150
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] squiblet@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I had this dream in 2010 (not literally a dream, just a notion) that someday, we'd replace desktops with phones... like, sit down at a desk, attach it to a dock, it would connect to a monitor, mouse and keyboard and you could use it like a desktop PC. I suppose we could already do that, other than that the software would still be phone apps not made to be used with a mouse or for the most part a landscape screen.

[-] somethingp@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

You're describing Samsung Dex

[-] tsz@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

Doesn't count until apple makes up a word for it.

[-] XTornado@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago
[-] clgoh@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago
[-] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 5 points 1 year ago

Or the HP Elite X3.

RIP Windows Phone.

[-] ramble81@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Windows phones used to be good as it was almost literally a mobile version of windows. Then they switched to the new UI, and while the contact combining and home screen were sweet, they ditched the rest of what made it "windows".

[-] Overzeetop@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

I had high hopes for Dex when it was first announced and I was on android for my phone, but dragging around a monitor was more work than just bringing my laptop. I got a 12.9" iPad a couple years ago as a portable library, then last year thought I might replace my (Windows) laptop by adding a keyboard and mouse to the iPad so I wouldn't have to take both into the field for minor work. I've also got a Samsung S7 so I tested it out as well. The capability/usability gap between the full desktop version of Word and the mobile versions made me give up. Understand I have a dozen templates, from simple to complex, in Word, and around 20 calculation or tracking Excel sheets - so transitioning to Pages/Docs and Sheets/Numbers would cost me about $20k in productivity time. And I still wouldn't have my CAD, finite element analysis, or industry-specific utilities with me.

[-] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

My current setup is Fold4 with BT keyboard and mouse. This is what I use instead of laptop for work when traveling. It's not perfect but more capable than expected. DeX is surprisingly usable but mobile applications lack in some areas. Luckily most of my work is around code so getting Termux solves most of the issues. S7 Galaxy Tab should have pretty capable DeX implementation which doesn't require external screen to work. For me just foldable screen is good enough for writing code.

[-] somethingp@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It really worked well for my use case during the pandemic. I was in a research lab and while I did most of my computational work from home, when I had experiments to do I would go in, and used dex to update my data spreadsheets and collect imaging, upload to our computational cluster and be able to run some basic stuff on that through an ssh terminal. I was just using Google sheets for my basic data entry. And I had a dock already set up there for my laptop, which had attached ethernet, a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. So I could just plug my phone into the USB c and have an instant solution that worked just like a computer and connected to the secure network over ethernet (which was required for the fastest upload to the cluster).

The biggest limitations was only being able to have 5 windows open at once, but for the limited tasks I needed to do, it worked well enough.

[-] squiblet@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There was a motorola phone meant to do that a long while back too. I assume other manufacturers have made one... I'll check that out!

Oh, I see it's a software system and not a specific device. That's cool. Well damn, I even had a Galaxy S9 and didn't know about that.

[-] BigVault@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Aah, the good old Motorola Atrix.

One of the earliest Laptop/phone combo devices I remember releasing.

[-] squiblet@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Nice, that's the one I was thinking of!

[-] Drrocketsurgeon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Look into cell phone laptop shells . Its what it sounds like. You plug your phone into it and your phone "becomes" the laptop. That was a few years ago ,I imagine there's better options now

load more comments (16 replies)
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
150 points (94.1% liked)

Apple

17481 readers
21 users here now

Welcome

to the largest Apple community on Lemmy. This is the place where we talk about everything Apple, from iOS to the exciting upcoming Apple Vision Pro. Feel free to join the discussion!

Rules:
  1. No NSFW Content
  2. No Hate Speech or Personal Attacks
  3. No Ads / Spamming
    Self promotion is only allowed in the pinned monthly thread

Lemmy Code of Conduct

Communities of Interest:

Apple Hardware
Apple TV
Apple Watch
iPad
iPhone
Mac
Vintage Apple

Apple Software
iOS
iPadOS
macOS
tvOS
watchOS
Shortcuts
Xcode

Community banner courtesy of u/Antsomnia.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS