5 ms·

> If we get to 2030 and phones can't plug in to GPUs something is f-ed and the system is broken, tech has ossified grossly. Why? That’s an incredibly minor use

> If we get to 2030 and phones can't plug in to GPUs something is f-ed and the system is broken, tech has ossified grossly. Why? That’s an incredibly minor use case. If you’re expecting something this niche to become the norm then you’re destined to be disappointed.

mcny 3y ago
We had USB 3 with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 in September 2013. It is now almost a decade. If rumors are true, Samsung will announce a USB 4 (thunderbolt 3) phone before the end of 2024. I agree with the grandparent. While most people don't care too much for eGPU (?), I'm sure if we let people innovate, good things will come. My dream is much smaller. I just want whatever hardware circuitry is required to accomplish the scenario where a phone that is plugged in to a good power source runs directly from the wall, shutting off battery charge completely, not trickle charging all day and night.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  Pretty sure most any phone already has the hardware for software defined charging. Android just doesn't have an API call for it, unless they do and I just haven't heard yet. Maybe we should be filing feature requests for it;
- RF_Savage 3y ago
  One of the tragedies of USB-C is how it can be anything from dumb charging only to one's capable of 40GB/s data transfer among everything else.
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    This. People can get away with implementing really, really bad USB-C ports and you're just supposed to expect that no two USB-C ports are born equal.
  - hgomersall 3y ago
    It makes working out which hole to plug something in to rather tricky. Especially when the little lightning bolt or other graphics have rubbed off.
    - lproven 3y ago
      Seconded. And even before then. I have an M1 Macbook Air which will only output video over one of its 2 USB-C ports, not the other. There is nothing visible on the case or in the OS to indicate this. I have had an Arm and an AMD Thinkpad which both have only dual USB-C, and both unpredictably switch between one or the other being bootable, with no discenable pattern.
      - lloeki 3y ago
        > I have an M1 Macbook Air which will only output video over one of its 2 USB-C ports, not the other. Weird, ever since I had USB-C based Mac Mini or MacBook (two Intel, two M1) they could reliably output video on any of the two, three, or four ports (as long as I don't go past the limit). They're essentially symmetric on all features.
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    USB4 mandates 40GBps. It mandates DisplayPort. These would be pretty helpful baselines to expect, reasons for consumers to want USB4: they know it will be fairly featureful. PCIe transport ("Thunderbolt") and Power Delivery are both optional though, I think.
- contrarian1234 3y ago
  My Lenovo Y700 does passthrough power. It also has a mode where it only starts charging if the battery is below 40% and it'll stop at 60% Unfortunately its not a phone. Its a mini tablet. But I find the size ideal for daily use - browsing，reading pdfs, small sketches . (no SIM slot though)
  - RetroTechie 3y ago
    > It also has a mode where it only starts charging if the battery is below 40% and it'll stop at 60% Wish every battery powered device would have a setting for this. As opposed to always charging when charger is plugged in, and always charging up to 100% (non-configurable).
    - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
      My sample size isn't big, but on Linux every laptop I've seen has amazing battery reporting information galore. Oh sure battery level. And various assessments of wear. Things like realtime charge or discharge rates. But more notably, I think around half also have charge control. It's just been on/off. But it would be a pretty basic bash script to make this happen.
