[JorgeGT]

It's quite interesting that with the power of today's mobile devices (multicore 1GHz+ CPUs, GPUs, 2Gb+ RAM) we still don't have a standardized interface to plug them into desktop peripherals and launch a desktop OS/GUI.

One would thing that such an universal interface would quickly become a standard offering in airports, hotels, libraries, conferences, etc.

[jon-wood]

USB-C is that standard interface - when working at my desk I can plug a single USB-C cable into my laptop and it gains two monitors, external audio, keyboard, mouse, webcam, and all the other things you'd expect.

[testfailure]

I wish wish wish USB-C was that reliable across the spectrum https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of-usb-c

[narrowtux]

These things take time. Remember that blue screen when they announced USB plug and play support in Windows 98?

[datenwolf]

The controller/driver side of USB-3 is still in a miserable state. USB-3 is the source of endless frustration both at the lab and at private computers. Issues range from:

USB-3 controllers won't initialize reliably if there's a single low speed device conntected, like e.g. the keyboard/mouse I've connected to the USB-3 hub my my monitor, which I'd like to connected to a USB-3 port of my computer so that I can plug thumb drives into the side ports of the monitor.

If the do initialize they take ages to go through POST.

After waking from S3 it takes several minutes(!) for all devices to come up properly. Often the OS drops the controller into USB-2 mode, because keeping it USB-3 creates interrupt storms or similar.

Just having enabled the on-board USB-3 support without anything connected may cause random POST hangs.

All of this happening on pretty recent hardware (late 2015, but still available for purchase in that configuration as of today) with latest BIOS and drivers.

And that's without the issues USB-C introduces (alternate modes, power delivery, which requires driver support, etc.).

[kakarot]

I noticed an interesting case when running Windows 7 with KVM and passing through one of my USB-3 controllers. The controller has a single port and a 3.0 hub connects to it. When I connect a USB-2 hub to the 3.0 hub, DPC latency spikes through the roof because of the interrupts. Even if there is nothing plugged into the second hub.

I wasn't sure if this was an issue with KVM, USB-3 or just a general issue with nesting hubs (even though I'm running low speed/power devices and a 3.1 port should be able to handle it) but you make it sound like it might indeed be an issue with USB-3

[amigoingtodie]

Windows 98 'Second Edition' supported USB.

I just want to say that Windows 10 does feel like Windows Millenium (an 'incomplete' OS).

[nolok]

I don't see how you can say that, unless you've not actually used Windows ME and/or 10 for any significant period of time.

Windows 10 is very well polished. It's also the first windows where most of the user's gripes are stuff added on top of it (telemetry, simplified/restricted update system, ...).

Windows ME, by comparison, was so bad that merely leaving it running would end up causing PC Health crashes.

[KozmoNau7]

>Windows 10 is very well polished

Well, aside from Windows Defender steadfastly turning itself off because it thinks I have a different AV package installed (I don't) and "helpfully" redirecting me to uninstall the offending software first. Only there is no other AV package to uninstall.

I have so far been absolutely unable to find any sort of resolution to this issue, short of a full reinstall.

[peterwwillis]

In the mean time you can buy a phone with MHL output, use BT for keyboard/mouse, and wifi for data. Root the device and dual boot Linux. By the time the phone is obsolete, USB-C will be stable.

[pwdisswordfish]

Apple did that with Thunderbolt quite some time ago.

[K0SM0S]

Thunderbolt is developed by Intel.

As for Apple products, it's available on the desktop (using Intel CPU's/chipsets) but not compatible with their iOS devices. So it's far from "universal" given that iOS devices are an overwhelming majority of their sales.

My intuition is that USB-C standards will eventually replace most Thunderbolt interfaces (e.g. for eGPUs etc.)

[coconut08]

can usb-c support multiple monitors + keyboard + other peripherals? can it support running an egpu?

[bipson]

You guys are talking about the same thing (and on the other side, not, but you don't realize how): Thunderbolt 3 uses USB-C, because USB-C is the connector spec.

