They ought to put the status bar at the bottom. All the designers using Macs probably forgot, but Chrome's tab interface was designed for Windows where it could be all the way at the top of the screen. And in general it's more common for desktop apps designed for mouse and keyboard to have frequently accessed UI elements at the top of the window than the bottom. So desktop apps would benefit from being able to use that real estate at the very top of the screen.
This is what you lose when you take a team developing a desktop OS and move it under a team doing a mobile OS.
Elements on the top of the screen have virtually infinite height, and elements in the corners have infinite height and width. You can't aim "too high" for something at the top of the screen.
Status bars on top don't make sense if you have tabs on top. Now your tabs are infinitely smaller, and aiming at them requires a lot more effort.
Mac's original design had the menubar on top, and its windows didn't have tabs, so it all worked fine together. That's not the case for browsers with tabs on top.
The linked article seems to imply that this remains a good design choice even today:
> The use of this rule can be seen for example in MacOS, which always places the menu bar on the top left edge of the screen instead of the current program's windowframe.
I guess now that the browser is the one app you probably spend the most amount of time in, it might make a little less sense? Android's lack of a menu bar system makes it make very little sense there.
I wonder how relevant Fitt's law is with bigger screens and the drastically changed ratio between mouse hand movement and cursor movement on screen. It used to be that you could reach a screen corner with a very simple flick of the mouse hand wrist. But that doesn't feel the same way anymore on modern hardware.
Auto-hide the task bar at the bottom, and you've basically got the Gnome UI. Works just fine. It's the permanent screen reservation of the double task bar that really eats up the usable desk space.
Samsung's task bar (when you enable the DeX integration on a tablet) also supports this and it makes for a fine user experience.
Edit: I've enabled "force desktop mode" on my Pixel 9 Pro and hooked it up to my laptop dock. The UI looks almost exactly the same already. Taskbar at the bottom, notification bar at the top.
It's clearly experimental; my ultrawide screen scales horribly, my keyboard app gets horribly confused, and interacting with the top bar triggers a full-screen tablet overlay that looks a bit weird.
However, Chrome opens multiple windows and browses just fine. There are right-click menus, mouse hover interactions, window resizing features (though some apps require the "force resizable activities" flag). Ethernet Just Works, audio/video just works, and I can operate my phone screen while working in dock mode (so apps that absolutely refuse to work can still be operated through the touch screen).
My previous Pixel (a 4a) had problems with getting unduly warm. I've heard it's better on later models but still not solved. How has your 9 Pro done with heat?
Hiding the bottom bar doesn't solve the problem because it still takes the corners away. You can't put UI there because the bottom bar will come up and cover it when you mouse into the corner. The OS is taking all four corners for itself. Greedy! Apps should have that space. Apps are what we are here to use and the OS is getting in the way.
What I don't get is why they don't design UIs with a status bar on the side - you have so much waster horizontal real estate both in landscape monitors, with every website, code editor having huge bars on the either side of the text.
Smartphones are portrait screens and its clear that having only that much horizontal real estate is enough.
I would put all bars at the top. On a touch-enabled screen it's much easier to touch something at the top than something next to the keyboard, so I move the taskbar to the top on all my Windows two-in-ones.
Why not at the side, though? Better use of the vertical space and no issues with touchscreens (interactable items on top, hand reaching from the side). That's how I do it on every desktop/laptop machine I own.
And ChromeOS is designed for Chrome's tab bar, so that it is at the top edge of the screen, essentially making it infinitely tall. This is one of the things that makes surfing the web more pleasant and ChromeOS then on Windows and Mac.
With many linux window managers you can move the statusbar to the bottom, hide the titlebar and configure chrome to use the (now hidden) system titlebar for the same effect.
I think that the first smartphones were way smaller than today’s ones played a role. They were not that elongated either, the aspect ratio was way closer to a square. I could easily reach the top bar back then. It was definitely not a hurdle. But of course that’s not true for a long time now.
For me the only feature I want from a taskbar/status bar is ability to hide it permanently so it never comes out until I press a key on a keyboard (like meta/Windows key or even a key combination if needed).
Task bar auto popping just because you weren't precise with your mouse and moved it too far down or to the corner is very annoying to me.
I treat it as a test if desktop environment have "we will force our way down your throat" or "we try to make it great for everyone" attitude. Windows and Apple are choosing the former. KDE is choosing the latter.
I am surprised because somehow they get it on phones (hidden by default, needs a gesture to bring down). Real estate on a laptop is a just as precious, especially vertical real estate.
This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget. If you can just plug your phone into a screen you do not need to buy a separate laptop anymore. The browser extensions are the most important part because that is what makes a computer useful. I am glad to see they are thinking about this.
>This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget. If you can just plug your phone into a screen you do not need to buy a separate laptop anymore.
Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices.
But 50 Euros on the used market got me a retired corporate HP/Dell laptop with 1080p screen, intel 8th gen i5 quad core, 8GB RAM and 256GB NVME on which I put Linux. Way better for studying and productivity than my android phone hooked up to the TV.
It's a nice feature to have as a backup in case my laptop dies, but I wouldn't daily drive an android phone as a desktop computer for productivity.
Actually many ridiculously expensive "flagship" smartphones do not have DisplayPort and some do not have even USB 3.
The chances to find DisplayPort in what nowadays have become medium-price smartphones, i.e. $500 to $600, are about as good as finding DisplayPort in a "flagship".
Resell the 8GB of RAM and buy an even better phone then? That's 150 euros of value right there.
Then use the money on a reputable second hand store to buy a used S20 5G 128GB for 150 euros, or a S22 128GB for 145, maybe an S21 Ultra 5G 256GB for 139, and you've got yourself a valiant workstation already (Samsung DeX works great out of the box, no need to wait for Google here). I can also find an S20+ 5G 128GB for 75 euros with display damage (but that doesn't matter when you hook it up to a monitor).
On another website I can find an S20+ 5G with cracks in the edges of the touch screen for 50 euros. That's 12GiB of RAM, 128GiB of storage, a 3200x1440p@120Hz screen and 5G connectivity built in. You're gonna need a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard (that's like what, 5 euros?) to hook it up to the TV but then you're good.
The moto g100 is a good example of a midrange phone with decent specs, including video output. It launched at $400, and can be bought for around $200 these days.
It has a Snapdragon 870, 8gb RAM, 128gb storage, a microSD slot, headphones jack, and a big enough battery to last 2 days. It's a little chunky, and it's not waterproof, but beyond that it's just about everything I ever wanted in a phone.
Motorola, of course, has already abandoned it. But it still gets up-to-date Android via Lineage OS and other community made ROMs.
I'm ignorant on this topic, can you not just plug a USB dock with HDMI out in any android phone and get a display out? I do it all the time on the previous three pixel phones I've had, but I didn't know that this was limited to those?
> Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices.
Might well be that this becomes a lot more common on cheaper phones if it becomes a popular feature though. A display port output isn't currently that useful, so it's something it makes sense to cut from budget models. But if this desktop functionality becomes popular that calculus may change.
You don't wired need display output, just WiFi. Motorola's Smart Connect desktop uses Miracast for using TVs and the like as desktop monitors as well as wired.
I got my moto g84 5G with 8/256 GB for about 170 euros new and it supports it (not wired). Seems to work fine.
Do you understand how much are 50 bucks in a third world country? I mean, Android phone is not the cheapest solution for the poor (obviously) but it helps a lot having this kind of features for a family.
Android Chrome not having extensions is just a build option toggle. It doesn't have extensions because Google doesn't want it to, not for technical reasons.
Yea, I very much doubt they would ever put a browser extension on this. It's funny, I feel as though reading some Google dev's response on reddit about why mobile chrome didn't have extensions was my inflection point when I started to realize they were becoming evil.
So you need to buy a phone, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. And you need a desk where to put the stuff, which is not a given if you are part of a poor family with several kids.
A cheap android phone and a cheap chinese laptop with 16GB of ram is about 300 EUR where I live, and you can use it wherever you want.
I don't think this leak implies that (all/some) Android phones will get desktop projection. It just means that Android has a desktop OS and is likely replacing ChromeOS as has been rumored for a while.
This has existed for more than a decade. Even my old Samsung S10+ had this feature. It's called Samsung DeX and it is not some handicapped environment like iPad OS either, you can actually get real work done, especially if you're a software engineer.
My Moto Edge 2024 has "Ready For" which is basically this still today. I plug in the USB-C cable normally connected to my work MacBook and I instantly get a full desktop experience; mouse, keyboard and sound included.
It's how I play Minecraft with my kids when they get the itch. Sometimes if I know I'm only gonna be zoning out on Youtube at night I'll use to to save a few watts too.
It can do 1440p at 120hz, all on a really affordable phone. It's nice.
Phones were way less powerful 15 years ago and native software was much more important. A modern phone CPU running a browser on a larger screen takes care of a lot of what you need these days.
What makes a computer useful is the form factor (decent size screen, mouse and keyboard instead of touch controls) and having full control of the system. It has nothing to do with browser extensions.
