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

This is the thing that bummed me out the most about Microsoft exiting the phone market.

I know Windows isn’t super popular around here, but the idea of carrying one device that I can just dock to work on always intrigued me.

There’s just no way this is taking off with any significant market share in the business world anytime soon being android only, and Apple will never adopt it because they want you to buy 3 different devices. Such a great concept, and with the performance of mobile chips getting so good, very viable.

The problem with this idea is that it's unattainable.

Let's start with something simpler: a living room. There's no universal design that would fit just any living room. The layout and the set of furniture that would work for my living room will not work for yours. Size, shape, windows, doors, connection to other spaces - everything matters. If you want a great design for your living room, you literally need to start from your specific living room.

There's a great idea -- why don't we come with a resizable (reflowable?) design that could fit any living room in the world? While this idea might be entertaining for an engineer's mind, it doesn't work in practice, unless you can settle for just a mediocre design.

Also, being intellectually honest, we need to attack the strongest Apple we can imagine, not a weak Apple that's easy for us to attack. And that strongest Apple will never adopt this idea because they aim to design the best computer/phone/tablet that they can, and in order to design that they need to start with the computer/phone/tablet.

The idea of a phone connecting to a display/keyboard/mouse and becoming a computer has the problem that you could either optimize your design for what you have with a phone, or for what you have with a display and peripherals. It will never be as good as the system designed from the ground up to be just a single thing. It's always nice to have options, but there won't be any mass adoption for the mediocre combo. It was dead in the water with Palm Foleo in 2007, it's just as dead in the water 18 years later.

> could either optimize your design for what you have with a phone, or for what you have with a display and peripherals. It will never be as good as the system designed from the ground up to be just a single thing.

This conclusion looks unsubstantiated to me when you speak of the modern devices that have a sufficient performance for most typical tasks. You probably can't design a gaming computer+phone but nothing prevents you from making a GNU/Linux phone able to work with different desktop environments depending in its current mode. Indeed PureOS and Mobian operating systems already offer that and work well on my smartphone (Librem 5).

Not talking about what's possible or impossible, just not seeing it gaining any significant market traction.

Modern pentathlon is a sport where athletes ("pentathletes") compete across five different events. Even the best of them would be mediocre at best at any specific event competing against athletes who have trained for that specific event.

> just not seeing it gaining any significant market traction

There can be a lot of reasons for that, like the duopoly forces preventing the competition (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656355) or insufficient PR.

> Even the best of them would be mediocre at best at any specific event competing against athletes who have trained for that specific event.

In computing, if you have a general-purpose device, it usually can do most tasks sufficiently well.

> duopoly forces preventing the competition

Aka "malice".

> or insufficient PR

Aka "stupidity".

While I love Hanlon's razor as much as anyone, I love Occam's razor even more. And the simple explanation for that is that people don't like to use a mediocre combo when they could be using several purpose-built devices which excel at a specific job.

I like to go around with my Leatherman, but when I have a real job I get my toolbox out instead.

> it usually can do most tasks sufficiently well

An RV could do many "car tasks" sufficiently well, and it can do many "home tasks" sufficiently well, too. And while it has its place, it can't compete against the car + home combo, which is why most people have cars and homes but not RVs.