I was thinking of the coolness factor of just having one device, a phone, to which you could connect an external display and have an extended desktop. I am not finding any reference to this on Android (only the MS Surface). From what I have been reading, and remember/understand (may be confused), Jelly Bean brought the ability for windowing apps. However, the apps have to be coded for the capability, unless you root your phone and installed an app that provided windowing for all apps. Also, I have not heard of the possibility of having an extended desktop in Android.
I would like to ask WHY? Why not have windowing and the ability for an extended desktop, on an external display? A bluetooth keyboard and mouse just follows. Does google have to play nice with the manufacturers that stand to loose from people only needing one device? Is there a reason I'm not thinking of? Most phones are fast enough for this these days.
At the turn of the century, I was running GPS software Deluo Routis on a Sony Vaio 505 Pentium 200Mhz laptop running Win98. The 2-D graphics were smooth even while playing mp3's through the car speakers. The mapping software showed the map clearly, and effectively gave me navigation. People have lost sight of how much you can do if you give up the bloat and bling.
Also, I am pretty confused with the merging of Android and Chrome. I never liked Java to begin with; my experience with it is in MS Windows, and it runs slow as molasses. I believe my phone would run much faster if they had not chosen Java. I understand this to be because you have an operating system running on top of another operating system. It just makes more sense to me to have less layers and run apps natively, for better performance. I thought maybe they chose Java for its level of security. Is the screening process for Google Play not foolproof enough?
I like the philosophy of Google better than Microsoft**, so if one of them is going to win, I hope it's Google. I'm hoping Google won't end up with a convoluted Android/Chrome operating system because Lawyers forced them to (the idea I get based on the latest news). I don't understand: do they want to keep their OS architecture simple, but are being forced to make the OS complex for different reasons?
**Apple doesn't even want to compete. They have never wanted to dominate, just make huge profits. Unless they break up the marriage of hardware and software, they won't win. Then again, if Samsung keeps dominating, there may not be much hardware diversity?
Oh, and my main question was: "Why not have windowing and the ability for an extended desktop?". Wouldn't that be a big deciding factor for anyone that wanted to simplify and just have one device?
Anybody? Tell me I'm crazy at least. There has to be a strategic reason, that Google does not introduce full windowing and extended desktop support.
Its coming eventually. though you could do it right now. Motorola tried something like this with their atrix lapdocks.
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E_Phather said:
Its coming eventually. though you could do it right now. Motorola tried something like this with their atrix lapdocks.
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Can you do it right now with any android device having a video port?
Well lets look at how we could achieve this with todays technology.
Input:
Bluetooth Mouse & keyboard.
Output:
Wireless display with support for older displays using something like Chromecast.
Graphical User Interface:
A secondary Launcher/Application (Which could potentially see companies like MS & Canonical developing their own UI's and Charging for them if required).
Home & Office use with one device:
Home would be the default UI, but when your device has used NFC to log into the office it would automatically enable your Office profile/UI for a certain length of time (requiring you to log back in after a set time or manual log out via another NFC tap).
This would be very useful as it would enable you to take your "desktop" environment anywhere with you and connect to any HDTV with Wireless display/Chromecast support.
Applications:
So if like me you are finding your phone to become ever more a better solution to your digital needs and you only require your desktop for apps which work better with larger displays (Videos & certain games) you will find this very useful.
Games:
Now games could become ever more better as they could be controlled using standardised control inputs (game controllers could use standardised input methods allowing you to select any compatible controller to best suit your needs) or even a driving game could allow you to see the game on a HDTV yet be controlled with the accelerometer for steering and the right of the devices touch display would be the accelerator and the left of the display would be the brakes for example.
More Business Solutions:
If you could wirelessly connect to the office display then show a powerpoint style presentation that would be great because the very device which stores the file would also be your controller to move to the next/pevious slides.
Media:
Music could possibly be stored in the cloud so when your on the move you can listen to your music as many of us do now, but when connected to a large display it could utilise the large display and speakers to show a music video too!.
Photos could be viewed on the large screen and the next one to be displayed could be select on the device (allowing the use to avoid showing anyone pictures which they don't want other to see - ie: pitcures of you and your friends whilst your parents/grandparents are in the room...).
The TV Guide:
The TV Guide would become a very interactive thing which allows you to see what is available on other TV channels without other people in the room being limited to viewing the content they are trying to watch in a small box in the corner of the display...
These are just some ideas of what is possible, but I know that you could do so much more with this and with 64-bit technology coming to many mobile devices soon that will make it so much easier for devices to process all of this data at once without any serious lag!.
I would love to see a group of developers on XDA team up on an open desktop (secondary) launcher to run alongside the users primary (phone) launcher. if there was a project like this with an open framework to develop apps for I'd be happy to start developing apps for that or separate UI's to run alongside my current (Phone/Android) apps UI's.
Edit:
Also remember that this could be utilised in other ways too eg:: connecting your device to your car and your device could deliver your navigation & music to your vehicles display whilst getting important traffic/weather news using your devices network connection!.
Isn't this exactly what the Ubuntu phone intends to do or have I got the wrong idea?
