I have followed your advice and the truth is that the desktop mode looks great. It is missing a home or task bar, but I was surprised that when I connected my new pixel 8 to my work dock (dynabook) it instantly recognized the screen, keyboard and mouse perfectly.
Is there any way to use desktop mode with the smartphone screen off? I'm afraid it will burn out the oled panel.
ifman13 burn in isn't really an issue with Pixel shift and whatnot
DeletedUser40 I think that if it is a real problem, having the smartphone screen on for a long time with a static image can end up burning it.
It is the main drawback I find today to the desktop mode.
OutlawSanZhang which gives you a desktop-like experience with floating windows
Hope they'll implement tiling some day....
OutlawSanZhang Using this feature requires enabling developer options, which are frown upon in this community because of the security implications. Do not use this feature if the best level of smartphone security is desired.
What are the security implications of using developer options? Unless you're turning something necessary, there's none AFAIK. I, for example, had to turn Absolute volume off since it messes up the volume calculator i'm using. The apps have no way of knowing whether it's working, and this option specifically doesn't affect GOS precautions whatsoever.
GrapheneOS
That sounds like great news! Looking forward to it. I would argue that most people would use the VMs in full-screen mode, so a polished desktop UI shouldn't be necessary for this to be greatly useful.
ifman13
You can just run any app that gives you a black screen on the phone side, like a gallery app and a black image.
aeduigh
Please see the previous reply on simulating a desktop mode to try it out on any GrapheneOS-supported device. It works exactly the same way.
What are the security implications of using developer options?
You have to enter the owner user pass/PIN when enabling Developer options.
If they are enabled its possible for anyone who manages to get hold of the unlocked device to use adb which provides highly privileged access.
In general Developer options are not meant for general usage. They are meant for developers testing devices or apps. They may make unexpected holes in the AOSP security model.
They can also cause unexpected breakages. The GrapheneOS team has encountered a few cases over the years where users phones broke and it took a lot of effort before it was discovered that it was down to users changing things in Developer options. For example a number of users devices became completely unresponsive to screen input after an update. It turned out they had all changed the Display cutout in Developer options to one particular option. It took quite some time to find and fix the problem and then send out a new update which fixed the issue for them.
Same for changing things via adb, people messing with magisk or similar, disabling system apps and changing permissions of system apps.
It is advised not to do these things!! Some are terrible for security and all of them can cause unexpected breakages that can be very hard to diagnose!
If you do them and your device starts misbehaving they are a very good place to start looking. Also if you reach out for help it can save A LOT of time for everyone if you let people know that such changes have been made.
Currently excited to see how this matures.
I have tested desktop mode but found it to currently be extremely buggy.
Hopefully more bugs will be squashed with the release of QPR2.
Thank you for a very clear explanation on the implications of enabling developer options, Carlos-Anso.
Carlos-Anso Makes sense now. Since turning developer options off disables ABS, would it be possible to move Absolute Volume Control to normal settings?
If it were possible to have two monitors using a dock, it would be a dream.
I was hesitating to replace my current desktop with a Chromebook, but I think I'll wait.
[deleted]
Obviously I can see why this would be useful for you.
Unfortunately theres plenty of work the development team have lined up. We have to prioritise work depending on impact. Also things that may at first appear relatively simple often turn out to be very much more work than expected. This has been the case recently with Android Auto support and another OS change that should be included soon.
In the case of moving this setting it would not just be changing a few lines of code to move it elsewhere. We would also have to investigate the security implications to moving it out of Developer options.
DeletedUser24 If it were possible to have two monitors using a dock
AOSP does have support for an arbitrary number of displays
https://source.android.com/docs/core/display/multi_display/displays#more_displays
Not heard of anyone trying to connect two displays to a Pixel 8 or 8pro yet. Would be interested to hear of any attempts. I noticed there is an Anker usbc hub with 2 HDMI outputs that is very similar to a 1 HMDI output hub someone reported working with GrapheneOS.
Very exciting, thanks !
I would have tried, but I don't have a P8 for this.
Carlos-Anso I reported on another thread I have an Anker hub with two external displays (one HDMI and one DisplayPort). I can use both displays with a Pixel 8 at the same time in mirror mode. When I try desktop mode in Developer Options, only one monitor works and the other displays static.
calpurtmun Interesting contribution, thank you.
I have a doubt about the connection of external storage devices, I have tried to connect a pendrive and a 2.5" hard drive to the two docker I have available but it has not recognized any of them. They must be in a particular format to be detected?
ifman13 I answer myself, I have tried a bit more and at least the fat32 formatted devices it recognizes them, but it takes about 1 minute to show up in the available file explorer.
The biggest problem I find right now to desktop mode is that sometimes, when disconnecting the smartphone from the dock, the desktop does not reappear and I can not recover it until restarting the mobile. has it happened to you?
ifman13 They must be in a particular format to be detected?
All Pixels since Pixel 6 can read exfat as well as fat32. fat32 works on earlier devices
OutlawSanZhang Very informative post and thread. I made a post about my experience a while ago, but I will edit it with a link to this thread as it contains more up to date and well laid out info
Edit: I could not edit the post so I just commented a link to this thread
aeduigh its very unstable especially with much movent on the screen or videos, it just crashes and the cable has to be reset, however it did not crash my phone
My monitor reported 1080p @ 24, font smoothing looked quite weird on the screen. USB Mouse worked fine. Using Pixel 8 240205.004 Build
https://imgur.com/a/OqwwdSk
re: Taskbar App (Play Store)
I used this app back on Android 10 Desktop Mode and it worked pretty well... like Samsung Dex at that time.
Dev Challenge anyone?
Can one of the developers grab the code from this older App and make it work with GrapheneOS Desktop Mode?
Add it to the Grapheneos App Store?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farmerbb.taskbar
https://github.com/farmerbb/Taskbar/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