If I understood it correctly, Thunderbolt at the same time can "carry" USB. So basically if you have Thunderbolt 3, you also (potentially) have USB.

A non-Thunderbolt USB 3.1+ USB-C can via Alternate Mode (depending on devices and cable) carry e.g. a DisplayPort A/V Signal over dedicated lanes (but has not nearly the same Bandwidth as Thunderbolt, so restrictions apply).

So: "Every Thunderbolt 3 is USB-C, but not every USB-C is Thunderbolt 3".

Yes, it can get confusing, but essentially you both are arguing about A is better than A, because Thunderbolt 3 uses USB-C. The "fullest" features set though you only get with Thunderbolt, for now at least.

[roblabla]

Yes. USB-C can transport multiple protocols (such as HDMI and USB) at the same time. Some eGPU have USB-C support (though not all).

[dragonwriter]

Thunderbolt is hardly a universal means of connecting mobile devices (even from Apple) to desktop peripherals.

[rsync]

"One would thing that such an universal interface would quickly become a standard offering in airports, hotels, libraries, conferences, etc."

My favorite computing peripheral form factor has always been the PCMCIA card.

It seems to me that you could fit a minimum viable phone inside a PCMCIA card and then insert that PCMCIA card into a normal sized laptop when you choose.

The laptop would have no CPU/RAM - it's just a big USB keyboard and monitor - and the phone would probably have limited battery life, given the size (although you could bump out the non-port end of the PCMCIA card with some extra battery, the same way that wifi cards had an antenna bump ...)

Something like this was proposed ... there was some minor project where they had built an entire PC (not a phone) into a PCMCIA card (although with different pin-outs) and proposed using it as a portable "guts" for any laptop "host" but I can't find the URL for that project anymore ...

I certainly would welcome a phone the size of a pc-card and a cable-less docking of the brain into the host laptop would be much better than either 2-3 USB cables or some weird, proprietary phone dock ...

[admax88q]

I think you're thinking about the EOMA project. Boards are soon to go out for their production run.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop/updates/pcb...

[rsync]

Yes that is indeed what I was thinking of - it's a very interesting project.

Imagine if that device was a fully functional, standalone phone ...

[dpark]

I don’t understand the desire for this. In this model, you’re still carrying a laptop. It’s just utterly useless without the phone.

[rsync]

The use-case is in the opposite direction: when I only have my phone, I have my entire computer with me - including the storage and the files and keys and so on.

No syncing required. You only have a single computer. That's a big win, I think ...

[dpark]

If you care about the stuff on that computer, you really want it synced somewhere anyway.

I don't personally see the utility in having my phone be my computer. I don't need Visual Studio or Photoshop on my phone. If I don't have my laptop/desktop, I'm not going to work on the things I typically do with a full-power computer. The phone is just not the right form factor, so it doesn't help for that stuff to be on my phone.

[ninju]

There is the ASUS PadPhoneX

https://www.asus.com/us/Phone/ASUS_PadFone_X_US/gallery/

[tmzt]

The REXX? I think it was made by Rolodex or something.

[tmzt]

This is what I was referring to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REX_5000

[pjc50]

There was: the Apple 30-pin connector. It was revolutionary and got built into plenty of hotels where you can still see them. And where it acts as a warning to not build tech into your furniture again.

People keep building phone dock systems and they just don't really seem to take off. Maybe the best one available today is the HP Elite X3 .. running the discontinued Windows Phone.

[dwyerm]

I can't help turning this into a headphone-jack argument:

I was able to plug my phone in at the last hotel I stayed in because its ageing 30-pin dock also had an aux plug, which my modern phone still supported. It also seemed a lot better for my device security to not give some random active device direct access to my phone.

[sametmax]

How was it revolutionary ? USB worked pretty well.

[pjc50]

Until USB-C it doesn't carry analog audio.

Like the iPod itself, it's not a question of new functionality, but better usability/popularity of existing functionality. The revolutionary aspect was that you could just drop an iPod into the dock and it would start playing your music through the dock's speakers, while also charging. This didn't require the dock to be "smart", it was analog audio.

