6 ms·

It looks like the one feature I was more eagerly awaiting is there: It can drive a display through the USB-C cable (https://www.apple.com/iphone-15-pro https://

It looks like the one feature I was more eagerly awaiting is there: It can drive a display through the USB-C cable (https://www.apple.com/iphone-15-pro https://www.apple.com/iphone-15-pro, scroll down to "Gigablast your gigabits" and then click on "Explore Connectivity". Looking forward (assuming it will work like the iPad Pro) to not carrying a laptop with me when I know there is a USB-C or HDMI (with an adapter) screen available at my destination. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and I'm set. No more syncing with the phone - I am using the phone itself.

gessha 3y ago
I really wish Apple let's you develop apps on Linux/iPad/iPhone.
- Jtsummers 3y ago
  One third of your wish is already answered. You can develop apps on the iPad.
  - hack4supper 3y ago
    How pray tell ... I was looking into doing that.
    - Jtsummers 3y ago
      Swift Playgrounds https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/ https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/
      - internetter 3y ago
        This is pitched as an education tool...
        Jtsummers 3y ago
        > This is pitched as an education tool... And? From the page: > When you’re ready to share your completed app, you can submit it to App Store Connect right from your iPad or Mac with Swift Playgrounds. Someone asked about developing apps on the iPad, this is a way to develop (and submit to the App Store) apps on the iPad.
  - hbn 3y ago
    Show me one serious iOS developer who's using an iPad as their primary dev machine.
- larme 3y ago
  I use blink[0] with a 40% keyboard to develop linux program on a vps. If you want to do programming without wireless interenet, another option is to connect a raspberry pi zero 2w (with usb gadget mode enabled) to the usb c port using a single usb cable. Then the rpi zero will share a ethernet network with iOS device. Then you can use blink (again) to mosh to raspberrypi.local to do the development on the pi. The reason that I don't do it on android with termux is that there's no high quality terminal emulator like blink on android. [0]: https://blink.sh https://blink.sh
konradb 3y ago
Would be interesting to see how it can use a larger screen. Definitely the phone is powerful enough for most tasks.
rcarmo 3y ago
I don't think Apple will ever do that, to be honest. It took nearly a decade for them to get keyboard support working properly on the iPad, and they have zero incentive to copy Samsung DeX given they prefer to sell 3 different devices to people. What they will do is allow you to record video directly to storage devices and preview photos on large displays as they are taken.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  This is already possible.
- Xylakant 3y ago
  > I don't think Apple will ever do that, to be honest. Apple sells lightning->HDMI adapters that could drive a display at 1080p and it’s been possible to pair a keyboard with your iPhone. I know folks that used that setup for writing longer texts while traveling. Given that a lot of the infrastructure was already there, I wouldn’t be surprised if it trickles in over time. You can see the same trajectory with iPads: At first they could mirror screens only, but with the recent changes to stage manager, they’re a pretty full-featured laptop if you use a keyboard and trackpad. My 11” pro is capable of driving a huge widescreen.
  - rcarmo 3y ago
    Yeah, I know - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/12/14/1230 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/12/14/1230 I’ve been doing that for years now on the iPad, and knowing Apple (my site’s 20+ years old, BTW), I would be extremely surprised if they ever put Stage Manager or anything similar on an iPhone. You can hack your way around things (Blink and Remote Desktop support external displays, etc., and there has been an external display API for a while that third-party apps have used creatively), but it is just not the way Apple thinks about the iPhone.
- ako 3y ago
  I regularly use my bluetooth mechanical keyboard (nuphy air 75) with both ipad and iphone. Works fine. Much better than the keyboards sold by apple. What are you missing?
paxys 3y ago
I bought an Android phone that transforms into a desktop computer when you plug in a USB-C monitor, and the entire experience is mind blowing. You can even connect a bluetooth keyboard and use the phone screen as a touchpad. Unfortunately I don't think Apple is going to go in that direction anytime soon.
- bsimpson 3y ago
  This sounds like Motorola in about 2012.
- automatoney 3y ago
  Ooooh more info please! Which phone? And what's the experience like? Are you using it for development at all or is it more things like word? I wanna know all about this setup, since I'm definitely going to need to upgrade my phone soon.
  - lostmsu 3y ago
    Sounds like Samsung Dex + something like VS Code on Android.
  - paxys 3y ago
    Any Samsung flagship will work (make sure it supports DeX). All the first party apps and plenty of store ones have a desktop UI. I haven't tried any native IDEs yet, but a cloud editor in the browser works perfect.
  - liminalsunset 3y ago
    I have had a number of Samsung devices that I bought specifically to test out the DeX capabilities, and it's really hard to say whether I recommend it. I ended up going back to a real PC, and it was such a breath of fresh air. My setup was: Anker A8383 USB-C hub, 1440p 120hz monitor, USB keyboard/mouse -Apps close themselves even when the RAM isn't full, and the "RAM Plus" feature which gives you 8 GB of swap on a 12GB RAM phone doesn't necessarily fix it. -Multiple apps can play audio at the same time if you install Sound Assistant and enable the requisite feature (multi-app sound). Similarly, you should get the Good Guardians and Good Lock apps from the Galaxy store (or apkmirror if in Canada) and tinker with the settings to taste. This is necessary to get 4K60 support or anything more than 1080p. -I use Kiwi Browser, which supports all Chrome extensions and otherwise works like normal desktop Chrome. You'll want to go into the flags and enable the zoom thing (search for zoom) and then enable the zoom option under Accessbility in Kiwi settings, to fix websites that don't scale correctly. Tabs get unloaded/lazy loaded in background due to RAM issue. -Doing anything moderately describable as "productive" or "intensive" (example: google maps website) creates more heat than the phone can handle over more