Yeah and we’ll be forced to do this because nobody can afford computers anymore because of Ram and SSD prices because of companies like Google buying it all up at extortionist prices.
We’re going backwards by putting all of our compute back in the warehouse.
You can get a monstrously powerful MacBook almost new for under $500. And that includes display, keyboard, touchpad and speakers. And a whole lot more.
As Google's domination continues, the US and EU need to force mobile OS vendors to open up platforms for third party app installation without gatekeeping, deep menu toggles, or scare walls.
You already need a phone to pay for parking, order at residents, identify yourself with the government, etc. Two companies should not dictate essential life function interaction.
The monopoly grip on this is so tight that it's almost impossible to compete.
On my Pixel 9a (also on GrapheneOS) the biggest limitation is it can't be set to higher than 1080p, and the upscaling algorithm with my 4K display (not sure where in the chain that happens, monitor or phone) was quite terrible to the point of text legibility being a concern.
The usage experience otherwise is quite good, it's perhaps my preferred way to sync data to and from my phone, I have it all stored on a NAS so I connect to my Type-C display (which has keyboard, mouse, and ethernet connected to its switch), fire up a terminal, type in my rsync commands, and my pictures & music are synced ~instantly at LAN speeds.
Is there really a reason to get excited about this? When we look at the path they took with Android on the phones, why should we believe that they will be any different from Microsoft on the desktop?
It is relatively easy to make a secure OS. What is terribly expensive in developer labor is a secure OS that runs a mainstream browser well. Android is an open-source OS that runs a mainstream browser well and is about 100 times more secure than any other open-source Linux distro -- except ChromiumOS. But for some reason, no vibrant open-source project ever formed around ChromiumOS whereas a vibrant open-source project (namely GrapheneOS) has formed around the Android open-source project.
Essentially a clone of Windows 11, and those screenshots make me realise just how much I hate the rounded corners, borderless vagueness, and excess padding of "modern" UI.
Is this serious? Looking at this I feel both bored to death (think "Severance gray office hell" boredom) AND overwhelmed because of the tons of decorations and useless creases and crappy icons and awful text and unnecessary affordances that only made sense 30 years ago when no one knew how to use a computer. Ugh
I agree with the parent comment, but I understand that someone who did not grow up with UIs that looked like that would think otherwise. I do feel that Windows 2000 was peak UI for desktop operating systems, but it's probably due to a combination of nostalgia and the fact that I deeply dislike modern Electron-based UIs with too few decorations and an overly minimalistic and non-customizable "we know best" attitude.
It really does look to be a rewrite of ChromeOS to make it a native Android experience with very few tweaks to the User experience that I can see.
I think it's a good idea on Google's part. The trend of consumers using mobiles as their one and only computing experience is still strong.
This will blend the experience consumers have between desktops and their primary computing platform.
It's a trend with Apple as well. It can be seen in iOS/macOS 26 Tahoe. There's lots of untapped potential in those iPads with M-series CPUs. We've also had rumors of a "MacBook Air Lite" sporting a cellphone A-series CPU. The convergence is happening.
I would love to be able to do more with my Google Pixel phone. Right now, the MacBook is my primary workstation, but the possibility of an even more "mobile" productivity setup is very enticing. Now if only I could get an Android tablet with the new "Terminal" feature in Android 15...
Samsung should not give up DEX, is mature and works exceptionally well with applications that are supported (wireless DEX with my samsung tv works great). Knowing Google, they will give up after 5 iterations or updates will be very slow. It is good for the ecosystem, I hope it will become more mainstream.
I have absolutely no interest in expanding the use of Android in my life. I am, in fact, far more interested in going the other way and trying to reduce my reliance on any locked down platforms.
So you may want to consider GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone). By the way, they have a real desktop mode with desktop apps, not mobile apps on a large screen.
I enjoy cool features like this, but as usual, I'm wary of the consequences.
Android is becoming more and more locked down like iOS. Even if it weren't, it's still always been more locked down than a standard desktop or laptop machine running an operating system of the user's choice.
With the advent of smartphones and tablets, already I see non- and semi-technical users often dropping their laptop or desktop and just using their phone or tablet. (I know people who don't even have a laptop/desktop anymore.)
Android having a full desktop interface will just add fuel to this fire, and further normalize running a locked-down OS and device that users don't truly own or control as their only computing platform.
The OG Motorola Droid, for example: While it clearly wasn't a design intent, there was really nothing of any gravity to stop people from using it in any way they wished.
Rooting was a simple matter of running a hacked su command, and voila: One becomes root. The bootloader wasn't locked at all. Custom kernels and userlands were normal. It was a great little pocket computer to goof around with for anyone who cared enough to give it a swing.
Just install the "missing" su binary and...done.
At the time, I felt that this was a perfectly acceptable way to keep it working reliably for regular folk.
In a way I don't know what I think about them preventing me from modifying "their" certified OS. Many products do that (if I buy a Marshall smartspeaker, it's not like if I can modify the software, is it?).
What I want is to be able to properly install an alternative OS (just like I don't care about what Windows or macOS do, as long as I can install Linux), and that goes with the bootloader unlocking/locking.
The security model of Android and iOS is vastly superior, and for "normal" users it is not so much of a problem if they don't have control they neither need nor want.
On the other hand, I obviously don't like it when I don't have control over my hardware. But what I hate the most is when the manufacturers prevent me from installing an alternative OS. I like being able to install something like GrapheneOS.
Also the fact that I'm forced (in practice) to use the Play Services is not really about the device being locked down.
Vastly superior security doesn't make you give up freedoms for security. But do tell me how successful the war against scams has been for the average user.
I am with you, and for this reason I really want them to fail. The PC is currently still a platform where the user has a relatively large amount of control and digital autonomy, and as long as a sizeable part of the population keeps using it, companies and government institutions cannot ignore it and must support it.
Once 90% of all internet clients are iOS or Android the open internet is dead, and the concept of a general purpose computer on which you can run any computation you want is also inaccessible to the average person. From that point on, everything is a service that you rent from either Apple or Google.
1. Those loading spinners being bumpy pulled my eyes around the screen wildly to the point that they were experiencing pain. They need to be removed.
2. There is a status bar along the top, and an application launcher docked at the bottom. That's way too much vertical space being used, especially on laptops (which I'd wager is going to be the most used viewing modality for this OS). It should be merged into a single bar along one side of the screen.
3. The dropdown at the top left of each window seems to be taking up a lot of space. Especially when you're trying to fit four tabs on the screen. Get rid of it so the tabs can actually be read.
4. At 27 seconds in, there are two close icons in the focused window. That being bad could be a presentation all in itself.
I'm not a visual designer but heres what I think is making it look so bad. The task bar is way to thick. The flat design of the icons needs some shadows or something to make them pop a bit. The rounding on the corners is way to much and needes to be dialed back significantly. There is both a top bar and a bottom bar, pick one ffs dont waste screenspace with both. Also top bar is transparent while bottom is fat and grey. I'd keep the top bar and scrap the bottom.
As far as OS's that look good, #1 KDE Plasma with breeze, MacOS snow leopard, Windows xp and vista.
For desktop use? Windows XP. It's got the right balance of aesthetics and practicality. Windows ME also works, but is more utilitarian. Anything after 7 is just absolute garbage.
I do have it in Pixel 8 after enabling in developer options. It's a bit buggy and low resolution, but does the job when e.g. I want to connect some video I'm already watching on mobile to the external display via USB-C. (You can connect a mouse via Bluetooth to the phone, or via a USB dongle plugged into your monitor, to control it.)
An interesting thing is that you can run apps X and Y on desktop screen while also run app X on mobile screen independently.
No, only the 85% or so of it that's accreted since about 2008. Prior to that it actually made money by offering useful search results without infringing on user privacy. That core business model could still work to power a company about 1/8th the size of current Google. Current Google cannot survive on that model. Something went really wrong when it put growthism above all else.
What went wrong was Google (the old 'do no evil' Google) bought the ad network DoubleClick. The acquired DoubleClick side then took over old Google from the inside out such that what we have today is Doubleclick calling itself "google", no more 'do no evil' old Google anywhere, and all the evil that exists on the advertising side infesting everything they do.
This is why Valve invested so much in Linux. They saw the writing on the wall of Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier). Now they have an alternative. If Microsoft charges a 30% tax on all Steam transactions and won't let Steam run unless they do that, Valve can heavily push Linux and Steam Machine sales.
At least Microsoft haven't fallen so low as to fail basic design principles like having transparent on top of transparent buttons, having disappearing controls depending on window size (scrollbars), or having corners so rounded that the click to drag mostly being outside the actual window.
The Windows 11 UI is annoying, but at least it doesn't look like a kid's toy.
Same, but my PC runs on Linux so I don't feel threatened.
I feel like at some point normies may end up just using iPadOS or Android as a "convergent" device: a tablet/phone that they can plug into a docking station and use as a computer.
I am sort of hoping that it will work with something like GrapheneOS, so that I will be able to benefit from it on my phone.