[sametmax]

What you describe qualifies for "nice". Not "revolutionary".

Apple's marketing is working a bit too well.

[LeonM]

Whats the problem with USB3 not carrying analog audio? Instead of placing the DAC in the phone, we now place it in the audio device, it makes no difference. One could argue it's better, as we now have choice in the quality of the DAC, instead of being stuck on the one in your device.

[pjc50]

The Apple 30 pin connector was introduced in 2003 when USB2.0 was all we had, and it's a right pain to enumerate a device and persuade it to start sending you digital audio over USB2. Whereas two analog pins Just Work.

Moving the audio to all-digital moves more NRE cost to the devices. It also means there's a potential for the "choice" of rubbish DACs to save cost.

[katastic]

>Whereas two analog pins Just Work.

Actually, they only work when they follow the standard physical layer. Try plugging a Line device into a Mic input, or a Line device into a speaker. Or an unbalanced into a balanced jack. It'll "work" but not "correctly."

And, just like saving money with "rubbish DACs", there's room for designing complete crap, noisey audio paths (and noisey amplifiers) in products.

If people could actually agree on a standard (USB3 seems a good choice), sending audio over a digital port seems fine.

The ONLY real problem, is digital audio isn't digital audio. It's a protocol with MANY audio formats. 44Khz. 48Khz. 96, 192khz. 2 channels, 4 channels, 7.1 channels. 16-bit, 24-bit, 32-bit float. Compressed with different compressions.

THAT'S where the real shitshow happens. Because now you're basically in the oldschool Modem situation where you have to try various standards and HOPE that the sender and the receiver both have compatible formats and in failing that, falling back to some standard required format like "stereo 44Khz PCM".

[xxs]

>>This didn't require the dock to be "smart", it was analog audio.

Not smart, just have a 30pin connector. Having DAC on board would be trivial (esp. after paying the royalties for the connector). So calling it revolutionary is just being an Apple shill.

[pjc50]

Accusing others of being "shills" is a stupid tactic that does not belong on HN. Nobody's going to be shilling a connector that was introduced in 2003 and is currently obsolete.

[ju-st]

USB-C carries analog audio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Analog_Audio_Out_.26_Mic...

[pjc50]

Yes. That's why I said until USB-C. Which came out after Apple had already obsoleted the 30-pin connector. At the launch of the iPod it was not possible to do analog audio over USB2.

[baldfat]

AT&T killed that idea fast 6 years ago. When the Motorola Atrix came out with the ability to do that AT&T charge a $20 tethering fee to use the laptop dock with the phone! That blew my mind. The phone wasn't tethering data to anything but itself. https://www.wired.com/2011/03/motorola-atrix/

[KozmoNau7]

Tethering fees are another "brilliant" invention by the customer-hating American telcos.

You get a set amount of data per month, for instance 20GB. Why should they care at all what you decide to use that data for?

[ethbro]

chuckles I had an ex-gf who worked on the customer service side of Sprint and we went round and round about this. There must have been some serious corporate messaging to their employees to justify tethering fees.

I will say, in the carrier's only defense: when the market demanded everyone sell vastly oversubscribed "unlimited" plans at rates that were far too low to support them... then prohibiting tethering had an argument. (As anything that promoted higher data consumption led to directly increased costs)

Now? With "unlimited w/ cap" or "data-by-the-GB" plans? Absolutely a ploy to screw customers.

[jclardy]

Tethering fees made sense when the ability to tether was added to smartphones (officially.) The original "Unlimited" plan people signed up for was intended to be limited by the rate that the phone itself could use data, which was slow.

Tethering fees on limited plans are incredibly stupid, and just a cash grab by carriers. Luckily most major carriers have eliminated them now.

[0xFFFE]

When I moved here I was surprised to know that I had to explicitly ask AT&T to enable tethering. In India, it is enabled by default and is part of your subscription, you just pay for the data depending on the plan you choose.

