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Comment by villedespommes | Hacker News Reader

I'm really excited about the Desktop mode, now I can finally break free of Samsung!

I was also very excited about it and that's why I immediately upgraded to Android 16. But it turns out that it is not part of this update. The same with the new Material design, it doesn't come with Android 16 update. So weird that they announced both of these features as if they are part of Android 16.

They actually say in the announcement, it's supposed to be rolled out "later this year."

I really hope it won't be delayed

It's not part of the stable release yet, but the beta version that was released today has an option to enable this: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/06/developer-...

I tried it and it works great - Dex-like experience with mouse and keyboard, on a stock Pixel phone.

That looks pretty amazing. I hope this means Google is committed to releasing a Pixel Tablet 2.

FWIW, Motorola has also had this feature for years, but they call it "Ready For", which is a terrible name.

That said, I'm also looking forward to the official Google version coming to the rest of the Android devices

I remember my Atrix had a desktop mode back in… 2011? Something like that.

Each year, fewer and fewer Motorola phones actually support this feature over usb-c and it looks like they renamed it to "Smart Connect."

https://en-emea.support.motorola.com/app/answers/detail/a_id...

Shame, I liked it very much since Samsung phones are expensive

Wow, they are terrible at naming things!

I wish they move the clock and notification area to the taskbar instead of top bar. That top bar doesn't make sense in desktop mode.

Is this something windows phone app can’t do?

Its irrelevant. Windows phone does not have the apps most people need.

Phones are a duopoly reinforced by networks effects. Only Google and Apple matter.

I meant the phone link app for windows.

As am I though it's not in this release.

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