      - contrarian1234 3y ago
        I have a Huawei Mate book 16 and under KDE (Ubuntu) I can set a charge limit in the energy settings But it depends on the laptop. From what I understand not all laptops have the drivers for power control ie. the ability to from-software tell the laptop to stop charging
- MikusR 3y ago
  And it was so bad they went back to microusb on 4
  - ewoodrich 3y ago
    All Galaxy S models were Micro USB until they switched to USB-C on the S8 series.
    - MikusR 3y ago
      I was talking about Note 4. And Galaxy S5 had usb3
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
You may be onto something, as Lenovo shut down the super-badass ultra-phone. https://www.androidauthority.com/lenovo-legion-phone-shutdown-3306942/ https://www.androidauthority.com/lenovo-legion-phone-shutdow... But reciprocally, what's the new ultra-hot device? Gaming decks. Lenovo just announced theirs today. Steam, Asus, and dozen of others have amazing devices. And there are still gaming-centric phones galore. This should be an easy ask. It should be a lock. Android alas is kind of a weird divergent hard to use OS that makes everything difficult. Apple hasn't supported anyone elses GPUs in a long long time. But in general, this should just be easy simple & doable, were it not for the sins of these ultra-bizarre weird not-PC but so close systems. ChromeOS finally found jesus & is now running on Wayland, because it was obviously the correct & only sensible choice all along, And has huge advantages, such as having a huge world of people optimizing & making the system better. I don't know how Android ever pivots (they just steal everything ChromeOS (which runs Android great) is doing), but it should, so that it can make ideas like this unimaginably easy & simple tasks, versus today where this sort of idea is a painstaking slow & awful endeavor to make happen. So much of computing is a story of niche finding leverage & finding adherents. The early adopters are just those who see potential, and they continually have reshaped what computing is. Writing off "niche" as uninteresting & minor ignores how sensible & clear & obvious so many advancements are & should be.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  I wish Android and Linux would just merge. Give people access to a Linux userland that lets you install Nix packages(Most anything but Nix or similar would be a step backwards from Android's reliability during updates), and then Android could very easily be most people's only OS. If people could plug in their phone and run Linux apps on a full size monitor they'd probably pay a lot more for the phone, knowing they didn't then also need a nice laptop.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    The general population only need to run a browser on their external monitor, with Office 365 or Google Docs and Gmail. There is no need for anything else. If one is not a software developer, which Linux apps do you feel are needed? I used Samsung DEX a few times on my tablet. The mouse plus touchscreen combination works well. The keyboard is a little worse because there is no Esc key on Android and Ctrl [ is uncomfortable.
pjerem 3y ago
Because that’s what standards are for : a single base of universal rules that allows you to build what you want over it. The point is not that phones should be connected to GPUs, that’s a silly idea. But nevertheless for plenty of reasons including ecology and autonomy of people, it should be the case that any device should work with any other device as long as anyone is able to develop a driver. And there should be no permanent lock against custom drivers.

