this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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Android

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Call me crazy, but I don't want a PC run by a phone operating system.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

They're not saying it will. My gaming laptop is already running the same Linux kernel as Android phones so the kernel is great. Then it's down to the GUI and that might be a good fit for hospitality/healthcare/retail as the article says where some devices are already run in more or less of a Kiosk style with specific purpose. Besides phones are just small PCs anyway, it's all about the use-case.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Its an OS, period. Like in every other context it'll be adapted to its use case. Its unrealistic to think that its going to look like a phone/tablet. Android is and had been running on a hell of a lot more than phones for a very long time now, and most people dont even realize it.

I'll agree with you as an advanced user myself it most likely won't be for me either, but we're not the 99%. The normies benefit from more locked down ecosystems and especially immutable OS's.

I just spend 3hrs literally yesterday in my mothers OnePlus unfucking it, she's only had Androids since she's owned smartphones, yet cant understand Android and actually how to use it, never knows what she does, constantly turns things on and off, shit you CAN'T accidentally do. Non tech people and functionality/control over the OS is never a good thing.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why though? Immutable Operating Systems are great for regular usage. Android is restricted and closed up, compared to Linux or Windows. But its damn secure.

Having the app support, on this ecosystem where every app always is in its container, would be huge.

But I prefer Fedora Atomic, its more or less the same, but actually free, with wide app support and no Google.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Because I do all kinds of things with my OS that they probably didn't consider when they were locking things down. I enjoy the freedom and flexibility of a desktop OS while I'm on a desktop. Even Mac OS drives me up the walls sometimes.

Edit: phone changed Max to Max.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Yes of course, me neither. Android sucks. Its locked down and all.

But what is the typical "laptop user"?

  • uses windows as it was preinstalled
  • uses Edge or Chrome as its preinstalled, Bundleware or they get Ads for it
  • has some weird Adobe stuff like Reader. Apps autostart in the background and phone home as they wish to "check licenses" and whatever
  • has Viruses and doesnt care

Viruses basically dont exist on Android

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well yeah... We are not saying is for everyone. Like it's nice for less technical people were it's more difficult for them to fuck it up or get confused with technical stuff and they do not need anything advanced or sometime that flexible, just a couple of apps an a browser.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

somewhere tim cook is crying

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Man, that title sure is clickbaity

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Double biggest. Fail. Shoulda been tighter, that's just lazy. Everything after the emdash is pointless anyways, Google cut the title much earlier. Another fail.

It's clickbait, you got that right, but it's super sloppy.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Esper Foundation is based on Android 11 and has customizable branding, peripheral compatibility, quarterly security patches, and three years of support.

3 years worth of support on an OS that's already 3 years outdated. Meanwhile my PC from 2010 running Windows 10 still gets updates and can easily be updated/serviced with off the shelf parts to keep it going. I guess I'll pass on this one.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

from all the shit that windows do, long term support was always a selling factor in there

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

And don't forget that Google is pushing to restrict Android just like iOS where if you unlock the bootloader and root, SafetyNet fails and apps stop working, while in windows having admin accounts is normal.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I tried to read deep into this awhile back and why we don't see many Android tablets. I think even Google (Alphabet) doesn't like Android that much and is trying to get away from it. And instead use ChromeOS for laptops, tablets, and dual use devices.

What's looking better all the time is just Linux. Really they should just put out a Linux laptop.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

why we don't see many Android tablets

My personal guess is that the reason is twofold:

  1. The dominance of iPad
  2. The (unfortunately not unearned) association of Android tablets with poor quality. There are a lot of knockoffs out there.

I think even Google (Alphabet) doesn't like Android that much and is trying to get away from it.

In the large format world, maybe. But they're putting a lot of development work into the Pixel line, and it's finally paying off. I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see a resurrection of the Pixel C form factor someday.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is...Is this finally the year of the Linux desktop?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I'm gonna say it.

2023 is the year of the Linux desktop!

