booted off an SSD for productivity. One could buy a cheap mini-PC and put some flavor of L…

My ancient pixel 4a can use a hub for a keyboard and mouse, and a icro projector. It has a chrooted fedora running on it. This has all worked for pretty much as long as android has been a thing, though the display had ro wait on usb-c.
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