Well, you should feel threatened. Where do you think the push towards TPM and secure boot is heading? Microsoft is insanely envious of how Apple and Google locked down their platforms and have total control over app stores, and that’s what Microsoft wants too. It’s a huge revenue stream they’re leaving on the table. Now that there’s precedent on mobile, they’ll have no problem pushing it through on desktop.
And once all the normies have moved to iPads, there won’t be a big enough market for anyone to manufacture PC hardware for hobbyists anymore.
Linux seems to be gaining a lot of traction, both with the fall of windows and gaming being more than feasible.
It makes sense for the tech savvy option to succeed, now that personal computing is disappearing. Average folks won’t use a windows/macbook, they’ll use phones and tablets.
My only concern is ending in a macOS+asahi situation where supporting a single device requires mountains of effort.
So just don't use windows? The only reason I use android to begin with is because the mobile centric distros I looked into didn't appear to be to the point I would want to daily drive them yet. If and when that changes I'll switch.
The only real issue is sourcing good mobile hardware that isn't locked down. At least for the time being the pixel line satisfies that.
Many years ago I used to play around with CyanogenMod and Linux.
Life with work and a family became too busy to fuss with that stuff, but I'm rapidly approaching the point where abuse from android and Microsoft make using a less polished OS worth the bother.
Eh, it's better. But it's still a mess unless you're using a device specifically designed for Linux like a Steamdeck or Framework. Expect to spend a lot of time messing around in the console if you install on an arbitrary laptop that came with Windows installed. Wifi problems, sleep problems, external monitor problems, laptop screen brightness problems, graphics card problems.
Is it going to be the same future as Fuchsia OS? There were some good ideas in that one, but then one day it sort of disappeared. Not that that was surprising - Google is good at that.
Unless Google reorganizes and gets more focused, I'd say they are highly likely to repeat their mistakes.
IMHO both Apple and Google are missing a big opportunity here. Both are doing work to blur the lines between desktop and mobile. Both are targeting laptops, ar, phones, and tablets.
These are multiple modalities. Or they should be. But because the way both are structured, these are isolated islands with some interoperability but the whole experience is very device centric.
What's nicer is when you have multiple devices and a clean handover between them. You basically sign in and all your apps and data are there. All the open apps have the same state. They just adapt to the formfactor.
Apple has been taking babysteps here but it's still hopelessly compartmentalizing the market. So switching between devices is a lot of setup and install friction.
And for Google, they've been banging the drum that everything is cloud based since forever. Yet they can't figure out a cross device UX that makes sense. It should be as simple as sign in and all your stuff is there. That was the vision with ChromeOS at some point but then they lost interest, got distracted by Fuchsia, went off and created Flutter and also forgot that Android was the thing that actually has an enormous amount of users and OEMs shipping it.
The trillion dollar opportunity here: if devices become like shoes, many people probably have more than one. Some people have many pairs of shoes for different occasions. But they have only one phone. Because switching between devices is painful. Adding another OS to the mix just kicks that can down the road. Multi device, multi modal access to your stuff is the key thing that they should be nailing. If e.g. Apple were to nail that, some people might have many different devices in different sizes and form factors. The main decision as to which one to use would be based on which is most appropriate for the context.
If you take something like that as the starting point, the logical conclusion is that Google should evolve Android to run on any type of device and make sure that everything plays nice together. Switching between your Android phone(s), tablet, TVs, car, AR/VR goggles, or laptops should not be hard. Devices running a version of Android exist in all those categories. But there's very little/no integration across these.
I don't think nobody has solved the problem of mobile/desktop split so far.
Microsoft's Surface Pro line barely made any difference -- nobody buys it to use it as a tablet, and generally the touch experience is just bad if you have ever used a real tablet.
Apple pretends to try and market iPad as your next computer, but we all know how it works. (They also have this thing that allows phone apps to run natively on MacOS, but that has got near zero traction.)
Samsung tried as well, half-mindedly, and I can confidently say a Samsung phone doesn't work as well as a PC in DeX mode.
So now it's Google. I don't think they can come up with some magic solution to change this.
For me the best solution would be seperate environments with completely different UIs, but running on the same device (probably in a phone form factor)
Apple's in the best position to offer this because they have both Mobile and Desktop OS's. And their chips are already capable of having two OS's installed side-by-side with a strong security barrier (and also more than fast enough to run a full desktop OS). But alas they haven't attempted it yet.
It was an experiment to keep bright engineers busy with cool ideas to show off.Even back then they could have known that it is not a viable idea to make a tectonic platform switch with not much business arguments for it.
I would love for a microkernel, capabilities OS to become standard. Windows and Linux have been bolting on security layers for decades because the modern threat model was barely a concern when they were originally created.
Google actually has the sway that it could drag the industry in that direction.
It is interesting to consider the different developments happening with the big mobile orgs regarding the convergence computing paradigm:
- Samsung’s Dex has been out for a while
- independent devs have been working on Linux “as an app” for some time
- Android desktop interface in this article
- Apple developing video output on iPhones
- Apple working on a Macbook with a mobile chip
- another exciting thing is XR devices and mobile computing
- my concern is convergence computing will reduce the importance of desktop interfaces and the freedom we have to install whatever applications we want
> my concern is convergence computing will reduce the importance of desktop interfaces and the freedom we have to install whatever applications we want
Yep, it absolutely will I expect. All the pieces are being or have been laid to build the new world where only a "trusted" device will be able to use the internet. Us nerds can still have our Linux, but it won't work with much of the internet because we won't be able to pass attestation.
Building to that future is exactly what I would expect from Apple, but Google doing so has surprised me. Google doing so is also the thing that will bring it to pass, so there's a special seed of hatred for them germinating in my heart right now. Hopefully I'm just being alarmist and paranoid, but I really don't think I am.
I think tech companies are realizing that the biggest "mistake" they have ever made was giving so much freedom to the desktop user. They hate that we can look into, modify, and delete files, hate that we can add custom-made software, and hate that we can identify and turn off tracking/telemetry. They realized this with the mobile platform and locked everything down, but by that time it was already too late.
I used to look up to Google and Googlers but that was a big mistake on my part because that only made the following disappointment ever so hurtful. All of the product killing, services/APIs lockdown and disrepair that has been their modus operandi over the last decade made them into just another corporate software company.
> Google doing so has surprised me
Google are absolutely interested in this because more and more people are installing ad blockers and since their main game is advertisement, they can't allow that. The older the retired Google elites become and the less filtered their language becomes, the more you can peer into their minds and decisions leading up to now. Just look at what Eric Schmidt has been doing and saying.
The Chrome Extensions support is the interesting part here. That's often the dealbreaker for using mobile devices as computer replacements.
Google's had this weird situation where Android and ChromeOS overlap more every year. At some point maintaining two operating systems with converging feature sets seems wasteful.
My guess: ChromeOS probably survives for the education market where manageability matters more than capabilities. But for consumers? Android on a big screen with keyboard and mouse might just be good enough.
I'm running AdGuard in Chromium right now. I don't see any ads, even on YouTube. May I ask what did you mean?
Not that I don't think MV3 is limited, but.. we're comparing this against MV2, right? It was already missing basic functionality like full filtering of http responses, I remember a bug about not seeing POST bodies being open for 10+ years..
Maybe they will sort out how terrible it is to try and use a keyboard or keyboard like (i.e. remote control on android TV) on Android apps, I hold out little hope.
So would it make sense to sell a folding plastic shell with screen, keyboard and trackpad in it that you can bring in your bag and pull out to plug your phone into it?
As mentioned in TFA, Android has had a "desktop" phone projection mode for years and it doesn't seem to have caught on. This seems to be a distro for dedicated desktop devices, I’m not sure what the point is when its main competitor would be the other OS Google already makes for those devices.
Last time, the hardware was barely capable of driving a 1080p display at a constant frame rate with more than one app open.
These days, phones are more powerful than the laptops they give to kids to study on.
Samsung DeX has existed for years and works as well as it has for ages. We don't need to wait on Google to make this work. At best, Google will make this type of tech available in software so you can Chromecast/Miracast/whatever it to your display when your cheap phone doesn't do DP-Alt mode.
What I think this is more likely to be about is ChromeOS being killed and Android taking its place. It's not secret that Google is working on that, this just seems to be someone dogfeeding the latest build of the desktop Android build.
Portable monitor + mouse + keyboard makes more sense to me.
But this can also be cast to a tv, for example. I assume you can use the phone itself as a trackpad. So the only extra hardware you need is a cheap Bluetooth keyboard which you can get for $15.
I had that it was a cool concept but it kinda sucked. It would have been great for doing stuff over SSH but not much else as the hardware was lacking at the time
I've always wanted a keyboard+screen with a slot for a phone as the trackpad. Saving any money over a regular trackpad? No. Cool as hell? I think so at least...
Oh, I see Google's angle now. They want to make android a viable desktop OS in order to have more users using android Chrome rather than Windows Chrome, because the former lacks extension support, and thus ad blockers. Of course, you can still install brave or kiwi browser or Firefox to your heart's content, but most people won't. It's brilliantly simple. It's not too bad for power users, they'll probably use a different browser, or for developers, given the work they're putting into the Linux containers, but for most users...we'll see the expected result.