than 10 minutes. Do not buy a Snapdragon 888, or other weak processor device (I am aware it is old but some people like used phones). Things like particles.js, hidden autoplays, etc that don't cause issues on desktop waste TDP on phones. The problem isn't necessarily that the phone overheats, it's that Samsung makes it so that not only does the battery stop charging if it gets over 36 C, it actually starts draining. For reference, your body temperature is around 36 C. On the S23 Ultra, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, it's more or less usable now, with some battery drain from time to time. Weirdly, the battery drain issue is solved if you use a charger that supports USB PD PPS. The PPS part is VERY important. If you look at Samsung schematics, you will see that the PMIC does normal USB PD and there's a separate chip for PPS. Not all docks support PPS, in fact I'm not certain if ANY do. This is an area where more research is required. Of course, the fact that the PPS chip isn't affected might not be a thermal issue, but rather a "Samsung forgot to throttle charging on PPS", which would not be a good thing to talk about then because I don't want them to "fix" this. -I cannot imagine development would be particularly easy on this device. I briefly looked into getting VSCode on there and whatnot but the Android Linux projects seem to have fallen quite some from their former glory. While web based stuff is likely fine, the aforementioned memory and CPU problems will make this difficult to use for anything too serious. -All of the current common remote desktop solutions i.e. RustDesk (slow performance), Parsec (keyboard issues, no zoom), Reemo (mostly works, no keyboard shortcuts, lag, thermal problems), TeamViewer (3fps), Moonlight (mouse capture issue, thermal problems), RDP (low fps) etc have some kind of usability problem that makes them difficult to use for this application, in case you wanted to use the phone as a thin client.
colinjoy 3y ago
> assuming it will work like the iPad Pro I doubt they would sneak in such a feature without at least mentioning it. I expect this to be even more limited, perhaps just tethered airplay for better resolution.
- rcarmo 3y ago
  It’s not even that. It’s just direct storage access for recording and image previews.
ksec 3y ago
I hope this is true. Even with a Keyboard and mouse and I can browse Internet with it would be great.
- masklinn 3y ago
  FWIW keyboards have worked OK all along, I regularly use one of my wireless keyboards switched over to the phone to type longer stuff, though the autocorrect gets more annoying in that case. Mice are a lot more annoying, because they're part of the assistive devices, so you need to enable Assistive Touch, and then you either have the mouse connected or the Assistive Touch menu taking space on the display, which is probably not useful if you're abled. If Assistive Touch is disabled, the mouse "works" but you don't get a visible pointer which is completely stupid. Possibly connecting to an external display won't have that issue, or iOS 17 will make the experience a bit better for non-assistive mousing.
chx 3y ago
edit: nevermind
- zamadatix 3y ago
  You might want to check your math :). It's ~10 gbps by both measures.
NavinF 3y ago
I don't see anything about displays on that page. All I see is "iPhone 15 Pro lets you shoot ProRes video directly to external storage, so you can quickly switch drives and keep your iPhone camera rolling on set. Want to capture slow motion Hollywood style? Now you can record ProRes 4K at 60 fps to an external SSD." I highly doubt the 15 Pro can drive a display. In the unlikely case that it can, you'll be limited to very low res. Why would they limit USB to 10gbps if the PHY can push the ~32gbps eDP bandwidth required for a modern display?
- MarkMarine 3y ago
  “ Now you can connect USB‑C gear like thumb drives, fast external storage, 4K displays, and microphones.” Right in the linked site
- gruturo 3y ago
  The "Explore Connectivity" modal window you can open in the "Gigablast your gigabits" (meh) section, as I quoted in my original post, has this block of text: USB‑Convenient. Now you can connect USB‑C gear like thumb drives, fast external storage, 4K displays, and microphones. And you can charge Apple Watch or AirPods from your iPhone.9
  - NavinF 3y ago
    I must have landed on the wrong side of an AB test because that text doesn't show up for me on the "Explore Connectivity" modal window. I checked with both Chrome/Windows and iOS. Anyway I really hope that text refers to DP alt mode, not displaylink. Any USB port works with displaylink chips as long as the OS has the driver
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      It seems to support normal DP output (from the "tech specs" page https://www.apple.com/iphone-15-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-15-pro/specs/): > Video mirroring and video out support: Up to 4K HDR through native DisplayPort output over USB-C or USB-C Digital AV Adapter
Havoc 3y ago
> No more syncing with the phone - I am using the phone itself. That sounds about as productive as the never ending stream of “I tried switching to an iPad for dev” blogs
- Gareth321 3y ago
  But they'll be able to write so much in the text editor with their bluetooth keyboard!
  - gruturo 3y ago
    Heh, a decent chunk of my work happens in Outlook, regrettably. Another good bit in the browser, accessing corporate stuff with the phone's per-app VPN. So yeah it's sad, but I'd be able to write a lot with it. But, to give you an example, tonight I went home carrying a laptop as this week I'm on call, and can only use a corporate device to reach our internal systems if something goes pear shaped. I often (weather permitting) bike to work and back, so a laptop is a significant annoyance to bring along.
v7p1Qbt1im 3y ago
Would be cool once they would allow geforce now. Plug in phone to display, connect mouse/keyboard and play AAA games at 4K60+.
- AceJohnny2 3y ago
  Hmm, I was doing that on an iPad last winter, albeit with an XBox One controller.
qingcharles 3y ago
I have to go this way with some apps, because the PC/Mac desktop versions are unavailable (banking apps), or are missing significant numbers of features (CapCut). So I have to use a smartphone as my primary work terminal, which is impossible if you just use the touchscreen.
firecall 3y ago
Oh that's interesting! LOL - I have to get my Apple news from tidbits in comments nowadays as I cannot stand to watch the saccharine overproduced videos that Apple make. I used to love an Apple Keynote... but now, they are a huge turnoff.

