from Hacker News

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

by logic_node on 5/13/25, 2:30 PM with 415 comments

• by enragedcacti on 5/13/25, 2:58 PM

  Taking better advantage of a display is nice but imo the really exciting part of desktop mode is the planned integration with Google's Linux Terminal app (i.e. 1st party linux VM support). I have a Samsung DeX device and while you can get a basic dev environment working easily it can be really cumbersome to make it comfortable to use and integrate with your normal tablet workflow. Being able to install full-fat linux apps and run them in a window would be a complete game changer.

  source for planned integration: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/392521081?utm_source=...

• by ryandvm on 5/14/25, 1:04 PM

  I don't know. Google is always building lots of stuff and most of it gets shelved before it ever sees the light of day, and 75% of what does get released gets shuttered within 5 years.

  The reality is if it isn't ads or ads adjacent, Google will lose interest. And based on their historical revenue I suppose they ought to continue with this model.

• by NBJack on 5/13/25, 7:37 PM

  If you haven't tried it, especially if your workplace allows your phone to have access to some corporate data, DeX + a good pair of AR or just integrated display glasses feels like the future.

  I run my S23 Ultra with a pair of XReal One's, and a folding Bluetooth keyboard (DeX let's you use your phone as a touchpad). It is really amazing in widescreen mode sitting in a coffee shop, reading through technical documents and answering work email. When I'm done, it can all fold up and fit in a (spacious) pair of cargo shorts.

  I think Samsung has played the long game on DeX, with an eye towards their collaborative XR glasses with Google next year. As great as XReal has been, I am eager to see a "first-party" solution.

• by olau on 5/14/25, 1:22 PM

  I recently bought a second-hand Microsoft Surface tablet, installed Debian and now run GNOME on it. The first time it came up and I logged into a familiar GNOME environment was a profound experience. I was pretty sure what was going to happen, but it still took me by surprise.

  So I don't think the convergence idea is necessarily bad. It's perhaps somewhat niche, and it's not easy to pull off.

  I almost never use a phone, so for me the major selling point of my tablet is no Android oddities or second-rate citizen vibes. I don't need to wade through an app store to do simple things. I'm not depending on a hardware vendor where support stops a few years down the road. Plugin a keyboard and mouse, and it's just like any other computer with a really small screen. I already have a desktop computer, so it doesn't replace anything, but the familiarity is still nice.

  The touch experience is not as polished as Android. It's fine for my purposes, though. I'm mostly using the tablet as a night-time reader for epubs - dark background, light level at minimum, and then it works surprisingly well for when I wake up and need something to do before I can fall asleep again.

• by lanthissa on 5/13/25, 3:03 PM

  this done well is a transformational thing, its just no one has been willing to invest yet, but the compute on a phone is now good enough to do most things most users do on desktop.

  I can easily see the future of personal computing being a mobile device with peripherals that use its compute and cloud for anything serious. be that airpods, glasses, watches, or just hooking that device up to a larger screen.

  theres not a great reason for an individual to own processing power in a desktop, laptop, phone, and glasses when most are idle while using the others.

• by carlhjerpe on 5/13/25, 7:13 PM

  This is the only natural path if mobile chips are going to keep getting faster, everyone with a flagship phone is "wasting" so much good compute resources that never gets utilized.

  I wonder if we'll see USB-C docks for phones with fans blowing at the device for improved thermals.

  If they nail the Linux container UX as well as ChromeOS it would motivate me to buy a top-tier device rather than my sluggish Fairphone 4, right now I don't see the usecase other than good camera.

  Imagine thst a large userbase could just skip the laptop and desktop in favor of a USB-C dock and a decent display :)

• by smusamashah on 5/13/25, 8:34 PM

  Scrcpy recently added support for Virtual Display. This allows connecting your phone at any resolution e.g. 1920x1080. But vanilla android by default does not have a taskbar in that mode.

  What's strange is that vanilla OS does show a taskbar (tablet mode) if you increase DPI to 600+. Theoretically you can get a taskbar now only if tablet mode taskbar could show up in secondary virtual displays.

  https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/blob/master/doc/virtual...

  https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/6032

• by xnx on 5/13/25, 3:01 PM

  I've tried it. I was pretty impressed. I plugged in a USB-C hub with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and everything worked immediately, even the Windows key on the keyboard.