> The Google Chrome interface mostly aligns with the current large-screen Android version except for the Extensions button, which is currently only available on the desktop browser.
That's already here. Android has native terminal in the developer settings and it even has a Wayland graphical environment. I have run Weston with a desktop chromium inside, playing a youtube video with sound.
It appears ChromeOS is being killed and they're porting much of its feature set into Android. This may be marketed as "ChromeOS", with identical functionality, and consumers won't be none the wiser.
The Android system is such a pain to work with. I’m curious to see whether they actually fixed the fundamentals making it unappealing for general purpose computing or they just stuck Android onto Chromebooks (guessing the latter).
Samsung made DeX at some point for the exact same purpose, but that's a Samsung special.
Google already has this in their Pixel phones (8+). Plug a Pixel into a standard laptop dock (may need to enter dev settings and tick the "force desktop mode" toggle) and you're welcomed by pretty much exactly this UI.
Seemed potentially like a new kernel, rather than a new OS, and thus potentially a replacement for the Android kernel one day.
But that would mean all of the Android SDKs would need to be abstracted away from Linux, but it seems like they abandoned some of that effort and are mostly just emulating Android on Fuschia for now.
Windows keeps getting worse, but it's still not as bad as Android. It's like how an iPad with macOS would be great, but a MacBook with iOS would be terrible.
I've been using Fedora part-time and I'm quite happy with it. Although I access the Android ecosystem via Waydroid—which, I know, isn't a true 'Android desktop'—the reality is that few Android apps are actually designed for a desktop experience.
Android makes me feel like it wants to convince me that rooting is considered too dangerous even for advanced users—you have to be a developer to handle it, or you will kill yourself.
But it might be good news for the ARM platform. Given how fragmented ARM is, Windows on ARM has turned out to be an even bigger disaster, making a Linux-based approach a much more promising alternative.
My Huawei P20 Pro did this in 2018. It was fabulous, turned the OS into a mini-computer with a taskbar, desktop, icons, browser etc. It was still the best phone Ive ever owned (and I used to work at Google). It was no wonder Google killed with GSM. It was light years ahead even back then and they really hate competition.
I wonder what does this mean for the attestation layer? If you can run banking apps on a desktop, this would be a massive game changer for many of us who only use normie OSes because of the need to use services that are mobile app only (or with functionally limited web apps). Means we would only need to keep a single phone rather than two
Why on Earth would anyone wilingly use an OS where Google thinks they have the right to block or make it really hard to install non App Store apps? even if initially they allow you, they've shown their plan.
If this allows one to still have (linux terminals?), then its (fine?) but Klaster_1 suggests that installing software would become hard without OS vendor blessing.
I mean, is this OS literally just android with a more desktop like UI?
Didn't Samsung have something like this called (just searched) Samsung Dex?
What I would prefer is a linux device phone being more widespread than Android PC. Linux in PC is mostly pretty good.
We probably need some good linux phones. One of the biggest issues I find is that they are really price-y so even though I don't want much specs, I find it troubling to justify a 2x price increase in such sense.
> Didn't Samsung have something like this called (just searched) Samsung Dex?
Samsung Dex still exists and still sucks. It's probably the best desktop experience available on Android but it's nowhere near usable as a daily driver. It feels a like a lightweight window manager from the 2008 era.
The good part about this is they've invested in bringing extensions support to Chrome.. of course only those "desktop" builds, but the code is there and for now you can use this on normal Android - if you compile it for yourself or download the Chromium APK.
I wonder whether they'll keep pretending that extensions are not supported on Android, perhaps even intentionally breaking support on mobile.. or maybe they'll stop this madness and just support extensions officially..
God this looks like a nightmare. Using Android on a desktop would be a fascist dystopia. Using it on phones is bad enough, computing while wearing a straight-jacket, but now they're going to have complete control of our computers and spy on everything we do on it? I can't imagine a worse outcome for the PC.
They ought to put the status bar at the bottom. All the designers using Macs probably forgot, but Chrome's tab interface was designed for Windows where it could be all the way at the top of the screen. And in general it's more common for desktop apps designed for mouse and keyboard to have frequently accessed UI elements at the top of the window than the bottom. So desktop apps would benefit from being able to use that real estate at the very top of the screen.
This is what you lose when you take a team developing a desktop OS and move it under a team doing a mobile OS.
Elements on the top of the screen have virtually infinite height, and elements in the corners have infinite height and width. You can't aim "too high" for something at the top of the screen.
Status bars on top don't make sense if you have tabs on top. Now your tabs are infinitely smaller, and aiming at them requires a lot more effort.
Mac's original design had the menubar on top, and its windows didn't have tabs, so it all worked fine together. That's not the case for browsers with tabs on top.
Along the way, it seems most designers have forgotten about Fitt's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts's_law#Implications_for_U...
The linked article seems to imply that this remains a good design choice even today:
> The use of this rule can be seen for example in MacOS, which always places the menu bar on the top left edge of the screen instead of the current program's windowframe.
I guess now that the browser is the one app you probably spend the most amount of time in, it might make a little less sense? Android's lack of a menu bar system makes it make very little sense there.
I wonder how relevant Fitt's law is with bigger screens and the drastically changed ratio between mouse hand movement and cursor movement on screen. It used to be that you could reach a screen corner with a very simple flick of the mouse hand wrist. But that doesn't feel the same way anymore on modern hardware.
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Auto-hide the task bar at the bottom, and you've basically got the Gnome UI. Works just fine. It's the permanent screen reservation of the double task bar that really eats up the usable desk space.
Samsung's task bar (when you enable the DeX integration on a tablet) also supports this and it makes for a fine user experience.
Edit: I've enabled "force desktop mode" on my Pixel 9 Pro and hooked it up to my laptop dock. The UI looks almost exactly the same already. Taskbar at the bottom, notification bar at the top.
It's clearly experimental; my ultrawide screen scales horribly, my keyboard app gets horribly confused, and interacting with the top bar triggers a full-screen tablet overlay that looks a bit weird.
However, Chrome opens multiple windows and browses just fine. There are right-click menus, mouse hover interactions, window resizing features (though some apps require the "force resizable activities" flag). Ethernet Just Works, audio/video just works, and I can operate my phone screen while working in dock mode (so apps that absolutely refuse to work can still be operated through the touch screen).
My previous Pixel (a 4a) had problems with getting unduly warm. I've heard it's better on later models but still not solved. How has your 9 Pro done with heat?
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Hiding the bottom bar doesn't solve the problem because it still takes the corners away. You can't put UI there because the bottom bar will come up and cover it when you mouse into the corner. The OS is taking all four corners for itself. Greedy! Apps should have that space. Apps are what we are here to use and the OS is getting in the way.
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Inexplicably, Samsung removed the ability to hide the taskbar with One UI 8 last year.
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What I don't get is why they don't design UIs with a status bar on the side - you have so much waster horizontal real estate both in landscape monitors, with every website, code editor having huge bars on the either side of the text.
Smartphones are portrait screens and its clear that having only that much horizontal real estate is enough.
I always put my taskbar on the side, both on MacOS and Windows. Well, I used to on Windows but apparently that’s too much to ask from Windows 11.
I would put all bars at the top. On a touch-enabled screen it's much easier to touch something at the top than something next to the keyboard, so I move the taskbar to the top on all my Windows two-in-ones.
Shout out to https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher for forcing this behavior even on Windows 11.
Why not at the side, though? Better use of the vertical space and no issues with touchscreens (interactable items on top, hand reaching from the side). That's how I do it on every desktop/laptop machine I own.
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And ChromeOS is designed for Chrome's tab bar, so that it is at the top edge of the screen, essentially making it infinitely tall. This is one of the things that makes surfing the web more pleasant and ChromeOS then on Windows and Mac.
With many linux window managers you can move the statusbar to the bottom, hide the titlebar and configure chrome to use the (now hidden) system titlebar for the same effect.
Agreed. Those few little icons at the top are wasting an entire row on the screen. That junk can go in the corner of the taskbar like Windows.
I think that the first smartphones were way smaller than today’s ones played a role. They were not that elongated either, the aspect ratio was way closer to a square. I could easily reach the top bar back then. It was definitely not a hurdle. But of course that’s not true for a long time now.
Agree. They should make the desktop UI similar to what is there on ChromeOS or Samsung Dex. The top bar doesn't make sense at all.
For me the only feature I want from a taskbar/status bar is ability to hide it permanently so it never comes out until I press a key on a keyboard (like meta/Windows key or even a key combination if needed). Task bar auto popping just because you weren't precise with your mouse and moved it too far down or to the corner is very annoying to me. I treat it as a test if desktop environment have "we will force our way down your throat" or "we try to make it great for everyone" attitude. Windows and Apple are choosing the former. KDE is choosing the latter.