gessha 3y ago

I really wish Apple let's you develop apps on Linux/iPad/iPhone.

Jtsummers 3y ago
One third of your wish is already answered. You can develop apps on the iPad.
- hack4supper 3y ago
  How pray tell ... I was looking into doing that.
  - Jtsummers 3y ago
    Swift Playgrounds https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/ https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/
    - internetter 3y ago
      This is pitched as an education tool...
      - Jtsummers 3y ago
        > This is pitched as an education tool... And? From the page: > When you’re ready to share your completed app, you can submit it to App Store Connect right from your iPad or Mac with Swift Playgrounds. Someone asked about developing apps on the iPad, this is a way to develop (and submit to the App Store) apps on the iPad.
- hbn 3y ago
  Show me one serious iOS developer who's using an iPad as their primary dev machine.
larme 3y ago
I use blink[0] with a 40% keyboard to develop linux program on a vps. If you want to do programming without wireless interenet, another option is to connect a raspberry pi zero 2w (with usb gadget mode enabled) to the usb c port using a single usb cable. Then the rpi zero will share a ethernet network with iOS device. Then you can use blink (again) to mosh to raspberrypi.local to do the development on the pi. The reason that I don't do it on android with termux is that there's no high quality terminal emulator like blink on android. [0]: https://blink.sh https://blink.sh

konradb 3y ago

Would be interesting to see how it can use a larger screen. Definitely the phone is powerful enough for most tasks.

rcarmo 3y ago

I don't think Apple will ever do that, to be honest. It took nearly a decade for them to get keyboard support working properly on the iPad, and they have zero incentive to copy Samsung DeX given they prefer to sell 3 different devices to people. What they will do is allow you to record video directly to storage devices and preview photos on large displays as they are taken.

