Android’s next big feature turns your phone into a desktop
Android’s next big feature turns your phone into a desktop
www.theverge.com
Android’s next big feature turns your phone into a desktop
84 comments
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I used to think the idea of a phone that is also my desktop would be really cool. But then I got to thinking just how locked down iOS and to a lesser extent Android are compared to Linux/Windows/MacOS, and decided I wouldn't use my Pixel as a replacement for my desktop or laptop even if the feature was there.
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On a serious note, what can't you do with your Pixel? The only issues I've had is I can't access networking functions. Beyond that, not much limits in most things I do. And with Android 16 allowing for installing Linux apps (not just terminal ones, but full graphical ones like VS Code, Blender 3D, etc), there is little I can't see it not being able to do. (No Wireshark though, but that's networking, the only painful point for me).
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TLDR: I don't like the philosophy behind how Android and iOS devices are created and managed by their OEMs nearly enough to give them near total control over what I can do today or in the future with my primary computing platforms.
Its not a specific thing I can't do that I want to do that stops me from liking it.
Its that it is a specific OS image bound to a specific hardware model that is very limited in what options or upgrades or changes are available to me.
With a Framework laptop (or most other generic models) or a generic ATX desktop tower I can replace whatever internal component if need be and then put whatever base OS on it, just because I want to do that.
With a Pixel, or Galaxy, or iPhone it runs the OS it came with and is blessed by the OEM on the hardware they compiled it to run on. Unless I am willing to accept large inconveniences in functionality and usability.
If I replace my desktop/laptop with a Pixel running Debian for desktop mode, now Google has vastly more control over what my desktop experience is going to be via their control of the hardware and host OS layer than they do today. If they decide they don't want something being done in that Debian container in the future for some reason, then they can stop me from doing it with little recourse for me as a user.
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To the best of my knowledge they give you a full Debian Linux in a container. Combine this with AOSP, and IMHO this is totally cool. Especially since my Netbook has worse specs than my current smartphone! :-)
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Sweet that it's all of android now. I've had it on my note 20 ultra for the past 5 years.
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My old note9 did it too. Handy in a pinch and great when I forget my laptop but still wanted to pretend to work at work
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I swear they've been writing the same article for a year.
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Much longer than that. But that's probably because Google keeps picking it up and then dropping it again.
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Hopefully this means I can have a GraphineOS laptop (whenever google makes a new Pixel Laptop)
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Didn’t canonical try this years ago?
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I thought it was part of their justification for Mir like a decade ago.
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Cool. Now let me legally record my phone calls without rooting my phone.
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There is an app called CubeACR which does exactly that on unrooted devices.
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I very much doubt that, since Google removed the call recording APIs. But if someone can tell how it would work on recent Android, I would love being proven wrong.
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Built-in to GrapheneOS for a while now.
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Two problems:
- No automatic call recording.
- Banking apps don't work on GtapheneOS thanks to Play Integrity APIs, so you probably need to root to get them to work.
If you need to root anyway, might as well use BCR.
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Where/how?
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CalyxOS also has it (though they block it where it's illegal).
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Except it's not automatic
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For users with a Samsung Flagship phone, if you have the "One UI 7" update, they just recently added this feature.
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Do you have such a phone? What CSC does it have?
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You used be able to run Linux apps too, but they pulled it all back because they are only good at creating bloatware.
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do you think I am masochist or what, better give me gnu/linux on mobile ;)
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- postmarketOS for older mainstream phones
- Librem 5
- PinePhone and PinePhone Pro
- FuriLabs FLX1
- Liberux Nexx (upcoming)
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If you want deskktop version of Firefox or Chromium on your phone, you can get them using Termux. But yeah they will be slow.
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And they chose to highlight as a feature making it like a pC, “you also get Windows PC–like abilities such as snapping windows to the left and right of the screen.”
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Reminds me of just a few months ago when they sold the Samsung Galaxy S20-something using all the features that come with either Google Gemini 1.5-2.0 or Android 15. All features that my phone has. Nothing unique but the homegrown app store nobody likes
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A beta build of Android 16 contains an early version of Google’s new Android Desktop Mode that, in the future, could let users simply plug their smartphone into a monitor and use it like a laptop or desktop computer.
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Now the question is if people will be stupid enough to replace all the freedoms their desktop OS still gives them with the vendor controlled shit show that is mobile OS.
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Unless you invested a lot of money and time, you are certainly already running an OS with a lot of BLOBs at the most important parts (WIFI driver, etc).
Given AOSP and a decent smartphone, I am basically at exactly the same level I am with running Linux on my desktop. Actually, the smartphone could be better, if it is a Pixel, because at least I'll have 100% hardware support. ... and again, AFAIK one will be able to run Debian in a virtual environment.
Long story short: I would never buy hardware with vendor lock in, but middle to high class Android smartphones are actually standardized hardware which run excellent with Linux. Total win for me.
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100% they will and want this. I’m a power user and even I see this as the future.
Have you worked in a non-tech field with people? Modern OSs and office apps are not intuitive to them. Hell, a lot have problems with just their phones as is.
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Yeah.. I dont see this happening. Android has 99% shovelware crap. I dont see how any professional would be able to use Android instead of Windows, MacOS or Linux.
Android is garbage, and I'm saying this as an android user... The moment a serious Linux alternative is here for phones I'm gone (yes I'm aware Android is technically also "Linux").
Just a few examples: the file system is a mess, good luck trying to easily save on network drives. There is no decent office suite and again using the files system to save documents in Android is a shitshow. There are Adobe products but they're all watered down shitty versions of the desktop ones, the alternatives are even worse. Around every corner google tries to push it's shitty cloud subscriptions, the telemetry is insane even compared to windows.
No Android is definitely not the future chromebooks were a mess too. And knowing Google they'll just give up on anything they don't seem profitable enough so even if they tried on desktop they'll just pull the plug after 2 years.
If people complain about Linux being hard... give android a try as desktop OS it's probably 10x worse. At least Linux comes with a decent office suite and decent networking capabilities.
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I suppose you mean the same effect I have noticed with our younger apprentices who know very little about the way computers work anymore since they grew up with phones only, they don't even know what a file system is any more.
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What freedoms are you referring to?
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That ship has sailed. Hence this being called a "post-PC era".
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i‘m hyped for a graphene desktop mode. that wouldn’t be a replacement for my laptop/ desktop computers but still very much sick. and if i can run a terminal with neovim and tmux or ssh into other machines it would be a dope backup/ micro setup. probably not very useful, but fun i think
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I have a dying laptop and am very much interested in replacing it with my phone + Nexdock (or similar)
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If you sit in a room and you can see the bars, you know you are trapped, if you sit in a room, but you cant see the bars, you are going to think you are free
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I recently saw terminal access as a feature of Android 16 too, so if you have su access, that should give you all the power you need. Now let's hope root will become standard, instead of needing to flash Magisk.
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It gives you terminal access to a Debian VM, not the Android subsystem.
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, so if you have su access, that should give you all the power you need.
Still won't save you from the complete isolation of the apps from each other, only allowing you to exchange data between them at the OS maker's generosity.
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I’m not an android user, but doesn’t it let you do whatever you want? What things can’t a person do using Android as a desktop that a windows or mac user can do?
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Android is very much designed with every application in its own little silo that needs the permission of the OS vendor or something off-device (like a cloud service both apps access) to communicate with each other. This means, among other things, a very limited ability to do software development on the device and run your own applications, a very limited ability to automate applications, no chaining of workflows (e.g. read some sensor in one app, process the data in another, graph it in a third). You also generally don't have administrator/root access on the device and if you do get around that restriction a lot of the applications for things like banks will refuse to work. You can't properly control which data your device collects and where it sends it. Your ability to debug the behavior of your own applications and device is severely limited.
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Cool. Samsung did this a decade ago though.
Everyone is abandoning Android with a passion thanks to Google's bullshit.
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Samsung did this a decade ago though.
Cool. But then you have to buy and deal with a Samsung.
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And it's only on their premium phones.
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Everyone is abandoning Android
What do you mean?
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The Motorola Atrix 4G had a Desktop Mode (Webtop was its name and it was Ubuntu based) in 2011 before Samsung. They even released a cradle dock, that you could connect to a tv or monitor, and a laptop dock for it and the source code on Sourceforge (my guess is to be GPL compliant).
I got that phone specifically for the desktop mode. It had a full blown Firefox browser installed and you could run your apps along side it.
I was blown away and thought, "This is the future for computers" but I was incredibly wrong. After the short honeymoon period i found it to be sluggish and clunky when using an android app. The hardware although phenomenal for a phone couldn't provide an optimal experience for a desktop.
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Yeah they were a little too early and the hardware of the time couldn't power it appropriately.
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But yeah. Fuck Google
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Ubuntu did this a decade ago too
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Microsoft tried the same idea about 10 years ago with Continuum, even including a hardware dongle: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Continuum https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/continuum-phone
Canonical had something similar, too, back in the days with their Ubuntu Touch and named it Convergence: https://www.linux.com/news/first-ubuntu-touch-tablet-brings-convergence-last/
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I'm excited to see how this will pair with android XR to potentially have a good desktop experience on the go. Just have to carry the headset wich i already do and mouse and keyboard for better controls.
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That's cool and everything, yet we have an itsy-bitsy tiny problem: iirc, there are like 3.5 vendors that have opted into dp alt mode support, and each one I know of kinda sucks. I suppose it might be possible to simply enable it in software by changing the devicetree on usb3 devices or something if the port the vendor decided to route is the one multiplexed with dp, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
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That's because there's not really any reason for them to implement it. This will give them a reason.
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Fairphones support it :) I actually tested this out earlier (the initial screen mirroring implementation that was added in android 15) and it worked well. USB hub functionality works too with mouse and keyboard being plugged into the screen.
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84 comments