• ouch@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Cool. Now let me legally record my phone calls without rooting my phone.

  • underline960@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    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.

    !savedyouaclick@lemmy.world

    • Rogue@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      It seems this is an instance where the headline tells the full story

  • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    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.

      • themurphy@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        My guess is that people who would use DEX is also people who are satisfied with ChromeOS. Which is just as closed down.

        Hopefully, when Android does this, they will be under same gatekeeper restrictions in the EU as Windows.

        • barusu@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          I use DEX (not directly to the monitor, but the desktop app) to have easier access to my personal Firefox and messenger apps when I’m at work. I don’t want to run any of my personal stuff on the work laptop (not even in a VM) and I hate typing on the phone’s tiny touch keyboard, so DEX is a great alternative.

          • stephen01king@lemmy.zip
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            8 months ago

            It’s great that we’re losing this feature in OneUI 7. Makes me never want to buy another Samsung phone ever again.

        • admin@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          Dude I tired DEX once, I saw I couldn’t rotate the monitor or even find some type of settings and I never tried it again.

    • TerHu@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      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

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
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        8 months ago

        I have a dying laptop and am very much interested in replacing it with my phone + Nexdock (or similar)

    • QuarterSwede@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        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.

      • Trihilis@ani.social
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        8 months ago

        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.

        • Zeoic@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You underestimate how much professional work is done via the web browser and RDP these days. I am a Cloud Engineer (basically do virtualization work) and could easily get by using a phone as my main work system. Most of the time I am using MS office apps that are basically just wrappers for their web versions anyways, and on a VPN connected to some server. All doable from samsung dex already, I just dont use it because multi monitor is important to my work flow

    • Hoimo@ani.social
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        , 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.

        • Hoimo@ani.social
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          8 months ago

          I’m not sure if I understand what you’re talking about exactly. With root I can access all files on my device (including /data/data, where app internal files are kept) and I can give permission to apps to access all files too, it they ask for it. Not that I’d want that, because it’s way safer to keep user data in /storage/emulated/0 and give read permissions on file or folder level (like /Pictures for a gallery app, or just the picture I want to share for a social media app).

          If you want to share data between apps, the easiest way would be to give them access to the same folder in user space. That isn’t OS maker’s generosity, that’s basic security controls.

          • Sage1918@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I think they’re talking about Android “Intends” which is the thing used by apps to communicate with each other.

            I have no clue how the OS handles the underlying things tho…

    • SufferingSteve@feddit.nu
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      8 months ago

      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

    • wolf@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        The times when you couldn’t get PCs with 100% hardware support on Linux were 15+ years ago. You can still find the occasional one today that doesn’t have it but it is not hard to get 100% support.

        • wolf@lemmy.zip
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          8 months ago

          … I do not want to argue with you and Linux hardware support certainly is much better than decades ago (I was there, I know :-P) … but even my hardware, which was bought with Linux support in mind, I have several problems… one of my laptops WIFI card has problems with Linux sleep mode, one of my Lenovo machines has audio trouble with the microphone after being used for longer online calls and the list goes on. I hope that I am just very unlucky with my hardware picks, but when you have known hardware components in a mass produced device like Google Pixel, I hope we get Apple level support of hardware.

          • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            Well, obviously there are still bugs in hardware drivers on Linux, the point was more that those bugs are not any more common than on any other OS and that Linux probably supports more hardware than some of the Windows operating system versions now.

            Apple level of hardware support is hard for Linux because Apple provides that by limiting supported hardware to a tiny, tiny subset of available hardware they produce themselves.

  • k0e3@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    I swear they’ve been writing the same article for a year.

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
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      8 months ago

      Much longer than that. But that’s probably because Google keeps picking it up and then dropping it again.

    • Yaky@slrpnk.net
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      8 months ago
      • postmarketOS for older mainstream phones
      • Librem 5
      • PinePhone and PinePhone Pro
      • FuriLabs FLX1
      • Liberux Nexx (upcoming)
  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • wolf@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      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! :-)

    • stephen01king@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      I really like using Dex on my work laptop so I don’t have to mess with logging into personal accounts on them. Too bad Samsung is removing this specific version of Dex in One UI 7.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Cool. Samsung did this a decade ago though.

    Everyone is abandoning Android with a passion thanks to Google’s bullshit.

    • ITeeTechMonkey@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • Ulrich@feddit.org
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        8 months ago

        Yeah they were a little too early and the hardware of the time couldn’t power it appropriately.

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
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      8 months ago

      Samsung did this a decade ago though.

      Cool. But then you have to buy and deal with a Samsung.

  • Thomas@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 months ago

    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/

  • dukatos@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Ability to recognize non-ASCII characters in the dialer? Nope… Ability to skip auto connect to the Bluetooth device? Nope, never again… Record phone calls? No, fuck you, we don’t like it in US so it is banned to the whole world. Here you are a feature nobody asks for and shut up…

    • raldone01@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The auto connect for bluethooth is really infuriating. Windows and android both don’t have options for disabling auto connect.

      On linux you can only select between trust and no tust which effectively means auto connect. BUT WHY DONT THEY JUST CALL IT AUTO CONNECT.

      It’s a real bummer.

  • pulido@lemmings.world
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    8 months ago

    You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if this starts a trend of ultra-cheap “laptops” that are just hardware extensions for phones with no processing capabilities of their own.

  • pelya@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    If you want deskktop version of Firefox or Chromium on your phone, you can get them using Termux. But yeah they will be slow.

  • serenissi@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This paired with virtualization features (hopefully with working sommelier) potentially enable running desktop wayland apps on phone.