ricardobeat 3y ago
This is already possible.
Xylakant 3y ago
> I don't think Apple will ever do that, to be honest. Apple sells lightning->HDMI adapters that could drive a display at 1080p and it’s been possible to pair a keyboard with your iPhone. I know folks that used that setup for writing longer texts while traveling. Given that a lot of the infrastructure was already there, I wouldn’t be surprised if it trickles in over time. You can see the same trajectory with iPads: At first they could mirror screens only, but with the recent changes to stage manager, they’re a pretty full-featured laptop if you use a keyboard and trackpad. My 11” pro is capable of driving a huge widescreen.
- rcarmo 3y ago
  Yeah, I know - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/12/14/1230 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2022/12/14/1230 I’ve been doing that for years now on the iPad, and knowing Apple (my site’s 20+ years old, BTW), I would be extremely surprised if they ever put Stage Manager or anything similar on an iPhone. You can hack your way around things (Blink and Remote Desktop support external displays, etc., and there has been an external display API for a while that third-party apps have used creatively), but it is just not the way Apple thinks about the iPhone.
ako 3y ago
I regularly use my bluetooth mechanical keyboard (nuphy air 75) with both ipad and iphone. Works fine. Much better than the keyboards sold by apple. What are you missing?

paxys 3y ago

I bought an Android phone that transforms into a desktop computer when you plug in a USB-C monitor, and the entire experience is mind blowing. You can even connect a bluetooth keyboard and use the phone screen as a touchpad. Unfortunately I don't think Apple is going to go in that direction anytime soon.

bsimpson 3y ago
This sounds like Motorola in about 2012.
automatoney 3y ago
Ooooh more info please! Which phone? And what's the experience like? Are you using it for development at all or is it more things like word? I wanna know all about this setup, since I'm definitely going to need to upgrade my phone soon.
- lostmsu 3y ago
  Sounds like Samsung Dex + something like VS Code on Android.
- paxys 3y ago
  Any Samsung flagship will work (make sure it supports DeX). All the first party apps and plenty of store ones have a desktop UI. I haven't tried any native IDEs yet, but a cloud editor in the browser works perfect.
- liminalsunset 3y ago
  I have had a number of Samsung devices that I bought specifically to test out the DeX capabilities, and it's really hard to say whether I recommend it. I ended up going back to a real PC, and it was such a breath of fresh air. My setup was: Anker A8383 USB-C hub, 1440p 120hz monitor, USB keyboard/mouse -Apps close themselves even when the RAM isn't full, and the "RAM Plus" feature which gives you 8 GB of swap on a 12GB RAM phone doesn't necessarily fix it. -Multiple apps can play audio at the same time if you install Sound Assistant and enable the requisite feature (multi-app sound). Similarly, you should get the Good Guardians and Good Lock apps from the Galaxy store (or apkmirror if in Canada) and tinker with the settings to taste. This is necessary to get 4K60 support or anything more than 1080p. -I use Kiwi Browser, which supports all Chrome extensions and otherwise works like normal desktop Chrome. You'll want to go into the flags and enable the zoom thing (search for zoom) and then enable the zoom option under Accessbility in Kiwi settings, to fix websites that don't scale correctly. Tabs get unloaded/lazy loaded in background due to RAM issue. -Doing anything moderately describable as "productive" or "intensive" (example: google maps website) creates more heat than the phone can handle over more than 10 minutes. Do not buy a Snapdragon 888, or other weak processor device (I am aware it is old but some people like used phones). Things like particles.js, hidden autoplays, etc that don't cause issues on desktop waste TDP on phones. The problem isn't necessarily that the phone overheats, it's that Samsung makes it so that not only does the battery stop charging if it gets over 36 C, it actually starts draining. For reference, your body temperature is around 36 C. On the S23 Ultra, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, it's more or less usable now, with some battery drain from time to time. Weirdly, the battery drain issue is solved if you use a charger that supports USB PD PPS. The PPS part is VERY important. If you look at Samsung schematics, you will see that the PMIC does normal USB PD and there's a separate chip for PPS. Not all docks support PPS, in fact I'm not certain if ANY do. This is an area where more research is required. Of course, the fact that the PPS chip isn't affected might not be a thermal issue, but rather a "Samsung forgot to throttle charging on PPS", which would not be a good thing to talk about then because I don't want them to "fix" this. -I cannot imagine development would be particularly easy on this device. I briefly looked into getting VSCode on there and whatnot but the Android Linux projects seem to have fallen quite some from their former glory. While web based stuff is likely fine, the aforementioned memory and CPU problems will make this difficult to use for anything too serious. -All of the current common remote desktop solutions i.e. RustDesk (slow performance), Parsec (keyboard issues, no zoom), Reemo (mostly works, no keyboard shortcuts, lag, thermal problems), TeamViewer (3fps), Moonlight (mouse capture issue, thermal problems), RDP (low fps) etc have some kind of usability problem that makes them difficult to use for this application, in case you wanted to use the phone as a thin client.