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm all for this if it's true, but this sounds like another gimmick announcement by a declining PC vendor.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Declining? It might look like that if you expect nonstop continuous growth, but Lenovo has been stable and has held onto its 25% market share for the past five years.

That site might ask you to login, so here's a screenshot.

I'm posting from Kbin, not sure if the image will embed, so here's a backup in case the embed is borked: https://i.imgur.com/vL23xe4.png

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You clearly don't work in an office. They have that market cornered, Lenovo laptops are everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

That is true... Been working full remote for the past year.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Lenovo is the biggest PC vendor in the world, also Motorola by Lenovo is still doing pretty well, I wouldn't call them declining by any means.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Lenovo? The spying hardware company? No thanks.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Man, I thought you had them confused with some other company, then I looked them up on Wikipedia. That's some shady stuff they've been up to.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wait what, weren't the thinkpads supposed to go hand and hand with Linux, what do you mean?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

The older Thinkpads do. The newer ones are just money-grabbing chinesium.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't think that will plan pan out. ChromeOS is even getting gpu support and can run games via proton

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's also hard to overstate the advantage ChromeOS has that we can't even see yet. Chromebooks absolutely dominate the K12 educational world, and students are graduating every year and going into jobs where they're more familiar with ChromeOS than anything else. If enterprise customers switch in large scale to anything, it'll be to ChromeOS.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is very true. ChromeOS will likely win out in the long term. But in the short term, it's good for Google to have competition to goad them into improving and innovating.

At the same time though, I'm not sure whether Lenovo's solution targets the same audience.

“The Esper solution is an android based software, it is specifically formulated for device management on an android OS running on an x86 platforms. This creates a unique opportunity for Lenovo to address this market. Specific market segments we are targeting include retail and hospitality, as well as the digital signage appliances for these industries. These segments include an abundance of Android based deployments that require a level of customization.”

I don't think ChromeOS allows really any customization of its UI, does it? I haven't used it in any significant capacity in a decade... (I wrote the original Chromebook Ninja call center scripts back when it was literally just a web browser on a laptop lol.)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Absolutely competition is a great thing.

And you're right, ChromeOS is pretty uncustomizable. I think they might have dark mode now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd argue that ChromeOS only succeeds at funneling kids into Google's browser products, not keeping them in ChromeOS. Because you can get basically the same experience on any PC, whether it's running Windows, MacOS, or Linux.

Once kids grow up and get a job, they run into the limitations of ChromeOS pretty fast and swap to something with a real OS. Unless they're at a company that exclusively uses browser-based tools without any desktop apps or plugins, which is pretty rare IMO.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Unless they're at a company that exclusively uses browser-based tools

It doesn't necessarily need to be an entire company. It can easily just be a division or a department. Sure, you can't easily migrate engineering or design roles to a browser-based system; but Sales, Marketing (except design), Writing, Management, Strategic Planning, HR, Finance, Accounting, and Administration are just some departments that can be entirely or nearly entirely cloud-native (and in many cases already are).

I'd argue that ChromeOS only succeeds at funneling kids into Google's browser products, not keeping them in ChromeOS.

But when management discovers that they can reduce IT hardware costs by 50% or more by switching to a platform that their younger employees already know, they'll probably start doing it.

The world is heading back in the direction of thin clients, honestly. But in this new thin client world, the browser will be the only thing on the bare metal.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Specific market segments we are targeting include retail and hospitality, as well as the digital signage appliances for these industries.

It doesn't look like they are going to release it for general consumers at all, I think they specifically designed it to meet a very niche need to control apps for interactive menus and billboards on various commercial displays without having these apps being controlled by a tablet in the backend.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Retail and hospitality also means aiming at thin clients. Thin Client: barebone PCs whose entire function is to load a browser and connect to a server or service like Citrix to do anything of value.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Anything that makes operating systems more open and free I'm all for.

Unfortunately Google Play services exist, but still.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I've heard those claims before...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Isn't this just an android tablet with a keyboard and mouse?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago
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