I am surprised because somehow they get it on phones (hidden by default, needs a gesture to bring down). Real estate on a laptop is a just as precious, especially vertical real estate.
iOS did exactly this and it’s so much better for usage
This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget. If you can just plug your phone into a screen you do not need to buy a separate laptop anymore. The browser extensions are the most important part because that is what makes a computer useful. I am glad to see they are thinking about this.
>This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget. If you can just plug your phone into a screen you do not need to buy a separate laptop anymore.
Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices.
But 50 Euros on the used market got me a retired corporate HP/Dell laptop with 1080p screen, intel 8th gen i5 quad core, 8GB RAM and 256GB NVME on which I put Linux. Way better for studying and productivity than my android phone hooked up to the TV.
It's a nice feature to have as a backup in case my laptop dies, but I wouldn't daily drive an android phone as a desktop computer for productivity.
Actually many ridiculously expensive "flagship" smartphones do not have DisplayPort and some do not have even USB 3.
The chances to find DisplayPort in what nowadays have become medium-price smartphones, i.e. $500 to $600, are about as good as finding DisplayPort in a "flagship".
Resell the 8GB of RAM and buy an even better phone then? That's 150 euros of value right there.
Then use the money on a reputable second hand store to buy a used S20 5G 128GB for 150 euros, or a S22 128GB for 145, maybe an S21 Ultra 5G 256GB for 139, and you've got yourself a valiant workstation already (Samsung DeX works great out of the box, no need to wait for Google here). I can also find an S20+ 5G 128GB for 75 euros with display damage (but that doesn't matter when you hook it up to a monitor).
On another website I can find an S20+ 5G with cracks in the edges of the touch screen for 50 euros. That's 12GiB of RAM, 128GiB of storage, a 3200x1440p@120Hz screen and 5G connectivity built in. You're gonna need a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard (that's like what, 5 euros?) to hook it up to the TV but then you're good.
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A 2-3 generation old pixel on the second hand marker is not expensive at all though.
And you easily add a mouse/keyboard just fine to it.
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The moto g100 is a good example of a midrange phone with decent specs, including video output. It launched at $400, and can be bought for around $200 these days.
It has a Snapdragon 870, 8gb RAM, 128gb storage, a microSD slot, headphones jack, and a big enough battery to last 2 days. It's a little chunky, and it's not waterproof, but beyond that it's just about everything I ever wanted in a phone.
Motorola, of course, has already abandoned it. But it still gets up-to-date Android via Lineage OS and other community made ROMs.
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I'm ignorant on this topic, can you not just plug a USB dock with HDMI out in any android phone and get a display out? I do it all the time on the previous three pixel phones I've had, but I didn't know that this was limited to those?
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> Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices.
Might well be that this becomes a lot more common on cheaper phones if it becomes a popular feature though. A display port output isn't currently that useful, so it's something it makes sense to cut from budget models. But if this desktop functionality becomes popular that calculus may change.
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> Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices.
There are exceptions. For example, the Motorola Edge has DP Alt Mode.
https://uperfect.com/blogs/wikimonitor/list-of-smartphones-w...
You don't wired need display output, just WiFi. Motorola's Smart Connect desktop uses Miracast for using TVs and the like as desktop monitors as well as wired.
I got my moto g84 5G with 8/256 GB for about 170 euros new and it supports it (not wired). Seems to work fine.
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> Except that android phones with display output are mostly flagships with flagship prices.
My Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE was like $80 in 2015 and had a mini HDMI. I expect nowadays most phones can output display over USB-C.
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Do you understand how much are 50 bucks in a third world country? I mean, Android phone is not the cheapest solution for the poor (obviously) but it helps a lot having this kind of features for a family.
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Android Chrome not having extensions is just a build option toggle. It doesn't have extensions because Google doesn't want it to, not for technical reasons.
It'd be really weird if extensions got enabled/disabled based on whether the USB cable is plugged into a monitor or not.
I expect the eventual production version of this will have extensions if and only if the normal Android Chrome has extensions at that time.
Yea, I very much doubt they would ever put a browser extension on this. It's funny, I feel as though reading some Google dev's response on reddit about why mobile chrome didn't have extensions was my inflection point when I started to realize they were becoming evil.
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So you need to buy a phone, a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. And you need a desk where to put the stuff, which is not a given if you are part of a poor family with several kids.
A cheap android phone and a cheap chinese laptop with 16GB of ram is about 300 EUR where I live, and you can use it wherever you want.
I don't think this leak implies that (all/some) Android phones will get desktop projection. It just means that Android has a desktop OS and is likely replacing ChromeOS as has been rumored for a while.
What might have been...
Windows Phone was on this path ages ago, and looking really good.
I eagerly await one of two dreams (or both):
1. A phone which can seamlessly function as a desktop for my work.
2. A new clamshell Android phone ala Nokia e90, which is good enough for work stuff on the go.
This has existed for more than a decade. Even my old Samsung S10+ had this feature. It's called Samsung DeX and it is not some handicapped environment like iPad OS either, you can actually get real work done, especially if you're a software engineer.
https://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/app/samsung-dex
How will this succeed where the Motorola Atrix failed way back in 2011?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/03/the-motorola-atrix-4...
My Moto Edge 2024 has "Ready For" which is basically this still today. I plug in the USB-C cable normally connected to my work MacBook and I instantly get a full desktop experience; mouse, keyboard and sound included.
It's how I play Minecraft with my kids when they get the itch. Sometimes if I know I'm only gonna be zoning out on Youtube at night I'll use to to save a few watts too.
It can do 1440p at 120hz, all on a really affordable phone. It's nice.
ChromeOS has a bigger influence on the market than a random phone model from CES when Android was still establishing itself.
How as adoption been for Samsung's DEX?
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Phones were way less powerful 15 years ago and native software was much more important. A modern phone CPU running a browser on a larger screen takes care of a lot of what you need these days.
> This looks like it will help a lot of students and families who are on a budget.
Playing gameas or what ? Working with files on Android is a PITA.
What makes a computer useful is the form factor (decent size screen, mouse and keyboard instead of touch controls) and having full control of the system. It has nothing to do with browser extensions.
Yeah and we’ll be forced to do this because nobody can afford computers anymore because of Ram and SSD prices because of companies like Google buying it all up at extortionist prices.
We’re going backwards by putting all of our compute back in the warehouse.
You can get a monstrously powerful MacBook almost new for under $500. And that includes display, keyboard, touchpad and speakers. And a whole lot more.
As Google's domination continues, the US and EU need to force mobile OS vendors to open up platforms for third party app installation without gatekeeping, deep menu toggles, or scare walls.
You already need a phone to pay for parking, order at residents, identify yourself with the government, etc. Two companies should not dictate essential life function interaction.
The monopoly grip on this is so tight that it's almost impossible to compete.
Tried the desktop mode on my Pixel 8 running GrapheneOS. It's getting very close to being usable.
https://imgur.com/a/Wfv6Hmt
On my Pixel 9a (also on GrapheneOS) the biggest limitation is it can't be set to higher than 1080p, and the upscaling algorithm with my 4K display (not sure where in the chain that happens, monitor or phone) was quite terrible to the point of text legibility being a concern.
The usage experience otherwise is quite good, it's perhaps my preferred way to sync data to and from my phone, I have it all stored on a NAS so I connect to my Type-C display (which has keyboard, mouse, and ethernet connected to its switch), fire up a terminal, type in my rsync commands, and my pictures & music are synced ~instantly at LAN speeds.
Dang. is that tmux, cmatrix, mise, and node running on your android device? Or is that an ssh session?
Is there really a reason to get excited about this? When we look at the path they took with Android on the phones, why should we believe that they will be any different from Microsoft on the desktop?
It is relatively easy to make a secure OS. What is terribly expensive in developer labor is a secure OS that runs a mainstream browser well. Android is an open-source OS that runs a mainstream browser well and is about 100 times more secure than any other open-source Linux distro -- except ChromiumOS. But for some reason, no vibrant open-source project ever formed around ChromiumOS whereas a vibrant open-source project (namely GrapheneOS) has formed around the Android open-source project.
Essentially a clone of Windows 11, and those screenshots make me realise just how much I hate the rounded corners, borderless vagueness, and excess padding of "modern" UI.
For contrast, this UI is more my style: https://serenityos.org/screenshot-b36968c.png
SerenityOS GUI is a dream
Is this serious? Looking at this I feel both bored to death (think "Severance gray office hell" boredom) AND overwhelmed because of the tons of decorations and useless creases and crappy icons and awful text and unnecessary affordances that only made sense 30 years ago when no one knew how to use a computer. Ugh
I agree with the parent comment, but I understand that someone who did not grow up with UIs that looked like that would think otherwise. I do feel that Windows 2000 was peak UI for desktop operating systems, but it's probably due to a combination of nostalgia and the fact that I deeply dislike modern Electron-based UIs with too few decorations and an overly minimalistic and non-customizable "we know best" attitude.
Tell me you're nostalgic for Win95 without telling me...
I too love that style, but it won't work today, because many apps today are Electron slop that disregards user preference and styles itself.
It really does look to be a rewrite of ChromeOS to make it a native Android experience with very few tweaks to the User experience that I can see.
