You mean they're going to turn Androids into Chromebooks.
Honestly, it sounds horrible, but for people who don't have a PC, I guess it could be a benefit.
this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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It's great. We need to consider how many people live in 3rd world countries that only have access to Android phones.
If they can hook up a keyboard, mouse, and a monitor to those phones then it empowers these people to have more opportunities to compete and contribute to the digital space.
Giving them access to the tools of developers could be a godsend.
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I used to think the idea of a phone that is also my desktop would be really cool. But then I got to thinking just how locked down iOS and to a lesser extent Android are compared to Linux/Windows/MacOS, and decided I wouldn't use my Pixel as a replacement for my desktop or laptop even if the feature was there.
On a serious note, what can't you do with your Pixel? The only issues I've had is I can't access networking functions. Beyond that, not much limits in most things I do. And with Android 16 allowing for installing Linux apps (not just terminal ones, but full graphical ones like VS Code, Blender 3D, etc), there is little I can't see it not being able to do. (No Wireshark though, but that's networking, the only painful point for me).
TLDR: I don't like the philosophy behind how Android and iOS devices are created and managed by their OEMs nearly enough to give them near total control over what I can do today or in the future with my primary computing platforms.
Its not a specific thing I can't do that I want to do that stops me from liking it.
Its that it is a specific OS image bound to a specific hardware model that is very limited in what options or upgrades or changes are available to me.
With a Framework laptop (or most other generic models) or a generic ATX desktop tower I can replace whatever internal component if need be and then put whatever base OS on it, just because I want to do that.
With a Pixel, or Galaxy, or iPhone it runs the OS it came with and is blessed by the OEM on the hardware they compiled it to run on. Unless I am willing to accept large inconveniences in functionality and usability.
If I replace my desktop/laptop with a Pixel running Debian for desktop mode, now Google has vastly more control over what my desktop experience is going to be via their control of the hardware and host OS layer than they do today. If they decide they don't want something being done in that Debian container in the future for some reason, then they can stop me from doing it with little recourse for me as a user.
Yes and no. I absolutely understand what you mean. And I was the same.
But then my tech-autism caused me to dig into cybersecurity and now I actually disagree with you.
I.E. have I completely stopped doing any type of banking on a device that isn't running a completely locked down iOS or Android.
It is not a security thing to me. It is a "I want to do what I want to do with the things I paid for" thing.
I know full well something so locked down is technically more secure, but using those platforms as my primary devices would cause a lose of device flexibility I have no interest in taking part in for the use cases of a desktop or laptop.
Those platforms have their place, just like my video game consoles. But I am not interested in making anything I consider important contingent on something that is more at the whims of the company that made it than me.
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To the best of my knowledge they give you a full Debian Linux in a container. Combine this with AOSP, and IMHO this is totally cool. Especially since my Netbook has worse specs than my current smartphone! :-)
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Sweet that it's all of android now. I've had it on my note 20 ultra for the past 5 years.
My old note9 did it too. Handy in a pinch and great when I forget my laptop but still wanted to pretend to work at work
Hopefully this means I can have a GraphineOS laptop (whenever google makes a new Pixel Laptop)
Didn’t canonical try this years ago?
I thought it was part of their justification for Mir like a decade ago.