• by tw04 on 5/14/25, 11:37 AM

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

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

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

• by maelito on 5/13/25, 10:07 PM

  Worked more than one year on Dex years ago. Developed a million-user website with Tmux.

  The only thing that wouldn't work was a ruby CSS library that had a (if processor='arm') {crash()}.

  What a pleasure to have a computer in your pocket.

• by simultsop on 5/14/25, 1:13 PM

  The idea of a unified computer, resembles also with the idea when iPhone merged, calculator, mp3 player and phone.

  With ubuntu's try a decade ago, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/ it was obvious there is a market for this. But the ecosystem chain beats it all. Everyone will wait for their favorite OS to catchup.

• by jasonlotito on 5/13/25, 3:02 PM

  Pretty sure Windows Phone did this over a decade ago. I mean, say what you want about Windows Phones, but yeah, this was a thing.

• by the_clarence on 5/13/25, 2:56 PM

  I switched from a lifetime of iPhones to an android phone last year, just because of folding phones. They are amazing and IMO the reason why Apple is going to have issues as these get cheaper (unless they release a folding phone too). Now that I have all this screen estate the current UI feels limiting often.

• by pcchristie on 5/14/25, 1:17 AM

  Re-posting this at top level, curious what others think.

  Since Windows has started this iteration of their move to ARM, I wondered if Microsoft would be the first to do this properly, by building an adaptable/mobile Desktop/UX to Windows 12 (or 13), pumping up the Microsoft Store, and then relaunching the Windows (Surface, I guess) Phone with full fat Windows on it.

  In a way it's the same strategy that Nintendo used to re-gain a strong position in gaming (including the lucrative Home Console market where they'd fallen to a distant last place) - drafting their dominance in Handheld into Home Console by merging the two.

• by simpaticoder on 5/13/25, 2:45 PM

  This is very good news. Especially in light of recent attention given to the possibility of CPU shortages. Lots of programming tasks can be done comfortably on a smartphone. For example, no build front end programming. The description "desktop view" is unfortunate since it calls to mind a browser mode where the site is displayed as it would be on a desktop. And this is something completely different. I do hope this mode does not require an external display because it would be quite useful even with the phone's native display. Especially given their hypixel density and the availability of reading glasses.

• by palata on 5/14/25, 3:21 PM

  Important to me: is that part of AOSP, or is that part of the proprietary Google stuff?

• by nsonha on 5/13/25, 11:43 PM

  None of the mobile Linux distribution is working on this, even though it should be easier for them to fallback to a DE than for Android to invent a new one.

• by filleokus on 5/14/25, 7:43 AM

  Every year or so I've been toying with the idea of a thin client dev environment. Smallest possible device that can run Linux (or a RDP client) and support being plugged in to a single USB-C dock cable (display, usb for keyboard/mouse and power).

  Maybe this is the answer? Even though I don't need the screen, the footprint of a smartphone is smaller than almost all SBC supporting the above requirements.

• by game_the0ry on 5/14/25, 6:06 PM

  When I first saw samsung, I was sure we would soon see a world where laptops were obsolete bc you would just plug your phone into some dock attached to a keyboard, mouse, and display, and that would be your workflow.

  I am surprised it never came to fruition. I guess its more profitable for manufacturers to push you to get a range of devices in all form factors (macbook + ipad + iphone).

• by nashashmi on 5/13/25, 3:03 PM

  I have been waiting for this to go mainstream for nearly six years now.

  The whole point of having USB C phones is to connect to desktop docks and get full featured computers. Instead we have muzzled devices.

  I would love something that I can use and maybe even use an RDP on, to function as a full desktop computer.

  But like all common sense improvements, some come just too late after the boat has sailed.

• by haolez on 5/14/25, 1:13 AM

  My main issue with Android as a daily driver for desktop computing is the input latency. Even in high end devices, it's noticeable when typing and very noticeable for things like Alt-Tab and other desktop shortcuts. I wonder if this is fixable or if this is inherent to Android's architecture.