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Yes, but with Android already having a large ecosystem it would make a lot of sense to build upon that.
Chromecast is not "open" to third party apps. http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/...eeds-to-Tread-Lightly-With/8/28/2013/id/51502
Do they have a displayport version of Chromecast? *cough*
quote from: http://www.tested.com/tech/set-top-boxes/457036-testing-google-chromecast/
"Chromecast is also not a particularly good desktop mirroring option, either. It actually can't do full desktop mirroring, and instead works solely with the Chrome browser. In beta right now is Chrome tab streaming, which sends to Chromecast everything that can be rendered in a single Chrome tab, including web pages, flash embeds, and even full-screen MKV video files if you have VLC installed. I like that Chrome tab streaming works independently of what's showing on your laptop or desktop's screen--like with YouTube and Netflix, you can multi-task and switch to other tabs or windows while one tab is being streamed. The only thing that matters is the window size and screen resolution. Chromecast will automatically scale the aspect ratio of your window to fill up your TV screen, adding black bars on the sides to avoid stretching. A full-screen resolution of 1440x900 looked good on a large 1080p TV, but streaming from a 2560x1600 monitor at full-screen made the text unreadable on my 70" TV."
Wow... I thought only displayport was capable of 2560x1600 (edit: hdmi v1.3 brought this). Even if I hook it up to my 2560x1600 monitor, it won't really display anything but entertainment. Chromecast doesn't seem to be a way to have a monitor, to use your Android phone as a PC replacement.
AllCast !!!
http://www.geek.com/android/chromecast-reject-becomes-allcast-public-beta-now-available-1578674/
However, I still need to add some kind of wifi enabled device to my 30" lcd monitor (like with chromecast). Really, I don't mind a cable connection from my phone to my monitor, if that was an option. If Google continues to be closed like this, then I would go for Ubuntu phone.
Displayport:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyDP#SlimPort
Any phones have this besides the Google Nexus 4? Actually, I'm not getting a new phone until I know what the hell will happen with Android / Chrome OS
Quote from: http://www.tested.com/tech/android/457205-mhl-vs-slimport/
"SlimPort's support for the DisplayPort standard--specifically Mobility DisplayPort--means it can output video at the same 4K resolution as MHL, though not via HDMI (yet, anyway). And here SlimPort hasn't really made good on its potential, yet; though it's based on the flexible DisplayPort standard, the only SlimPort adapters currently available are for VGA and HDMI connectors. The upshot is that you won't be plugging a Nexus 7 into a 1440p DisplayPort computer monitor anytime soon." http://www.slimportconnect.com/
Chromecast May Get Screen Mirroring With Android 4.4.1
Evidence in Android 4.4.1 indicates that screen mirroring is coming to Chromecast.
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Click to collapse
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/chromecast-google-screen-mirroring-kitkat-android,25345.html
It could start with mirroring a primary display, but gradually result in mirroring something that a GPU has rendered for a secondary display.
A dock from Samsung Galaxy phones. Has USB ports, HDMI, and audio.
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/EDD-S20JWEGSTA
mraeryceos said:
A dock from Samsung Galaxy phones. Has USB ports, HDMI, and audio.
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-accessories/EDD-S20JWEGSTA
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Click to collapse
I tried that myself with my previous Galaxy S4 (i9500), It was a great dock and when I connected my wireless KB & Mouse USB dongle & connected the HDMI to my PC monitor it was a good experience when doing things like playing GTA3 on the bigger screen (it was better than the windows version in some ways).
But the device just needed a separate home screen UI to be output to the PC screen to look perfect and to work better with the KB & Mouse input type.
It shouldn't be too difficult to make a UI that simply changes the size of some buttons to a smaller size, enabling more widgets to fit on the home screen and if they could simply force the apps to run in either windowed or full screen that would enable better multi-tasking, then the browsers would just need a small update to detect if the device is running in Desktop Mode if so, then simply zoom out of the page a little to emulate the desktop browser experience.
Just a few ideas... If Google's Android team are reading this, I would recommend that you get that dock to experiment with for future Android builds.
Especially now that OS' like Ubuntu Phone are looking at going down this road of the one device fits all computational needs.
Rather than creating a new thread I thought that it would appropriate to bring this topic back up after the recent announcements that several OEM's have made, that they will be releasing desktops with Android as their Primary/Secondary OS.
I hope that this pushes Google into creating a dedicated desktop UI in the future.
Hi all!
This is my first post, I'm an Italian boy, sorry for my bad english. I had an idea with raspberry pi v2 (the quadcore with 1gb of ram version) and a display tft. Since i'd buy mi raspberry pi B version in day one, my though was to put in Android o.s., but becouse of the arm processor we can't, now the v2 version got a newest arm and Android should be work. My project consists in a Android Wear version for raspberry pi, i'll put a raspberry with a touch display gpio or flat in a wall, like a thermostat, so i can use "ok google" connecting it by wifi, the wear 5.1.1 seems to support it, so he can search online basic command like weather or traffic information. I think that Android Wear is more powerful and with dedicated application like in the smartwatches we can use the gpio pin of the raspberry to control the house like temperature, lights or music. With the WiFi connection to the Android Wear app in the smartphone we can also answer the notifications simply like a smartwatch.
