Our smartphones have become very powerful but boring at the same time. We see new specs, new tweaks on the operating system here and there but nothing revolutionary really – smartphones are just a block of computing power with limited productivity capabilities.
Probably for this reason, Microsoft introduced the Continuum feature with Windows 10 Mobile, which allowed Windows Phone users to use their phones as a fully fledged PC, once they connect it to a dock with peripherals (mouse, monitor and keyboard). It has also been rumoured that Samsung could be working on a similar feature, for their Galaxy phones, dubbed DeX dock.
Remix Singularity (which will be a feature of Remix OS), is Jide’s take on the mobile-desktop hybrid OS space. The technology is simple to explain, you have an Android device running Remix OS on Mobile (ROM). You can use this phone as you would any traditional Android smartphone, but things get interesting when you connect the device with a monitor and peripherals, whereby the device starts working in “PC mode”.
In an interview with The Verge, Jide’s co-founder David Ko, explained that when running on a smartphone, ROM will be “as close to stock Android as possible, but imagine when you get back to your office, you connect your phone and it turns into a PC mode, just like a laptop or desktop”. The device in PC mode starts off exactly where you left on your phone. ROM will also give you an “Android on TV” experience, which means you can simply switch to TV Mode by plugging it into a monitor (or TV) without the other peripherals.
Remix Singularity is said to launch in the second half of 2017. Jide is looking for OEM partners to sell phones that support Remix Singularity out-of-the-box, and it does have experience in this area, having previously worked with Chinese companies (e.g. Tecno with the DroidPad 10 Pro II) to release all-in-one devices powered by Remix OS. The Verge notes that, Remix OS will continue to be available for free, to download on supported devices such as the Nexus 6P.
This sort of excites me, as it is an indication that in the near future, I will not need to carry my laptop to the office, I will simply need my phone and a monitor with Peripherals. I am not exactly sold on Android on PCs though, I wish Microsoft would find a way to make the Continuum work with Android devices, don’t ask me how, I am the consumer and the consumer wants what the consumer wants!