I think it's a good idea on Google's part. The trend of consumers using mobiles as their one and only computing experience is still strong. This will blend the experience consumers have between desktops and their primary computing platform.
It's a trend with Apple as well. It can be seen in iOS/macOS 26 Tahoe. There's lots of untapped potential in those iPads with M-series CPUs. We've also had rumors of a "MacBook Air Lite" sporting a cellphone A-series CPU. The convergence is happening.
I would love to be able to do more with my Google Pixel phone. Right now, the MacBook is my primary workstation, but the possibility of an even more "mobile" productivity setup is very enticing. Now if only I could get an Android tablet with the new "Terminal" feature in Android 15...
I highly doubt Apple convergence is going to happen.
A fully capable iPad would mean less sales of MacBook Air and so on.
An iPhone with official docking Desktop UI also never going to happen. Same story.
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Apparently people play Fortnite on Mac by repackaging the iPhone app.
There's no official Mac app, but the Mac/iOS APIs that Unreal Engine needs are similar enough that you just need to change the packaging.
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Samsung should not give up DEX, is mature and works exceptionally well with applications that are supported (wireless DEX with my samsung tv works great). Knowing Google, they will give up after 5 iterations or updates will be very slow. It is good for the ecosystem, I hope it will become more mainstream.
I have absolutely no interest in expanding the use of Android in my life. I am, in fact, far more interested in going the other way and trying to reduce my reliance on any locked down platforms.
So you may want to consider GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone). By the way, they have a real desktop mode with desktop apps, not mobile apps on a large screen.
I enjoy cool features like this, but as usual, I'm wary of the consequences.
Android is becoming more and more locked down like iOS. Even if it weren't, it's still always been more locked down than a standard desktop or laptop machine running an operating system of the user's choice.
With the advent of smartphones and tablets, already I see non- and semi-technical users often dropping their laptop or desktop and just using their phone or tablet. (I know people who don't even have a laptop/desktop anymore.)
Android having a full desktop interface will just add fuel to this fire, and further normalize running a locked-down OS and device that users don't truly own or control as their only computing platform.
It wasn't always so locked-down as it is today.
The OG Motorola Droid, for example: While it clearly wasn't a design intent, there was really nothing of any gravity to stop people from using it in any way they wished.
Rooting was a simple matter of running a hacked su command, and voila: One becomes root. The bootloader wasn't locked at all. Custom kernels and userlands were normal. It was a great little pocket computer to goof around with for anyone who cared enough to give it a swing.
Just install the "missing" su binary and...done.
At the time, I felt that this was a perfectly acceptable way to keep it working reliably for regular folk.
In a way I don't know what I think about them preventing me from modifying "their" certified OS. Many products do that (if I buy a Marshall smartspeaker, it's not like if I can modify the software, is it?).
What I want is to be able to properly install an alternative OS (just like I don't care about what Windows or macOS do, as long as I can install Linux), and that goes with the bootloader unlocking/locking.
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I have mixed feelings as well.
The security model of Android and iOS is vastly superior, and for "normal" users it is not so much of a problem if they don't have control they neither need nor want.
On the other hand, I obviously don't like it when I don't have control over my hardware. But what I hate the most is when the manufacturers prevent me from installing an alternative OS. I like being able to install something like GrapheneOS.
Also the fact that I'm forced (in practice) to use the Play Services is not really about the device being locked down.
> The security model of Android and iOS is vastly superior
"This app requires access to all your files. OK [X] Close []"
Vastly superior security doesn't make you give up freedoms for security. But do tell me how successful the war against scams has been for the average user.
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I am with you, and for this reason I really want them to fail. The PC is currently still a platform where the user has a relatively large amount of control and digital autonomy, and as long as a sizeable part of the population keeps using it, companies and government institutions cannot ignore it and must support it.
Once 90% of all internet clients are iOS or Android the open internet is dead, and the concept of a general purpose computer on which you can run any computation you want is also inaccessible to the average person. From that point on, everything is a service that you rent from either Apple or Google.
The visual design is just so bad. Its so ugly and souless. I actually feel bad for the UI designer that had to put their name behind that.
Unfortunately, it's just generally true that when a bunch of engineers complain about your UI, it probably will be well received by regular people.
What would you want to see different from this? is there an OS that actually looks good?
Right off the bat:
1. Those loading spinners being bumpy pulled my eyes around the screen wildly to the point that they were experiencing pain. They need to be removed.
2. There is a status bar along the top, and an application launcher docked at the bottom. That's way too much vertical space being used, especially on laptops (which I'd wager is going to be the most used viewing modality for this OS). It should be merged into a single bar along one side of the screen.
3. The dropdown at the top left of each window seems to be taking up a lot of space. Especially when you're trying to fit four tabs on the screen. Get rid of it so the tabs can actually be read.
4. At 27 seconds in, there are two close icons in the focused window. That being bad could be a presentation all in itself.
5. Random padding in the status bar.
Unironically: win 10, or kde plasma - breeze dark.
I'm not a visual designer but heres what I think is making it look so bad. The task bar is way to thick. The flat design of the icons needs some shadows or something to make them pop a bit. The rounding on the corners is way to much and needes to be dialed back significantly. There is both a top bar and a bottom bar, pick one ffs dont waste screenspace with both. Also top bar is transparent while bottom is fat and grey. I'd keep the top bar and scrap the bottom.
As far as OS's that look good, #1 KDE Plasma with breeze, MacOS snow leopard, Windows xp and vista.
MacOS up until Catalina
Windows 7 with the Shine 2.0 theme
Gnome Adwaita
QNX Photon 6
BeOS R5
I'm sure there's more good examples. People here will say Windows 2000, but I don't think it has any grace.
Mac OS X Snow Leopard, GOAT
For desktop use? Windows XP. It's got the right balance of aesthetics and practicality. Windows ME also works, but is more utilitarian. Anything after 7 is just absolute garbage.
Looks great. Hope the team polishes it up before release. The visual nits in shipping Google products make my eyes bleed.
No thanks to SpyOS.
Some "first look"
It's just a slightly different showcase of the same UI shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzDO-GS-Bm8
That UI is available to test on any Pixel 10 (maybe even any Android 16 device?)
I do have it in Pixel 8 after enabling in developer options. It's a bit buggy and low resolution, but does the job when e.g. I want to connect some video I'm already watching on mobile to the external display via USB-C. (You can connect a mouse via Bluetooth to the phone, or via a USB dongle plugged into your monitor, to control it.)
An interesting thing is that you can run apps X and Y on desktop screen while also run app X on mobile screen independently.
*I meant "app Z on mobile screen", can't edit anymore.
Google’s entire business is predicated on collecting as much data on users as possible. This OS will be the worst spyware imaginable.
No, only the 85% or so of it that's accreted since about 2008. Prior to that it actually made money by offering useful search results without infringing on user privacy. That core business model could still work to power a company about 1/8th the size of current Google. Current Google cannot survive on that model. Something went really wrong when it put growthism above all else.
> Something went really wrong
What went wrong was Google (the old 'do no evil' Google) bought the ad network DoubleClick. The acquired DoubleClick side then took over old Google from the inside out such that what we have today is Doubleclick calling itself "google", no more 'do no evil' old Google anywhere, and all the evil that exists on the advertising side infesting everything they do.
That ship sailed many years ago with Windows 11, and Windows 10 to some extent.
By the way, you forgot Android itself.
Chrome and Android look like yin and yang: one never knows which one is planned to run inside the other.
I don't want a "PC future" where you can't just install software without OS vendor blessing.
This is why Valve invested so much in Linux. They saw the writing on the wall of Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier). Now they have an alternative. If Microsoft charges a 30% tax on all Steam transactions and won't let Steam run unless they do that, Valve can heavily push Linux and Steam Machine sales.
And yet they failed to get game devs to natively target SteamOS.
As long as they depend on Proton, they haven't fully solved their problem.
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> Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier)
At least Microsoft haven't fallen so low as to fail basic design principles like having transparent on top of transparent buttons, having disappearing controls depending on window size (scrollbars), or having corners so rounded that the click to drag mostly being outside the actual window.
The Windows 11 UI is annoying, but at least it doesn't look like a kid's toy.
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Same, but my PC runs on Linux so I don't feel threatened.
I feel like at some point normies may end up just using iPadOS or Android as a "convergent" device: a tablet/phone that they can plug into a docking station and use as a computer.
I am sort of hoping that it will work with something like GrapheneOS, so that I will be able to benefit from it on my phone.
> my PC runs on Linux so I don't feel threatened.
Well, you should feel threatened. Where do you think the push towards TPM and secure boot is heading? Microsoft is insanely envious of how Apple and Google locked down their platforms and have total control over app stores, and that’s what Microsoft wants too. It’s a huge revenue stream they’re leaving on the table. Now that there’s precedent on mobile, they’ll have no problem pushing it through on desktop.
And once all the normies have moved to iPads, there won’t be a big enough market for anyone to manufacture PC hardware for hobbyists anymore.