colinjoy 3y ago

> assuming it will work like the iPad Pro I doubt they would sneak in such a feature without at least mentioning it. I expect this to be even more limited, perhaps just tethered airplay for better resolution.

rcarmo 3y ago
It’s not even that. It’s just direct storage access for recording and image previews.

ksec 3y ago

I hope this is true. Even with a Keyboard and mouse and I can browse Internet with it would be great.

masklinn 3y ago
FWIW keyboards have worked OK all along, I regularly use one of my wireless keyboards switched over to the phone to type longer stuff, though the autocorrect gets more annoying in that case. Mice are a lot more annoying, because they're part of the assistive devices, so you need to enable Assistive Touch, and then you either have the mouse connected or the Assistive Touch menu taking space on the display, which is probably not useful if you're abled. If Assistive Touch is disabled, the mouse "works" but you don't get a visible pointer which is completely stupid. Possibly connecting to an external display won't have that issue, or iOS 17 will make the experience a bit better for non-assistive mousing.

chx 3y ago

edit: nevermind

zamadatix 3y ago
You might want to check your math :). It's ~10 gbps by both measures.

NavinF 3y ago

I don't see anything about displays on that page. All I see is "iPhone 15 Pro lets you shoot ProRes video directly to external storage, so you can quickly switch drives and keep your iPhone camera rolling on set. Want to capture slow motion Hollywood style? Now you can record ProRes 4K at 60 fps to an external SSD." I highly doubt the 15 Pro can drive a display. In the unlikely case that it can, you'll be limited to very low res. Why would they limit USB to 10gbps if the PHY can push the ~32gbps eDP bandwidth required for a modern display?

MarkMarine 3y ago
“ Now you can connect USB‑C gear like thumb drives, fast external storage, 4K displays, and microphones.” Right in the linked site
gruturo 3y ago
The "Explore Connectivity" modal window you can open in the "Gigablast your gigabits" (meh) section, as I quoted in my original post, has this block of text: USB‑Convenient. Now you can connect USB‑C gear like thumb drives, fast external storage, 4K displays, and microphones. And you can charge Apple Watch or AirPods from your iPhone.9
- NavinF 3y ago
  I must have landed on the wrong side of an AB test because that text doesn't show up for me on the "Explore Connectivity" modal window. I checked with both Chrome/Windows and iOS. Anyway I really hope that text refers to DP alt mode, not displaylink. Any USB port works with displaylink chips as long as the OS has the driver
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    It seems to support normal DP output (from the "tech specs" page https://www.apple.com/iphone-15-pro/specs/ https://www.apple.com/iphone-15-pro/specs/): > Video mirroring and video out support: Up to 4K HDR through native DisplayPort output over USB-C or USB-C Digital AV Adapter

Havoc 3y ago

> No more syncing with the phone - I am using the phone itself. That sounds about as productive as the never ending stream of “I tried switching to an iPad for dev” blogs

Gareth321 3y ago
But they'll be able to write so much in the text editor with their bluetooth keyboard!
- gruturo 3y ago
  Heh, a decent chunk of my work happens in Outlook, regrettably. Another good bit in the browser, accessing corporate stuff with the phone's per-app VPN. So yeah it's sad, but I'd be able to write a lot with it. But, to give you an example, tonight I went home carrying a laptop as this week I'm on call, and can only use a corporate device to reach our internal systems if something goes pear shaped. I often (weather permitting) bike to work and back, so a laptop is a significant annoyance to bring along.

v7p1Qbt1im 3y ago

Would be cool once they would allow geforce now. Plug in phone to display, connect mouse/keyboard and play AAA games at 4K60+.

AceJohnny2 3y ago
Hmm, I was doing that on an iPad last winter, albeit with an XBox One controller.

qingcharles 3y ago

I have to go this way with some apps, because the PC/Mac desktop versions are unavailable (banking apps), or are missing significant numbers of features (CapCut). So I have to use a smartphone as my primary work terminal, which is impossible if you just use the touchscreen.

firecall 3y ago

Oh that's interesting! LOL - I have to get my Apple news from tidbits in comments nowadays as I cannot stand to watch the saccharine overproduced videos that Apple make. I used to love an Apple Keynote... but now, they are a huge turnoff.