> Apple is rarely first to market, but they definitely produce the device that indicates the point where there is a market.
There's been a proven market for years already, but it's been less obvious in Western markets. In East Asian markets, foldables have had a very sizable market presence, especially in China.
There's other trends that are less obvious to US and western markets, such as phone crossbody straps (which are also very big in East Asia).
> After a while, I think dust would inevitably get in the hinges and wouldn't fold flat. I've seen demos in stores of newer gen Samsung foldable phones and it looks like those wouldn't fold flat
For your first point, the iPhone duo is rated IP 68 Dust and Water protection. Literally none of Samsung's book foldables so far have achieved this IP rating.
> I enjoyed the subtle shade (presumably at Samsung) when they discussed existing foldables having an awkward size
I don't think that was subtle shade...
That being said, short-and-wide foldables have been done before, they just never stuck around. Google should've stuck with it on their Pixel Fold, same for Oppo with the Find N.
Shame that the short-and-wide foldables took this long to become more mainstream, since to me it's been the obvious form factor ever since I tried the older Galaxy Folds.
I think that this could end up true if the next Xbox really is "just a PC".
The PC gaming ecosystem is a powerful selling point, especially due to the existence of Steam, emulators, modding, etc.
Windows really needs more refinement and polish though, the current experience is mostly unacceptable for a living room PC.
A next-gen Steam Machine would likely be a better competitor to the PS6, it doesn't have the reputational baggage that Xbox and Microsoft currently has.
> I wonder if anyone will ever have the guts to enter the gaming console market using open source as a base.
It's definitely possible, but I suspect that Valve (or some other major player) must first prove the concept to be viable for a business.
e.g. The Steam Deck wasn't the first PC gaming handheld made, but it was the one that proved there was a viable market, which led to a bunch of competitors following Valve's lead.
The Steam Machine, unfortunately, botched the execution due to high pricing. If pricing had been good, I'm guessing that it too could have been the proof-of-concept needed to jump start the market.
> The fact we still can't get this in the US is atrocious.
To be honest, I suspect that Apple is purposefully doing this to make alternatives a logistical and legal nightmare vs their own App store.
By having different rules for different countries, different fee structures, etc, Apple is basically making alternatives as inconvenient and painful as legally possible
The US not getting these features is on purpose, it makes the entire idea of "alternatives on iOS" extremely inconvenient vs just using the App store.
caveat being that GPU drivers on Android are kind of a mess.
Open source Mesa Turnip drivers fixes a lot of problems with Snapdragon GPUs, but the drivers don't cover every available chipset from Qualcomm.
The GPU driver issues leads to situations like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (released in 2022) + Mesa drivers often getting better gaming compatibility/performance than the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite (released in 2025)
I'm not sure I'd define the atomic Fedora variants as "distros" in the traditional sense.
This is a bit of an oversimplification, but Bazzite, Bluefin, etc, are basically just Dockerfiles that use Atomic Fedora as the base image.
So you are basically getting a pre-built docker container that is "Fedora + various configs added on top", and then you are booting that docker image.
Since it's just a container file, anyone could theoretically just fork the Bazzite repo, make some changes to the Dockerfile, then push it to github + let github actions build a custom docker image.
So is that custom docker image a distro? Some would say yes, others would say no.
Ironically, I'm considering installing Bazzite alongside NixOS because it's proven to be nearly impossible to run SteamVR properly with how Steam is packaged
From what I’ve seen so far from people I know who run Valve Indexes, Linux SteamVR performance is pretty poor compared with Monado+OpenComposite. Hopefully this situation changes with the release of the Frame, in which case I (and likely others) will be revamping the SteamVR package and NixOS modules as Monado may not fully support it for some time.
Tl;dr: Run Monado w/ OpenComposite for the Index, it runs way better.
Dropping back here to say that I have been playing around with Monado + OpenComposite + WlxOverlay and while it's been plenty janky, it has actually usable performance when it works.
> I struggle to imagine existing Android apps being useful in a desktop form factor.
Rather than full desktops, I suspect that Desktop Android will be popular for 2-in-1 style devices like the Surface Pro.
I've always thought that the Surface Pro was a good idea, just with the wrong operating system. Newer iPad Pros kind of accomplish the same, but are still too locked down by Apple to be a true computer replacement.
Android has the potential to be the perfect middle ground: touch-centric UI paradigm, can work well with keyboard/mice, and open/flexible enough to be an actual computer replacement.
Google has been working on adding extensions to Chrome on Android, already has apk sideloading, and has work-in-progress Linux VM support. That's likely "good enough" to replace computers for the vast majority of people.
There's been a proven market for years already, but it's been less obvious in Western markets. In East Asian markets, foldables have had a very sizable market presence, especially in China.
There's other trends that are less obvious to US and western markets, such as phone crossbody straps (which are also very big in East Asia).