mcny 3y ago

We had USB 3 with the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 in September 2013. It is now almost a decade. If rumors are true, Samsung will announce a USB 4 (thunderbolt 3) phone before the end of 2024. I agree with the grandparent. While most people don't care too much for eGPU (?), I'm sure if we let people innovate, good things will come. My dream is much smaller. I just want whatever hardware circuitry is required to accomplish the scenario where a phone that is plugged in to a good power source runs directly from the wall, shutting off battery charge completely, not trickle charging all day and night.

eternityforest 3y ago
Pretty sure most any phone already has the hardware for software defined charging. Android just doesn't have an API call for it, unless they do and I just haven't heard yet. Maybe we should be filing feature requests for it;
RF_Savage 3y ago
One of the tragedies of USB-C is how it can be anything from dumb charging only to one's capable of 40GB/s data transfer among everything else.
- LoganDark 3y ago
  This. People can get away with implementing really, really bad USB-C ports and you're just supposed to expect that no two USB-C ports are born equal.
- hgomersall 3y ago
  It makes working out which hole to plug something in to rather tricky. Especially when the little lightning bolt or other graphics have rubbed off.
  - lproven 3y ago
    Seconded. And even before then. I have an M1 Macbook Air which will only output video over one of its 2 USB-C ports, not the other. There is nothing visible on the case or in the OS to indicate this. I have had an Arm and an AMD Thinkpad which both have only dual USB-C, and both unpredictably switch between one or the other being bootable, with no discenable pattern.
    - lloeki 3y ago
      > I have an M1 Macbook Air which will only output video over one of its 2 USB-C ports, not the other. Weird, ever since I had USB-C based Mac Mini or MacBook (two Intel, two M1) they could reliably output video on any of the two, three, or four ports (as long as I don't go past the limit). They're essentially symmetric on all features.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  USB4 mandates 40GBps. It mandates DisplayPort. These would be pretty helpful baselines to expect, reasons for consumers to want USB4: they know it will be fairly featureful. PCIe transport ("Thunderbolt") and Power Delivery are both optional though, I think.
contrarian1234 3y ago
My Lenovo Y700 does passthrough power. It also has a mode where it only starts charging if the battery is below 40% and it'll stop at 60% Unfortunately its not a phone. Its a mini tablet. But I find the size ideal for daily use - browsing，reading pdfs, small sketches . (no SIM slot though)
- RetroTechie 3y ago
  > It also has a mode where it only starts charging if the battery is below 40% and it'll stop at 60% Wish every battery powered device would have a setting for this. As opposed to always charging when charger is plugged in, and always charging up to 100% (non-configurable).
  - jauntywundrkind 3y ago
    My sample size isn't big, but on Linux every laptop I've seen has amazing battery reporting information galore. Oh sure battery level. And various assessments of wear. Things like realtime charge or discharge rates. But more notably, I think around half also have charge control. It's just been on/off. But it would be a pretty basic bash script to make this happen.
    - contrarian1234 3y ago
      I have a Huawei Mate book 16 and under KDE (Ubuntu) I can set a charge limit in the energy settings But it depends on the laptop. From what I understand not all laptops have the drivers for power control ie. the ability to from-software tell the laptop to stop charging
MikusR 3y ago
And it was so bad they went back to microusb on 4
- ewoodrich 3y ago
  All Galaxy S models were Micro USB until they switched to USB-C on the S8 series.
  - MikusR 3y ago
    I was talking about Note 4. And Galaxy S5 had usb3

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

You may be onto something, as Lenovo shut down the super-badass ultra-phone. https://www.androidauthority.com/lenovo-legion-phone-shutdown-3306942/ https://www.androidauthority.com/lenovo-legion-phone-shutdow... But reciprocally, what's the new ultra-hot device? Gaming decks. Lenovo just announced theirs today. Steam, Asus, and dozen of others have amazing devices. And there are still gaming-centric phones galore. This should be an easy ask. It should be a lock. Android alas is kind of a weird divergent hard to use OS that makes everything difficult. Apple hasn't supported anyone elses GPUs in a long long time. But in general, this should just be easy simple & doable, were it not for the sins of these ultra-bizarre weird not-PC but so close systems. ChromeOS finally found jesus & is now running on Wayland, because it was obviously the correct & only sensible choice all along, And has huge advantages, such as having a huge world of people optimizing & making the system better. I don't know how Android ever pivots (they just steal everything ChromeOS (which runs Android great) is doing), but it should, so that it can make ideas like this unimaginably easy & simple tasks, versus today where this sort of idea is a painstaking slow & awful endeavor to make happen. So much of computing is a story of niche finding leverage & finding adherents. The early adopters are just those who see potential, and they continually have reshaped what computing is. Writing off "niche" as uninteresting & minor ignores how sensible & clear & obvious so many advancements are & should be.

eternityforest 3y ago
I wish Android and Linux would just merge. Give people access to a Linux userland that lets you install Nix packages(Most anything but Nix or similar would be a step backwards from Android's reliability during updates), and then Android could very easily be most people's only OS. If people could plug in their phone and run Linux apps on a full size monitor they'd probably pay a lot more for the phone, knowing they didn't then also need a nice laptop.
- pmontra 3y ago
  The general population only need to run a browser on their external monitor, with Office 365 or Google Docs and Gmail. There is no need for anything else. If one is not a software developer, which Linux apps do you feel are needed? I used Samsung DEX a few times on my tablet. The mouse plus touchscreen combination works well. The keyboard is a little worse because there is no Esc key on Android and Ctrl [ is uncomfortable.

pjerem 3y ago

Because that’s what standards are for : a single base of universal rules that allows you to build what you want over it. The point is not that phones should be connected to GPUs, that’s a silly idea. But nevertheless for plenty of reasons including ecology and autonomy of people, it should be the case that any device should work with any other device as long as anyone is able to develop a driver. And there should be no permanent lock against custom drivers.