[paraknight]

I've been saying this for ages — the future setup is going to be phones as a singular device. When you get home, you'll dock it to be able to use your peripherals or extra monitors. Phones will become even more powerful, but even then anything heavy can be done in the cloud or at the network edge (with minimal latency thanks to 5g, see cloud gaming). OSs will become more convergent (Windows tried it, Huawei's doing it, PureOS if you're into Linux) but that won't even matter as the browser will be the de facto OS if it isn't already. Responsive web apps (through PWAs) will get native-level capabilities with the browser as a compatibility layer, and traditional OSs will simply be browser-running machines.

[eloisant]

No I don't think so.

To be able to dock it you need a screen and keyboard (or a laptop-style "shell"). That means you need a device that takes just as much space as an independent device but can't be used unless you plug your phone to it. The only benefit is a slight lower cost - but then you need to make sure your phone is powerful enough so a cheap Android is out of the picture.

You've been saying this for ages, and manufacturers have been trying it for ages (Motorola Atrix, Samsung Dex...) but it doesn't catch on. So maybe you should reconsider your prediction!

[JumpCrisscross]

> you need a device that takes just as much space as an independent device but can't be used unless you plug your phone to it

Flip side: it’s a device that just works, doesn’t need to be kept patched and updated and where syncing is never an issue. It’s an external monitor for your phone plus a keyboard.

The prediction has fallen on its face due to the mobile component not being central enough. If half my life is on my laptop and half on my phone, a desktop makes sense. (Though I go for external monitors to my laptop.) But if all my stuff is on my phone, losing the syncing tax becomes more meaningful.

[lmm]

Now that I'm using a Surface Book 2 as my primary computer, with a Surface Dock set up on my desk at home with screen/keyboard/speakers/etc., I'm more confident than ever that this future is coming eventually - but also confident that it will take a long time. Having a single device makes a surprisingly big difference from having two separate devices (home PC and travel laptop), but is also not worth sacrificing power for. The technical users who will become early adopters want a first-class home PC, so just as laptops only started to actually displace desktops once they had enough RAM etc. to match them, it'll be the same for phones, and they'll probably need to be x86-based phones for the sake of being able to run old programs.

[codetrotter]

Apple already made it possible on macOS to run x86_64 software on their ARM computers, with Rosetta 2.

Any company with enough resources could do the same if they felt so inclined.

And if Apple wanted to, Apple could make Rosetta 2 run on iOS devices. For now they want to keep them mostly separate, and are more about running iPad apps on macOS than the other way around. But there is nothing stopping Apple from running desktop software, whether compiled for x86_64 or for ARM, on iOS devices if they wanted to. And if convergence turns out to be the future then I think we may see them do that eventually. But I am not convinced that it will.

[AussieWog93]

>Apple could make Rosetta 2 run on iOS devices

From what I understand, M1 Macs have specialised hardware that allows them to emulate x64 with good performance. It's not just software.

[codetrotter]

Was not aware of that. But either way in that case they can do something similar in the hardware for future iOS devices, if they wish to.

[vineyardmike]

> they'll probably need to be x86-based phones for the sake of being able to run old programs.

Maybe its the other way around?

Maybe we need to wait until the old way of doing things is so forgotten we can accept the phone-way as a valid way. As long has people have their x86 applications, they'll want to use them. Once people stop caring - well then there is an app for that.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Years ago I had a similar thought to parent, only without the dock. I figured phones would have micro projectors to throw a display on any convenient wall and a laser keyboard[0] to throw onto a table.

These days I no longer think that'll happen largely because the kinds of things people want a desktop computer for are really much better served by an actual computer, while mobile users have adapted to not even wanting a desk.

[0] https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0531/2285/9174/products/im...

[Zababa]

> The only benefit is a slight lower cost

Not only that, but having a single source of truth for your files, OS and things like that.

[stonemetal12]

We are already there with laptops and laptop docks. It could certainly be a cellphone dock in the future but the phones just aren't powerful enough now. Maybe an iPhone with an M2 or M3?

[bitwize]

Nope, not even.

1) This would be tolerable with some PinePhone successor, but proprietary solutions like Samsung DEX are conducive to lock-in, more difficult for developers to target, and tend to go unsupported after a few years.

2) Phones have to become more durable. I expect my primary computing device to last half a decade. My phone's USB-C port is flaky after just over 2 years of charging it and carrying it around. How is it going to last if I'm plugging and unplugging it to/from some desktop rig?

3) They have to become more repairable too. "If it's broken, throw it away and buy new" just isn't tenable for a primary PC.