• by dhosek on 5/14/25, 2:57 PM

  Kind of reminds me of my dream in 2001 (although at that time, the core device was a Palm Pilot, not a phone): I want something that I can carry in my pocket and use anywhere, but I can also sit at a desk and connect to a display, keyboard and mouse (I’d prefer a trackpad now) and have a full computing experience. 24 years later and we’re slowly creeping towards that dream. I had hoped that the fact that iOS was based on MacOS meant that the iPhone was going to get there sooner rather than later, but not so much.

• by cvhc on 5/14/25, 4:43 PM

  I really look forward to desktop experience on Android tablets.

  For personal use, 2-in-1 (laptop+tablet) conceptually makes a lot of sense. But I think 2-in-1 laptops go the wrong way -- they are full laptops with bad tablet experiences (because of weight, or desktop-first Windows OS). But I want a good tablet in 80% of time. If Android have reasonably good desktop support (e.g., keyboard, mouse, window management), a tablet with a detachable keyboard will be enough to cover the rest 20% of use cases where I want a laptop.

• by moolcool on 5/13/25, 2:55 PM

  > Google Is Catching Up to Samsung DeX

  Does anyone use DeX?

• by hagbard_c on 5/14/25, 7:10 PM

  So who'll create a useable fold-up Fresnel-lens cover to turn that high-res high-dpi phone screen into something resembling a smallish monitor? I run Termux and sometimes Linux deploy on Android devices which turn these into fairly close equivalents to general-purpose pocket computers but even for my good eyes a somewhat bigger screen size at the native resolution would be preferable. Double the apparent size, keep the resolution and you'll get a perfectly useable 12" monitor.

• by qalmakka on 5/14/25, 6:17 AM

  Finally! This is just shy of being 10 years late though. Lots of people would basically stop buying laptops with something like this on their phones (and that's why Apple will never do it)

• by foobarbecue on 5/16/25, 11:41 AM

  Wish they would just adapt a full-featured Linux distro.

  It seems to me the only difference between a phone with an extra screen, and a laptop with a SIM card, is the relative balance of power been the user and the vendor (Android restricts user capabilities for the benefit of Google).

  How do we get back to the place where people expect a computer to have any number of peripherals, and be under the control of the user...?

• by ge96 on 5/14/25, 5:54 PM

  It does seem odd to have what is pretty much a laptop and then plug your phone into it. Granted I have wanted this feature for a while/what I messed around with when I had my PinePhone Pro eg. running VS Code on it and I can't remember if I got a VM running on it or not. I've done it with an old 4GB ram Chromebook using GalliumOS.

  I will say I probably didn't get a VM running on the PPP.

• by andrewstuart2 on 5/14/25, 6:19 AM

  I could be remembering incorrectly, but wasn't this also a thing back in the Droid Bionic days? I remember being super thrilled at the idea of using my phone on a bigger external screen as another linux computer or TV screen.

• by ulrikrasmussen on 5/14/25, 7:52 AM

  I will never use Android on the desktop as long as Play Integrity is a thing.

• by dboreham on 5/13/25, 2:53 PM

  Is this an AI-generated article? Article about novel UI with no screenshots??

• by czhu12 on 5/13/25, 11:20 PM

  Really hopeful this is the next frontier for mobile. Pair this with wider Field of view at glasses and a compact keyboard, and you can have a full it desktop environment in your pocket

• by johnea on 5/13/25, 7:23 PM

  Once again, goggle catches up with linux features from 10 years ago.

  Just one example article, using a chroot environment:

  https://www.nextpit.com/turn-your-android-device-into-a-linu...

  But Ubuntu touch, and other native linux phone installs have touted desktop mode over the years.

  The h/w 10 years ago was marginal at performing this task, and the non-corporate OSes were, and are, actively suppressed by goggle and the rest of the corporate "phone" development industry. This is an almost identical scenario as M$ dominating the PC manufacturing business, even though they didn't make the h/w.

  But this serves as another typical example of how long ago this type of feature could have been available if every new innovation didn't have to be vetted from the perspective of vendor benefit, instead of advancing on the basis of user benefit.

• by ankurdhama on 5/14/25, 2:41 AM

  The clock and notification area are still at top doesn't make sense. These should move to taskbar in desktop mode.

• by bufferoverflow on 5/14/25, 2:26 AM

  I've been using BlueStacks X to run android apps on desktop. Seems to work okay.

• by Farbklex on 5/14/25, 7:29 AM

  I am hearing about Google developing a desktop mode for probably 10 years now.

