Google is building its own DeX: First look at Android's Desktop Mode

You are ignoring data location and software installs.

Having all your data always with you stored locally (on your phone) is simpler than syncing and more private than cloud.

One OS with all your software. No need to install same app multiple times on different devices. Don't need to deal with questions like, for how many devices is my license valid for. However, apps would need to come with a reactive UI. No more separate mobile and desktop versions.

Example, you take a photos on your phone, dock it at your desk or laptop shell, and edit them comfortably on a big screen, with an app you bought and installed once. No internet connection is required.

A docking station could be more than just display and input devices. It could contain storage for backing up your data from the phone. Or powerful CPU and GPU for extended compute power (you would still use OS and apps/games on your phone with computations being delegated to more powerful HW).

This could replicate many things cloud offers today (excluding collaboration). No need to deal with an online account for your personal stuff. IMO, it would probably be less mystical than cloud to most users.

> Having all your data always with you stored locally (on your phone) is simpler than syncing and more private than cloud.

You need to sync it anyway. Having that phone with you all day also means exposing it to a lot of risk involving theft, drops and other kind of damage. You need that sync for backup purposes.

I agree actually having it on the phone is great though. I use DeX a LOT, it's a great way of working when I don't have my laptop with me but do have a docking station available (e.g. at the office when I forget my laptop or just dropped in unplanned)

> You need that sync for backup purposes.

Backup is a simple one way sync, but like you said, it is needed. It could still be private, if backup to another of your devices is made when your phone connects to your home WiFi.

> You are ignoring data location and software installs.

Caching works well for that.

> Having all your data always with you stored locally (on your phone) is simpler than syncing and more private than cloud.

Have a look at how GMail handles this. It has my emails cached locally on my devices so I can read them offline (and can also compose and hit-the-send-key when offfline), but GMail also does intelligent syncing behind the scenes. It just works.

> Example, you take a photos on your phone, dock it at your desk or laptop shell, and edit them comfortably on a big screen, with an app you bought and installed once. No internet connection is required.

My devices are online all the time anyway.

> A docking station could be more than just display and input devices. It could contain storage for backing up your data from the phone.

I'm already backing up to the Cloud automatically. And Google handles all the messy details, even if my house burns down.

> Or powerful CPU and GPU for extended compute power (you would still use OS and apps/games on your phone with computations being delegated to more powerful HW).

How is that different from the ChromeOS scenario, apart from that the syncing in your case doesn't involve the cloud?

> This could replicate many things cloud offers today (excluding collaboration). No need to deal with an online account for your personal stuff. IMO, it would probably be less mystical than cloud to most users.

No, it would be more annoying, because I couldn't just log in anywhere in the world, and get access to my data. And I would have to manually bring devices in contact to sync them.

You can build what you are suggesting. And some people (like you!) will like it. But customers by-and-large don't want it.

You can (in principle) back of over the cloud and still have everything private. Encryption and open source software can handle that. (You want the software to be open source, so you can check that it's really end-to-end encrypted without a backdoor.)

Of course, that scenario would only become the norm, if there's mainstream demand for that. By and large, there ain't.

Cache invalidation is hard. Offline-first is also hard and expensive to develop. Single source of truth + backup is simpler.

> No, it would be more annoying, because I couldn't just log in anywhere in the world, and get access to my data. And I would have to manually bring devices in contact to sync them.

You are traveling without your phone? I don't always have an unlimited internet when traveling. If you loose your phone while traveling there's a good chance you won't be able to log in due to 2FA anyway. Devices just have to connect to the same local network to sync. Phone probably connects to your WiFi automatically when you come home. Syncing over internet is also possible.

I'm just saying it could be done. Not that everybody would use it or like it. Although, I imagine getting rid of one dependency (cloud) and having more control would be a plus to some.

Cloud is not magically without issues. People do get locked out their cloud account due to some heuristics flagging it, payment issues, user errors or even political reasons. And it can take a very long time before you get it resolved. Last year there was even a story on HN about Google Cloud accidentally deleting customer's account and deleting all their data.

> But customers by-and-large don't want it.

Do you have any data backing this up?

Phone centered solution could be more cost effective. A casual user would only need a phone, a backup solution (either cloud based or an external drive connected to a network) and a bigger display with input devices (portable or desktop). Possibly one less subscription they have to pay and lower HW costs.

> Cache invalidation is hard. Offline-first is also hard and expensive to develop. Single source of truth + backup is simpler.

Yes, cache invalidation isn't trivial. But it's a software problem that you can solve (for your particular application, or with a library for many similar applications) with enormous economies of scale.

> I'm just saying it could be done. Not that everybody would use it or like it. Although, I imagine getting rid of one dependency (cloud) and having more control would be a plus to some.

Ok, no objection there. Yes, some people would like this.

My point is that cloud first, and local caching that lets you work offline (like what you get with GMail and Google Docs) works well enough for most people, that there's probably not enough market share left over for your offline-first dream to get the economics of scale.

Though it's probably still more than possible in the same way that running your desktop on Linux was feasible from the 1990s onwards: at times a bit clunky, but if you are willing to put up with it, totally doable. Been there, done that.

> Phone centered solution could be more cost effective. A casual user would only need a phone, a backup solution (either cloud based or an external drive connected to a network) and a bigger display with input devices (portable or desktop). Possibly one less subscription they have to pay and lower HW costs.

If you need an external display anyway (and a battery, if you want a laptop form factor), adding a bit of compute power to turn it into essentially a ChromeBook is close enough to free. You don't even need that much computing power, because instead of offloading the computation onto your phone (like your scenario), you offload the heavy lifting into the cloud (basically our real world right now for most people).

The HW costs aren't that much lower, because low performance chips are already pretty cheap.

I agree there's an overlap.

> But it's a software problem that you can solve ... with enormous economies of scale.

Can be a problem for software that doesn't have such economies of scale.

Cloud is cheap for very basic usage, but costs can increase noticeably when workload increases.

Regarding UX. Some things work better in the cloud while some tasks are not so well suited for the cloud (e.g. latency sensitive tasks, task that require non trivial amount of data transfer between the user and the could).

I have no idea how many casual users would be affected by one or more of these things, if any. Phone centered user could still use cloud for some things. Maybe there would be enough interest, if polished solution becomes available. It could be you are right, I don't really know.