4) Getting everybody on board with "live in the pod, eat the bugs, use the cloud-connected thin client" is not going to happen.

[diffeomorphism]

Concerning 2) magnetic usb-c connectors are nice and wireless is an option, e.g. see the Lenovo wigig dock for an implementation.

Concerning 3) I think things are moving in the other direction. With immutable base OS and data seamlessy backed up (encrypted, of course) switching to a new device should be fairly frustration free.

For 4) I think we will see more and more of a mixture. For instance better integration of cloud storage, things like game streaming, more video streaming etc. . So not thin client, but not fully featured offline either.

[selfhoster11]

Hell no. Real techie software is basically a third-class citizen on smartphones at this point, with the promise of being locked out even more. The cloud is not a solution to everyone's problems, thanks to what it can or cannot do (technical problems), and thanks to the fact that some just don't trust it or don't want a recurring subscription (socioeconomic factors). If you ever want to upgrade the hardware, you'll also need somewhere to install it, and dongles won't suffice.

Some people may be happy with this future, much like people who create and process lightweight office documents on iPads. But there will always be demand for singular PCs or laptops.

[fragmede]

There's also still a market for horse drawn carriages. I don't meant that flippantly, but that the advancements in technology make things like the Novena laptop a possibility. It sounds like something like the GPD Micro PC is much more your speed.

[arc-in-space]

> anything heavy can be done in the cloud or at the network edge (with minimal latency thanks to 5g, see cloud gaming)

It's interesting that people often handwave latency like this as if it was a solved problem. As instructed, I have seen cloud gaming: it's an unmitigated disaster, held back by mere trifles such the limits of information travel speed imposed by our physical universe.

[andrepd]

> even then anything heavy can be done in the cloud or at the network edge (with minimal latency thanks to 5g, see cloud gaming).

Hard doubt. And anyways, why 5G? I don't see any figures where 5G outperforms fiber in latency.

[FroshKiller]

Even if it did, that's only talking about latency pushing the image down. I wouldn't expect input latency to ever improve to the point that most gamers play exclusively via cloud.

[alpaca128]

I'm not convinced. Not because it's technically unviable, but because I know that when companies like Google are involved it'd be far too restrictive for my taste. And as soon as you also want some local computing power (even if just for the situations it's offline) it's more expensive than hardware in a larger format like laptops - even more so when you need an upgrade, because phones can't be upgraded (or even repaired in some cases).

[jhatemyjob]

Never gonna happen with phones. iOS / Android are too dominant in the "phone" space. It's gonna be a entirely different class of device.

[indymike]

> the future setup is going to be phones as a singular device

I had a four-day weekend where the only device I had was my Android phone. I needed to work on a release of our software, so I had to fix a few bugs, write a press release, get content ready for the website. On the way out, I grabbed the laptop bag, but forgot the laptop. On some of the higher-end android devices, if you plug them into a monitor you get desktop mode. So down to the hotel "business center" I went with my LG Wing and plugged in a monitor, keyboard and mouse using the usb-c dongle I usually use as a hub for my laptop. A lot of the apps played nice, so email (Fairemail is a fantastic piece of software), word processing (Google Docs App), editing screenshots (PicSayPro) and SSH(Connectbot) were all fantastic. Could Android desktop mode use a little polish? Sure. For any serious development, I'd prefer to edit and test on localhost... but honestly, the experience wasn't bad, and from time to time I'll go phone-only to the office if I know I'm not going to be coding all day.

[gjulianm]

I don't think it's going down that path. We're seeing people use phones more and more, and a lot of people don't seem to need a computer for most tasks. Why buy a dock plus keyboard plus mouse plus monitor when you can just use your phone?

People that do need a computer-like device probably won't have enough with a phone, and will need something more powerful than browser-based applications. Not to mention that a lot applications would be far more expensive if moved to the cloud (imagine a video editor where you not only pay for the software but also for the storage + computing power to the provider).

[perryizgr8]

Samsung Dex is pretty usable IMO. Unfortunately phone hardware seems to be just a bit lacking when you try to do desktop-like things. My galaxy S10 can keep up for a short time, but having lots of browser tabs open, a vs code instance, whatsapp open in the background can degrade performance after a few minutes when the phone starts getting hot.

It seems to me the CPU/GPU can burst pretty well (maybe approaching ultrabook-style laptops) but sustained performance is just not there yet.

[chewz]

I am using old Android Xperia 10 with Termux, Apple Bluetooth keyboard and Chromcast screen to 27 inch TV. With Termux I will ssh into my server (using mosh).

Pretty decent and stable setup… And free as I have just gathered some old hardware pieces…