[djrogers]

You need a better carrier then. I have unlimited data and no tethering fee on Verizon, and similar plans are available on other carriers as well.

[Brakenshire]

Doesn't seem to be a thing in the UK, at least it hasn't been an issue for the 2 telecoms companies I've used.

[ballade]

As it is with most countries in Europe and I think many in Asia as well (correct me if I'm wrong). This is just an example of America's hardcore capitalism where certain markets are dominated by a few key players and the only entity capable of stopping them from enacting these batshit insane anti-consumer tactics are congress who are more than happy to take their bribes whilst shafting the average American consumer.

[uncletammy]

> hardcore capitalism

crony capitalism

[_ea1k]

I thought that tethering fees only applied to unlimited plans now? At least with Verizon, there is no such fee for the normal data-capped plans.

[tooltalk]

with AT&T, there is tethering fee on everything. I'm glad that I'm no longer with AT&T though. I switched to Tmobile last summer -- my bill went down from $200/month to $130/month for three unlimited line with 10GB tether/month.

[thekaleb]

I have unlimited data with T-Mobile and no tethering fee.

[maxerickson]

Nah, they love their customers that happily shovel over large piles of money for whatever they happen to offer.

[erikb]

It's the natural desire in a free market to gain monopoly status and the desire to decrease the support matrix. Therefore most smartphone companies will try to log you into their own choice of OS. It's not an asshole move, it's just the most logical conclusion given the context they are in.

The way to get around that is supporting such kind of project (like fairphone, ubuntu mobile, linux on samsung) and gaining a true majority in the user base. However that is unlikely since for most people it's good enough to just run instagram, whatsapp and spotify. And for that the OS really doesn't matter.

*edit: I thought about something one can do also. Not an expert about these, but these very flat laptops like macbook air, I think they are underneath the keyboard also a smartphone/tablet. Buying these may increase the desire to create smaller and smaller computers. If what is labelled "computer" gets as small as a smart-phone that's also fine for our usecase, but it may be easier to digest for marketing people of these big corps.

[smichel17]

> It's not an asshole move, it's just the most logical conclusion given the context they are in.

I don't think those two are mutually exclusive.

[erikb]

Agreed. Depends on your POV.

[digi_owl]

There kinda was, hdmi+usb, just look at what Motorola was up to with Android years ago.

but then everyone got hung up on emulating Apple's dock plug, and things went backwards.

[snops]

Display port over USB-C should be this, the Samsung Galaxy S8 was the first to support it.

Unfortunately, while quite a few docks are on the market, compatibility is a bit iffy, and rival USB-C alt modes like HDMI and MHL muddy the waters.

[Maakuth]

Interesting. Does this work for USB-C enabled laptops, say the latest MacBook Pros? Or does Apple only support Thunderbolt over USB-C for display connections?

[TheCycoONE]

Thunderbolt 3 carries DP1.2, Display Port alt mode for USB-C carries 1.4. As long as your needs can be handled by 1.2 you will be alright.

[chrisper]

It works for Dell Laptops and their USB-C docking stations. But maybe it is not quite the same.

[albertgoeswoof]

We are almost reaching tipping point here - my laptop is still more powerful than my phone, but only just. If USB-C can really support this connectivity (2 monitors, plus keyboard, mouse and a couple of usb ports), a really great implementation could work well.

I think Apple are the only company that can pull this off right now, everyone else is too fragmented to get the hardware/software integration right, and popular enough for mass adoption.

If they release it they could tigger a whole new era of computing. e.g. Imagine going to work without having to bring a laptop along.

[maccard]

My phone has already replaced what I used to use my laptop for, but it's not going to replace my work PC anytime soon. Compiling our work C++ proejct takes about 40 minutes on a 32 core workstation, and my mobile phone isn't going to replace that right now, even if I can connect some peripherals to it.

[albertgoeswoof]

I think you're a bit of an edge case though - most people don't need 32 cores, even for work.