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> I am sort of hoping that it will work with something like GrapheneOS, so that I will be able to benefit from it on my phone.
It does. I already tried it on my Pixel 10 Pro. :)
Neither do I. But with Windows slipping badly, Google could start encroaching on their core tech.
Linux seems to be gaining a lot of traction, both with the fall of windows and gaming being more than feasible.
It makes sense for the tech savvy option to succeed, now that personal computing is disappearing. Average folks won’t use a windows/macbook, they’ll use phones and tablets.
My only concern is ending in a macOS+asahi situation where supporting a single device requires mountains of effort.
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So just don't use windows? The only reason I use android to begin with is because the mobile centric distros I looked into didn't appear to be to the point I would want to daily drive them yet. If and when that changes I'll switch.
The only real issue is sourcing good mobile hardware that isn't locked down. At least for the time being the pixel line satisfies that.
Cookie banner doesn't have reject-all button
Isn't that against the rules nowadays?
The rule based world order is over. /s
Many years ago I used to play around with CyanogenMod and Linux.
Life with work and a family became too busy to fuss with that stuff, but I'm rapidly approaching the point where abuse from android and Microsoft make using a less polished OS worth the bother.
You'll be happy to hear then that the experience has improved significantly over the past decade.
Eh, it's better. But it's still a mess unless you're using a device specifically designed for Linux like a Steamdeck or Framework. Expect to spend a lot of time messing around in the console if you install on an arbitrary laptop that came with Windows installed. Wifi problems, sleep problems, external monitor problems, laptop screen brightness problems, graphics card problems.
Does it still require wiping your drive and enabling developer mode to install software outside the Play Store like ChromeOS does? DOA if so.
I believe you can run Linux in a container and use apt-get.
https://chromeos.dev/en/linux/setup
Using applications with a GUI isn't a very enjoyable experience in that environment.
Is it going to be the same future as Fuchsia OS? There were some good ideas in that one, but then one day it sort of disappeared. Not that that was surprising - Google is good at that.
Unless Google reorganizes and gets more focused, I'd say they are highly likely to repeat their mistakes.
IMHO both Apple and Google are missing a big opportunity here. Both are doing work to blur the lines between desktop and mobile. Both are targeting laptops, ar, phones, and tablets.
These are multiple modalities. Or they should be. But because the way both are structured, these are isolated islands with some interoperability but the whole experience is very device centric.
What's nicer is when you have multiple devices and a clean handover between them. You basically sign in and all your apps and data are there. All the open apps have the same state. They just adapt to the formfactor.
Apple has been taking babysteps here but it's still hopelessly compartmentalizing the market. So switching between devices is a lot of setup and install friction.
And for Google, they've been banging the drum that everything is cloud based since forever. Yet they can't figure out a cross device UX that makes sense. It should be as simple as sign in and all your stuff is there. That was the vision with ChromeOS at some point but then they lost interest, got distracted by Fuchsia, went off and created Flutter and also forgot that Android was the thing that actually has an enormous amount of users and OEMs shipping it.
The trillion dollar opportunity here: if devices become like shoes, many people probably have more than one. Some people have many pairs of shoes for different occasions. But they have only one phone. Because switching between devices is painful. Adding another OS to the mix just kicks that can down the road. Multi device, multi modal access to your stuff is the key thing that they should be nailing. If e.g. Apple were to nail that, some people might have many different devices in different sizes and form factors. The main decision as to which one to use would be based on which is most appropriate for the context.
If you take something like that as the starting point, the logical conclusion is that Google should evolve Android to run on any type of device and make sure that everything plays nice together. Switching between your Android phone(s), tablet, TVs, car, AR/VR goggles, or laptops should not be hard. Devices running a version of Android exist in all those categories. But there's very little/no integration across these.
I don't think nobody has solved the problem of mobile/desktop split so far.
Microsoft's Surface Pro line barely made any difference -- nobody buys it to use it as a tablet, and generally the touch experience is just bad if you have ever used a real tablet.
Apple pretends to try and market iPad as your next computer, but we all know how it works. (They also have this thing that allows phone apps to run natively on MacOS, but that has got near zero traction.)
Samsung tried as well, half-mindedly, and I can confidently say a Samsung phone doesn't work as well as a PC in DeX mode.
So now it's Google. I don't think they can come up with some magic solution to change this.
What is Apple doing to blur the line between desktop and mobile? Is it the abomination they call iPadOS? It's a joke, it's nothing more than iOS+.
They've made it perfectly clear that they want to keep desktop and mobile separate in order to convince their customers to buy all their devices.
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For me the best solution would be seperate environments with completely different UIs, but running on the same device (probably in a phone form factor)
Apple's in the best position to offer this because they have both Mobile and Desktop OS's. And their chips are already capable of having two OS's installed side-by-side with a strong security barrier (and also more than fast enough to run a full desktop OS). But alas they haven't attempted it yet.
It was an experiment to keep bright engineers busy with cool ideas to show off.Even back then they could have known that it is not a viable idea to make a tectonic platform switch with not much business arguments for it.
I would love for a microkernel, capabilities OS to become standard. Windows and Linux have been bolting on security layers for decades because the modern threat model was barely a concern when they were originally created.
Google actually has the sway that it could drag the industry in that direction.
I don't think so. Feels like it was more about getting away from Linux and all the driver issues it entails.
It's a very long-term bet for sure.
I believe the Google Nest devices ship with Fuchsia
I'm sure they will be discontinued in a few days.
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This effort is the abandonment. This is ChromeOS bring shut down, this is the one taking over the many.
It is interesting to consider the different developments happening with the big mobile orgs regarding the convergence computing paradigm:
- Samsung’s Dex has been out for a while - independent devs have been working on Linux “as an app” for some time - Android desktop interface in this article - Apple developing video output on iPhones - Apple working on a Macbook with a mobile chip
- another exciting thing is XR devices and mobile computing
- my concern is convergence computing will reduce the importance of desktop interfaces and the freedom we have to install whatever applications we want
> my concern is convergence computing will reduce the importance of desktop interfaces and the freedom we have to install whatever applications we want
Yep, it absolutely will I expect. All the pieces are being or have been laid to build the new world where only a "trusted" device will be able to use the internet. Us nerds can still have our Linux, but it won't work with much of the internet because we won't be able to pass attestation.
Building to that future is exactly what I would expect from Apple, but Google doing so has surprised me. Google doing so is also the thing that will bring it to pass, so there's a special seed of hatred for them germinating in my heart right now. Hopefully I'm just being alarmist and paranoid, but I really don't think I am.
Some Refs:
Web Environment Integrity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity
Private Access Token: https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=huqjyh7k
I think tech companies are realizing that the biggest "mistake" they have ever made was giving so much freedom to the desktop user. They hate that we can look into, modify, and delete files, hate that we can add custom-made software, and hate that we can identify and turn off tracking/telemetry. They realized this with the mobile platform and locked everything down, but by that time it was already too late.
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If this trend continues, then self-hosting may become the final bastion of hobbyist FOSS.
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I used to look up to Google and Googlers but that was a big mistake on my part because that only made the following disappointment ever so hurtful. All of the product killing, services/APIs lockdown and disrepair that has been their modus operandi over the last decade made them into just another corporate software company.
> Google doing so has surprised me Google are absolutely interested in this because more and more people are installing ad blockers and since their main game is advertisement, they can't allow that. The older the retired Google elites become and the less filtered their language becomes, the more you can peer into their minds and decisions leading up to now. Just look at what Eric Schmidt has been doing and saying.
>my concern is convergence computing will reduce the importance of desktop interfaces and the freedom we have to install whatever applications we want
The final nail was drilled into the coffin when a judge ruled Google a monopoly with Android a year or so ago.
You would think this is good but:
Apple was not found to be a monopoly with iOS. Why?
Because iOS doesn't allow any competitors, how can they be anti-competitive?
The judge explained this Google when they raised the issue, and just like that, Android wants to become iOS.
Good fucking job judge. 10,000 IQ ruling.
The Chrome Extensions support is the interesting part here. That's often the dealbreaker for using mobile devices as computer replacements.
Google's had this weird situation where Android and ChromeOS overlap more every year. At some point maintaining two operating systems with converging feature sets seems wasteful.
My guess: ChromeOS probably survives for the education market where manageability matters more than capabilities. But for consumers? Android on a big screen with keyboard and mouse might just be good enough.
It will not survive. No point in maintaining both. Just costs money. Device management for mobile phones is also a huge point.
My educated guess: tablet/laptop hybrids with Android OS. Not that Apple has huge success with the same move
Any extensions that do something really "interesting" will be disallowed, cf. Manifest V3.
I'm running AdGuard in Chromium right now. I don't see any ads, even on YouTube. May I ask what did you mean?
Not that I don't think MV3 is limited, but.. we're comparing this against MV2, right? It was already missing basic functionality like full filtering of http responses, I remember a bug about not seeing POST bodies being open for 10+ years..
Maybe they will sort out how terrible it is to try and use a keyboard or keyboard like (i.e. remote control on android TV) on Android apps, I hold out little hope.
It's like nobody tests focus + navigation at all.
So would it make sense to sell a folding plastic shell with screen, keyboard and trackpad in it that you can bring in your bag and pull out to plug your phone into it?
As mentioned in TFA, Android has had a "desktop" phone projection mode for years and it doesn't seem to have caught on. This seems to be a distro for dedicated desktop devices, I’m not sure what the point is when its main competitor would be the other OS Google already makes for those devices.
Google is transitioning from ChromeOS to desktop Android by 2028.
This form factor was tried before and it didn’t stick. Why should it be brought back now?
Last time, the hardware was barely capable of driving a 1080p display at a constant frame rate with more than one app open.
These days, phones are more powerful than the laptops they give to kids to study on.
Samsung DeX has existed for years and works as well as it has for ages. We don't need to wait on Google to make this work. At best, Google will make this type of tech available in software so you can Chromecast/Miracast/whatever it to your display when your cheap phone doesn't do DP-Alt mode.
What I think this is more likely to be about is ChromeOS being killed and Android taking its place. It's not secret that Google is working on that, this just seems to be someone dogfeeding the latest build of the desktop Android build.
I guess I fail to see where people will use this then.
Where are there going to be setups where they can plug the 3 things into their phone that aren't already a computer that you can just use as-is?
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I think the point is that software wasn't ready and now it might be.
This exists, it is called the NexDock[0]. I have never tried it.
[0]https://nexdock.com/explore-nexdock/
Portable monitor + mouse + keyboard makes more sense to me.
But this can also be cast to a tv, for example. I assume you can use the phone itself as a trackpad. So the only extra hardware you need is a cheap Bluetooth keyboard which you can get for $15.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67Jm8IiwURQ
That's 14 years old. Kind of crazy this concept hasn't developed more in the meantime.
I had that it was a cool concept but it kinda sucked. It would have been great for doing stuff over SSH but not much else as the hardware was lacking at the time
Why do you think it’s crazy?
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You mean a laptop?
Mini laptops have been a thing for decades [1], some with cool expanding keyboards [2]. They generally kinda suck.
If I wanted a weird small portable computer, I would buy a steam deck with a "Decktop" [3]. Or, this awesome modern thing [4].
[1] Mid 2000 Sony model: https://www.ebay.com/itm/388376162735?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=2...
[2] IBM model with expanding keyboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvcl4kmOxPo
[3] Desktop steam deck keyboard stand...thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXZuAWYujm4
[4] https://www.amazon.com/lanruo
I've always wanted a keyboard+screen with a slot for a phone as the trackpad. Saving any money over a regular trackpad? No. Cool as hell? I think so at least...
I don't want a Chromebook with extra steps I want a real computer.
Oh, I see Google's angle now. They want to make android a viable desktop OS in order to have more users using android Chrome rather than Windows Chrome, because the former lacks extension support, and thus ad blockers. Of course, you can still install brave or kiwi browser or Firefox to your heart's content, but most people won't. It's brilliantly simple. It's not too bad for power users, they'll probably use a different browser, or for developers, given the work they're putting into the Linux containers, but for most users...we'll see the expected result.
This shows a version of Chrome with extensions.
> The Google Chrome interface mostly aligns with the current large-screen Android version except for the Extensions button, which is currently only available on the desktop browser.
Well, that would be nice, honestly - to have Android as another option for desktop OS.
I remember there were some experiments to create a hardware laptop shell to insert smartphone into.
Yep, it is called a "lapdock" now.
Exciting .. I'm typing on that HP Dragonfly now :) Google - put me in the testing group pls - Paul H
If it comes with fully functional command line, unix utils and ability to install linux apps from different stores, that would be great OS.
That's already here. Android has native terminal in the developer settings and it even has a Wayland graphical environment. I have run Weston with a desktop chromium inside, playing a youtube video with sound.
But no root.
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Is this going to mean ChromeOS is going to eventually die or be merged with Android? Curious.
It appears ChromeOS is being killed and they're porting much of its feature set into Android. This may be marketed as "ChromeOS", with identical functionality, and consumers won't be none the wiser.
What is it with everybody and the goddamn rounded corners?
Is that tiling window management by default? Huh, finally the right choice to maximize small display area for laptop!
Been true on most chromeos devices for a while!
The Android system is such a pain to work with. I’m curious to see whether they actually fixed the fundamentals making it unappealing for general purpose computing or they just stuck Android onto Chromebooks (guessing the latter).
I already have Samsung Dex. Is that the same as this?
Samsung made DeX at some point for the exact same purpose, but that's a Samsung special.
Google already has this in their Pixel phones (8+). Plug a Pixel into a standard laptop dock (may need to enter dev settings and tick the "force desktop mode" toggle) and you're welcomed by pretty much exactly this UI.
Yeah back in 2019
I wonder what gogole's strategy with fuchsia is going to be.
What is currently is? As OS for home devices with a screen?
It looks really good.
No thanks.
ChromeOS is 14 years old, not really sure why they’re just now going this route.
Android laptops are nothing new, unless you don’t count the crappy low end ones that have no business running it.
I’m sure Google will make their flagship apps nicely tailored but regular phone centric apps has to be an awkward experience.
What ever happened to fuscia? Wasn’t that supposed to be their long term OS for desktop?
Seemed potentially like a new kernel, rather than a new OS, and thus potentially a replacement for the Android kernel one day.
But that would mean all of the Android SDKs would need to be abstracted away from Linux, but it seems like they abandoned some of that effort and are mostly just emulating Android on Fuschia for now.
It has windows, icons, taskbar and chrome. Seems like desktop to me!
Windows keeps getting worse, but it's still not as bad as Android. It's like how an iPad with macOS would be great, but a MacBook with iOS would be terrible.
I've been using Fedora part-time and I'm quite happy with it. Although I access the Android ecosystem via Waydroid—which, I know, isn't a true 'Android desktop'—the reality is that few Android apps are actually designed for a desktop experience.
Android makes me feel like it wants to convince me that rooting is considered too dangerous even for advanced users—you have to be a developer to handle it, or you will kill yourself.
But it might be good news for the ARM platform. Given how fragmented ARM is, Windows on ARM has turned out to be an even bigger disaster, making a Linux-based approach a much more promising alternative.
with win11, it's an opportunity to take the desktop market
i prefer google to spy on my entire computer instead of microsoft.
So I'm guessing ... no full adblockers allowed?
Android runs Firefox.
... for now. I mean all Google's decisions are going the same way, and let's face it: Firefox stands in the way of their destination.
My Huawei P20 Pro did this in 2018. It was fabulous, turned the OS into a mini-computer with a taskbar, desktop, icons, browser etc. It was still the best phone Ive ever owned (and I used to work at Google). It was no wonder Google killed with GSM. It was light years ahead even back then and they really hate competition.
Is this meant to replace ChromeOS or will it actually be open-source for real?
I wonder what does this mean for the attestation layer? If you can run banking apps on a desktop, this would be a massive game changer for many of us who only use normie OSes because of the need to use services that are mobile app only (or with functionally limited web apps). Means we would only need to keep a single phone rather than two
I don't want any kind of store on my PC.
Why on Earth would anyone wilingly use an OS where Google thinks they have the right to block or make it really hard to install non App Store apps? even if initially they allow you, they've shown their plan.
Lot of wasted space. The status bar and dock/switcher could easily be on one line.
Put it straight into Killed by Google.
If this allows one to still have (linux terminals?), then its (fine?) but Klaster_1 suggests that installing software would become hard without OS vendor blessing.
I mean, is this OS literally just android with a more desktop like UI?
Didn't Samsung have something like this called (just searched) Samsung Dex?
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Samsung+DeX&t=ffab&ia=images&iax=i...
What I would prefer is a linux device phone being more widespread than Android PC. Linux in PC is mostly pretty good.
We probably need some good linux phones. One of the biggest issues I find is that they are really price-y so even though I don't want much specs, I find it troubling to justify a 2x price increase in such sense.
> Didn't Samsung have something like this called (just searched) Samsung Dex?
Samsung Dex still exists and still sucks. It's probably the best desktop experience available on Android but it's nowhere near usable as a daily driver. It feels a like a lightweight window manager from the 2008 era.
It is good enough that a Samsung tablet has replaced my now dead netbook.
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The good part about this is they've invested in bringing extensions support to Chrome.. of course only those "desktop" builds, but the code is there and for now you can use this on normal Android - if you compile it for yourself or download the Chromium APK.
I wonder whether they'll keep pretending that extensions are not supported on Android, perhaps even intentionally breaking support on mobile.. or maybe they'll stop this madness and just support extensions officially..
It looks like Win 11 with notification bar at top. Good job Google. Trully a revolutionary design, just like Android 4. /s
so... gnome?
I don't even want Android on my phone. I cannot imagine a universe where I want it on my computer.
God this looks like a nightmare. Using Android on a desktop would be a fascist dystopia. Using it on phones is bad enough, computing while wearing a straight-jacket, but now they're going to have complete control of our computers and spy on everything we do on it? I can't imagine a worse outcome for the PC.