  I'll just stick to Dex which has been available since forever until Google finally figures their shit out.

• by garylkz on 5/14/25, 2:34 PM

  Remind me about Fuchsia in 3 years

• by refulgentis on 5/13/25, 2:43 PM

  Welcome to ChromeOS 2.0

• by matt3210 on 5/14/25, 5:53 AM

  This must be a video game since they laid off most of the people after it was made

• by zombot on 5/14/25, 9:51 AM

  Of course they will enshitten it into unusability, but in theory they could put one over on Apple with this. It's "only" the software that stops Apple's iDevices from being usable as development platforms or general purpose computers. Google could offer something here that Apple won't.

• by 0xbadcafebee on 5/13/25, 8:58 PM

  ....and it's not wireless?! even Android Auto has a wireless mode...

• by apitman on 5/14/25, 3:40 AM

  The excitement I feel about this shows how effectively Google and Apple have stockholmed us. We have supercomputers in our pockets and we can't even use them for some of the most fundamental computing tasks.

• by mirkodrummer on 5/13/25, 11:45 PM

  Imagine Apple doing something like that, with MacOS now having some UI that is similar to iOS one might think could be the case in the future

• by soapdog on 5/14/25, 8:54 AM

  Is it just me or people here also think that the end game for this is to replace Chrome OS on Chromebooks.

• by holografix on 5/14/25, 6:28 AM

  Wait till John Solomon finds out about this!

• by mdhb on 5/13/25, 3:21 PM

  @dang why is this flagged? The flagging system on this site is so incredibly bad. It’s always a tiny handful of users trying to control what others can see with zero logical consistency.

• by tjpnz on 5/14/25, 12:50 AM

  Adopting this feels like a very risky proposition given Google's tendency to drop support for things. Samsung have supported DeX for almost a decade now.

• by SirFatty on 5/13/25, 3:24 PM

  "Google’s Secret Weapon Against Samsung DeX"

  Samsung has abandoned DeX, attempting to use it (if using Windows 11) the user is instructed to use Phone Link which is not nearly as good, imho.

• by voidUpdate on 5/13/25, 2:56 PM

  Multitasking on a phone? I know screens are getting bigger, but it seems like a bit much to me... I can understand this on a tablet, but having two windows that im interacting with at the same time on a phone would feel really cramped, unless its one of those fold phones that are 2 or 3 in 1

• by kome on 5/13/25, 6:43 PM

  I’m against smartphones. Sure, they’re a technological marvel, but they’re also incredibly dumb in practice. They’re built mainly for consumption, not creation. They feel like walled gardens that limit freedom and stifle creativity. The hardware might be amazing, but the software is awful. In the end, they mostly just make our kids dumber.

  What I’d really like is a personal computer I can plug into a screen to work, then carry with me when I’m done. That would be a real step forward in personal computing. It would make laptops unnecessary.

• by danans on 5/14/25, 3:55 PM

  Many of the comments here talking about how phone hardware is capable enough to run a desktop - thereby obviating the need for a separate desktop/laptop - are missing the fact that consumers actually want multiple devices. Also, no consumer electronics company ever makes a successful business model on selling less stuff that does the same thing.

  There are real functional/usability reasons for having a separate device (with its own compute/storage) in a laptop form factor, and furthermore if we are honest, laptops are a kind of student/professional fashion accessory (especially Macs), a social-signal that you are a "knowledge-worker". As a result, that form factor is not going away anytime soon.

  What Google are doing seems less about the "desktop mode" for Android (though that's a necessary technical step) than it is about having a unified consumer OS experience between Android and ChromeOS, which according to reports, they are planning to merge.

• by penguin_booze on 5/14/25, 6:43 AM

  As long as its primary/blessed development language remain Kotlin, the Android ecosystem will remain inaccessible to me. It's not that I can't learn Kotlin, but I don't want to. When I want to develop an application on my desktop, it boils down to just `g++ ...` it, if I chose to. That is to say, I don't need GBs worth of download and a blessed IDE and gluttonous build system (the abomination called Gradle) to make my application. So, Android spreading everywhere is not good news for me. It's OK on my phone - I only use it, not do much development on it. Well, I could have, but not with something I consider as reasonable effort.