[mschuster91]

Hmm something like eGPU, but for "real" CPUs, would be very nice... and interesting. For example, using a low-power ARM core for "daily" work on a laptop (e.g. browsing, text processing), and engaging a heavy-duty x86 CPU only when needed, e.g. by x86-only software...

[maccard]

most may not, but many do. There are also many workloads that require a discrete GPU running at medium to high load constantly. Granted I have an older iPhone, but my battery life drops from ~1 day of normal usage to ~1hr of intensive usage, and generates an _incredible_ amount of heat.

[herbst]

I dont think this will ever be a thing. For me phones are (sorrily) throw away products, usually not build to last. Computers are expandable, upgradeable machines that you build for your use case and have for years without having to worry to much.

Even mac folks have their Macbooks at least twice as long as their phones.

So i dont see this happening for any kind of professional use anytime soon. But who knows.

Disclaimer: My last phone (downgraded recently, because battery life > 4k screens) is more powerful than my Laptop.

[bluedino]

>> Computers are expandable, upgradeable machines

Not anymore they're not. I haven't bought an upgradeable laptop since 2011.

[herbst]

You didnt. And some others as well. But plenty, especially professionals, still do. Not to mention that nearly all laptops except Apple & Microsofts (which are in minority) are upgradeable to some degree.

Written from my Thinkpad :)

[elboru]

Plus I think we got to a point where those upgrades are not totally necessary unless you work with cutting edge software, my MacBook Pro from 2013 still works perfectly, and my windows HP from 2014 too... I'm a developer and those two laptops work almost like the first day I bought them without any upgrade, some years ago even Microsoft Office's newest version would slow computers...

[herbst]

I have a Thinkpad from 2011 so i know what you mean. However i would argue 2013 and 2014 are not old enough to worry yet. Most better laptops already were > Sandy Bridge and had 8 or 16GB of RAM. Most also already equipped with a SSD.

If you look at my 2011 Thinkpad however, it was shipped with 4GB of RAM and a 512 GB analog disc. Spending only like $200 extra it turned into a 512GB SSD + 16GB RAM + new battery beast which outperformed my 2014 MBP for nearly all of my development tasks.

So i guess it depends on how you look at products. I tend to buy things i know i wont have to replace anytime soon.

[albertgoeswoof]

I have a thinkpad (x1 carbon) and it's definitely not upgradeable :-)

The people who will buy a phone dock are probably also the same people that value ultra-lightweight devices, so I don't think you're in the same bracket as them

[herbst]

Good point, the reason i am not on a X1 yet (even thought its so fucking sexy) is that i depend on good battery life and can not buy something without replaceable battery. However this already disqualifies me as general consument i guess.

[vinceguidry]

My five year love affair with MacBook Pros ended after the second time in two weeks I spilled liquid on one. I went out and dropped $2k on a desktop and a desk to put it on. I'm sorely tempted to switch to a Mac Mini for my work machine.

I use a tablet now for my idle couch browsing.

[herbst]

If you ever look for a new couch laptop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDmCmmvIA8A

[fpig]

But for work you probably want a more powerful computer...

So for us devs it would mostly be for non-work stuff. And then you have the problem that you'd have to carry around external hardware with you or find places that offer it for use.

[evilDagmar]

Actually, on many if not most devices you can just 'cast' the entire display to a Chromecast, which is inexpensive enough that it's unlikely anyone's going to bother developing a replacement mechanism. The nearest thing to that is MHL, which is apparently encumbered by licencing issues and requires use of the USB port (which means that an OTG adapter for attaching mouse/keyboard is now out of the question).

[j45]

In addition to Samsung's own smart docks, Sentio is doing something like that with their superbook. http://www.getsuperbook.com. They had a dock as well for a while.

Phones with 8gb of ram like the Oneplus 5 make this more and more appealing to try out.

[Humphrey]

That's what this Kickstarter project is trying to achieve.

https://www.sentio.com/

It looks like a MacBook Air, but is really just a screen, keyboard, touchpad, and portable battery bank for your Android phone.

Hopefully my Kickstarter pledge pays off!!

[Kipters]

There is one: USB Type-C