I have a basic experience in programming languages and electronic, but no one born learned and i'm here because i think there are a lot of experts. First of all i think i need an Android Wear 5.1.1 complete image, where can i get it?
We all knew that Google just announced it's Chrome-Android OSs merge at their I/O conference. This was their last chance to save their desktop OS. My dad is buying a chromebook today
But here is the deal to save Remix OS!
First their Android system that will get integrated in the OS is not open source, at least for now, so you can't get it on Neverware Cloudready Chromium OS on your PC. You can't use it on the PC you already have, you need to buy a chromebook. Remix OS is just like Windows and works on most PCs and laptops and this is A BIG BONUS!
First Remix OS has to fix its compatibilities with Android apps to get at least 80% of google plays apps and games especially the main stream ones working seamlessly.
It also needs to support mouse wheel and touch gestures via mouse. Multiuser is a MUST for a desktop OS.
Also there should be a time just working to get Closed source drivers like GPU, sound, wifi, touch screens, mice working either by reverse engineering them or contacting the companies to supply them with working drivers.
Last thing! , we need desktops and laptops that come preinstalled with Remix OS as their main (but not only) OS other than the Remix Ultratablet and Remix mini.
People of Jide, you have a good chance don't lose it
Hi there, I'm thiniking of DeX with Linux. Are anyone using Linux with DeX? How it's your experience with?
I work with Ubuntu and I'm thinking about buy a DeX and switch off my notebook, what you think about it?
Thanks!
Haven't found a way to do that yet. I have signed up to get Informed once samsung releases "Linux on galaxy" solution
Tetragonopantelonis said:
Haven't found a way to do that yet. I have signed up to get Informed once samsung releases "Linux on galaxy" solution
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So they didn't release this feature yet? I saw a video talking about it.
thiagomed said:
So they didn't release this feature yet? I saw a video talking about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still nothing... I hoped it would be out along with Note 9,but still silence from Samsung
Dex on Linux. Experience
I have the basic version of note 9.
I bought two different setups for testing:
- HDMI - USBC cable + Bluetooth keyboard and Bluetooth mouse
- HDMI with USBC port + 2 USB normal ports to connect a wired mouse and keyboard.
I have also at home two 4k tvs that I use as monitors: A 39inch seiki and a 41inch curved Samsung. Both working at 4k with my mac book Pro and my Ubuntu pc
Connecting any of the screens to my note using any of the devices gives me only 1080p. After researching, this is a software limitación. Somebody checked that note 9 can actually output 4k.
When you open dex, you get a desktop experience and you can execute you android apps. Not every app scales to full screen and some of them are shown as if you were runing them with an emulator.
Now dex on Linux. I got the invite and I installed the app. When you launch it in your phone, it asks you download an image (imagine docker) that's is a 4Gb zip that becomes a 10Gb unzipped .img file.
Application asks you to give the container a name and select the . img file.
That is what you can do from your phone. You cannot execute the container unless you are in dex mode: dex opened in a monitor
On dex, you have to run the Linux on dex app and run any container run created before.
When you run one in about 5-10 seconds you have Ubuntu 16 running.
Default applications you get aside of the standard ones is visual studio code and intellij 2018.2 community.
I am a java guy so I launched intellij to check the speed and I was surprised how fast it launched.
I need to play more, but I would buy a higher spec note if the 4k issue was solved.
In my opinion Dex/Linux is an strategy to justify expensive phones with more hardware, because nobody needs more ram and cores if you just run phone apps. Said that I am a software professional and this use case fits perfectly with my needs
I tried to install on my s9+ but would not let me. I hope they make available for S9+. I run Linux Deploy now in chroot - but not the same. I have Dex Station which I think would be nice with Ubuntu.
Iphone 9 linex
Linex on note 9 seem good but it would be better if i could download software or even update .It won't let me do anything.Its says no plugin could handle gs_plugin_app_install.Im at a lose.
Hello!
I am wondering does someone here tried to use any touchscreen foil/screen to control his Android TV device. I read from official android docs that TV devices should be controlled via remote not touchscreen, however I feel touch control can ba as intuitive as remote for TVs or any other displays with Android TV interface.
There is instruction with kernel modules how to achieve that, but with older Android versions: https://www.dognmonkey.com/techs/how-to-add-touch-screen-to-android-tv-box.html
Does someone know anything how to grasp this topic? Any hints will be appreciated.
klickerstar said:
Hello!
I am wondering does someone here tried to use any touchscreen foil/screen to control his Android TV device. I read from official android docs that TV devices should be controlled via remote not touchscreen, however I feel touch control can ba as intuitive as remote for TVs or any other displays with Android TV interface.
There is instruction with kernel modules how to achieve that, but with older Android versions: https://www.dognmonkey.com/techs/how-to-add-touch-screen-to-android-tv-box.html
Does someone know anything how to grasp this topic? Any hints will be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that is an intresting idea, and seems perfectley possible, not sure how android tv UI will respod to touch as seems to have issues with mouse pointer (which is a virtual touch) in some instances like the initial set up screen ui