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Comment by mattowen_uk | Hacker News Reader

>> how he would work at his home Mac and then come to the office and login and suddenly with the internet and networking the work Mac would be exactly the same

I don't think this is the right end game. Now that almost every adult in the 1st world has a mobile phone in their pocket that is more than capable of being a desktop PC, the solution we should be heading for is universal docking stations (preferably) wireless. So that wherever you are, there's a large screen+keyboard+mouse (or the phone screen can be a trackpad) and your phone just connects to those, be it at work, or home, or in a hotel.

Your main machine is in your pocket; a lot of non-techie people don't even have any other personal computing device (laptop/desktop etc.).

Personally tho, I like having a division between my work machine(s), and my home machine(s).

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I would like to have a docking station that could turn my phone into a desktop-like device, with a proper mouse, keyboard and monitor(s). I don't need much, a full-featured web browser, Spotify and a handful of other straight-forward apps are all I really need, but I wouldn't mind a fully-fledged Linux environment.

If I could also get a laptop-like dock, my phone would take care of ~95% of all my computing needs.

Strictly personal, though. I envision simply having a different phone for for work, for privacy reasons. But plugging it into the same docks.

You've more or less described Microsoft's Continuum [1]. Even down to the "handful of apps." Continuum as it exists today runs UWP applications only.

Rumors have been circulating for years about some future Microsoft mobile device. The latest rumors suggest a Windows 10 ARM device with x86 emulation and their new CShell "responsive" UI. If that rumor pans out, it's possible Windows 10 ARM may also include the Windows Linux subsystem, getting you closer to your ideal.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Continuum

Sure, but that would tie me to Windows 10, and I'm not exactly interested in that.

well the manufacturers would tie into their system. If apple implemented this, you would be tied to their ecosystem, no? Don't see a way around that :)

I definitely see a way around it. An open standard, based on USB-C 3.x would be ideal.

The docking station for my Thinkpad doesn't lock me into a specific software ecosystem. I see no reason why a hypothetical phone dock should be any different.

That's close to the day phone/night phone thing so causes instant revulsion for me.

I have a work phone provided to me for free, which I am allowed to use privately, as much as I want, no usage caps whatsoever. I am eligible to upgrade it every 2-3 years to theoretically any brand new Android or iPhone.

And yet, I insist on having a completely separate phone of my own, on my own subscription, completely separate from work.

The work phone is business-only, I have my company email, all of the apps we offer, and the ones we use internally, and that's it.

The personal phone has all the Facebook and messaging and other funtime apps that I use personally, and nothing work-related whatsoever.

The reason for all of this is that I used to have a boss who would call or email at 23:00 and ask me to do something, expecting it to be ready at 09:00 next morning, at the very latest. Because I'm on a "no maximum work hours" contract, he expected me to put in hours basically whenever he wanted (he was later fired, big surprise).

This is why I have two phones, and why my work phone now gets turned off when I leave work, and turned back on when I arrive in the morning. My personal life is not to be mixed with my work.

I fully understand the revulsion towards the day phone/night phone thing. My setup is not a case of handing over, it's a matter of keeping my personal life private.

Parent and grandparent posters: how about a sandboxed part of storage under employer's admin with employer's data? Your phone, they get to manage a small protected portion. VOIP for corporate voice calls?

That's what BlackBerry did with BB10 to support BYOD users.

And the new BlackBerry KeyONE does it too, even though it runs Android.

We have two of them in this household, they are VERY nice phones.

I was a backer for the never-got-off-the-ground Ubuntu Edge apparently back in 2013.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/

I also like a division between home and work devices, but I largely accomplish that by simply having a Personal and Work account with Google.

More appealing to me is the idea of being able to have my Work computer with me all the time if needed, without carrying a special bag, etc. I like the vision of Universal Docking Stations, where you go the coffee shop and just sit down and start typing on your own device, with a full sized screen and keyboard, which you carry in your pocket.

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