Having a Linux phone that has chroot compartments for Android apps is the dream.
Steam Xperia Linux phone would be a dream. I think if a Steam phone did well then other companies like Asus would jump into Linux phone.
Then suddenly we get mainstream alternatives to Android.
You mean the one with PlayStation integration? Fuck yeah.
The one that you could slide out to find it has dpad and buttons to use for games.
Fuck it, just make them work like Flatpaks or snaps and run a minimal android session on top of virtual hardware and install like normal.
Unless it runs Linux, what’s the fucking point?
Steam Deck: Already runs Linux.
GabeCube: Confirmed it will run Linux.
Steam Frame: Confirmed it will run Linux.
Obviously Valve has made no overtures whatsoever towards making a phone. But if they did, what on Earth would lead you to believe that it wouldn’t run Linux?
There being zero ecosystem for Linux phones, unlike the desktop.
You’d need an Android runtime layer.
They’re famous for making (or at least greatly improving) such comparability layers.
Steam os can run Windows apps.
There is talk of steam frame (with an arm processor) running x86 apps.So I say there would be a fair chance that we’d get decent compatibility/ Although idk if they actually would want to get into that market.
How many things to you really use your phone for anyway.
Personally all I need is the basic things like a camera app, maps, authenticator, web browser, pdf reader, note taker, clock, etc.
It’s really not that much
Banking/financial apps are the biggest sticking point that I keep hearing about. They won’t run on a non-Google Android, let alone an AOSP container in Linux.
Anything I can do through my banking app I could just as email do through the browser
You won’t be able to do NFC payments over just a web browser.
Never used this feature. I think this sort of QOL feature is something I’d be happy to wait on. The ecosystem doesn’t need this to launch at least imo.
If a phone can’t do banking it’s literally a worthless brick and so unprofitable that a company would have to be actively suicidal to try to produce it at literally any scale above the absolute minimum.
That or it would have to be so absurdly expensive per unit that no one would buy it.
Or spec it so pathetically weak that even the most die hard of nerds wouldn’t want it.
There’s always selling it at a fat loss of course. But selling hardware isn’t like just doing a rom. So this can’t be as shitty or jank as android roms with no formal customer support behide it.
Which means a very high cost in software and support.
Web browsers can work from day one. I used my web browser for all my mobile banking for months when a bug rendered the app unusable.
Tap payments might not work until banks make apps for it (or more likely until android compatibility layers are provided) but you’d have to be pretty petulant to suggest that this feature not having first class support from day one makes a device unusable.
Google is going the way of apple-like full control over their mobile devices while even lower end modern day phones are easily capable of surpassing the computational needs of 99 percent of daily users. The use case for mobile linux devices is growing all the while cost per unit sold decreases.
You know what, value releasing a Linux phone is actually plausible. Like, they could totally do it. Lots of people would like it, they could enter a new market with an idea they would be willing to play to that the establishment absolutely refuses to…
Dude, you joke but this is a plausible path the Linux phones going mainstream.
Openness. So far, Valve hardware offering is not trying to coerce you into a closed ecosystem, is not trying to forbid you from doing whatever the fuck you want with your device, and is not trying to force you to do things their way. They come with Steam, but you can basically do anything with them. Including removing Steam if you desire. And you can peek under the hood all you want.
The current mobile phone market is either walled garden jail from Apple, where you have to follow their value to the T, broken iphone where you have to jump through hoops to get something that may or may not survive the next update at the whim of our corporate overlords, or Android, which I like the most, where Google can pull a fast one on you installing an app by hand if they so desire (yes, I know they sort of walked back… for now).
Today, I see the phone I own as a necessary liability because of banking apps and such. I’d like a phone that would feel more like a device I own and can somewhat trust.
Is Valve the best player for that? No idea. But no current player is. At best we got some software offering built to support a very limited subset of hardware, and that software offering is still tied to the upstream (usually AOSP) playing nice.
Was gonna comment you misspelled SOAP 🧼, but just in case I did a quick joojle and it actually turns out it’s “Android Open Source Project” (for any other newbs like me reading this).
I think linux is the point. Because Valve has put SteamOS on their VR headset (which uses the same processor I have in my phone) it would be expected for them to do the same to a phone. Having a phone with an optimized emulator, a normal linux for arm desktop mode, and Steam built in would be very nice IMO, there are a lot of PC games that play fairly well with on-screen controls or even one of those controller phone cases that you can buy, and it’s very hard to find good mobile games in comparison. I have the app Winulator on my phone, which sort of does that same thing, except not insanely reliably, and with meh UX, and it can’t really run Steam (last I checked, I couldn’t get it to work, it might be easier now idk), and you can’t run linux x86 or ARM apps or windows ARM apps through it like I think people will be able to on the Steam frame.
Call it the Steam Iron.
Steamy Chocolate Bar.
I hope for Steamie Boi
Steam Panel? Steam Pocket?
I want a cyberdeck with cellular connectivity with talk/text.
I imagine it will be a big deck
Gaming on a phone is an abomination. There are many fun time wasters but I want a phone that does less, not more. Internet, Camera, GPS, done.
if steam made a phone it wouldn’t be
Valve: “there are things phones are good at. There are things phones are bad at. And there theres the failed attempts to blur the lines. We here at valve have watched others spin their wheels stuck in the mud with their brilliant efforts to make terrible ideas work. We have a different idea….
What about a phone that just does phone things and when it needs heavier lifting, it doesn’t rape your battery or wallet to get it done? Instead, it seamlessly reaches out to your already powerful gaming rig at home? You install an app on our phone, and that tells your pc at home to install the same app automatically. Now when you tap that icon on the Home Screen, your phone taps into the massive power and connivence of an already working rig at home and streams it to your device!
We are compatible with backbone, Xbox and PlayStation, and of course steam machine controllers.
We here at valve don’t see the merit of spending tons of money marketing a compromise. Sell it once. Do it right. If we do the damn job right, you’ll come back for more. No abusive lock ins.
We call it the steam whistle. Small, portable, cheap, but everyone will notice it.”
Tell me Valve can’t market that.
Now when you tap that icon on the Home Screen, your phone taps into the massive power and connivence of an already working rig at home and streams it to your device!
??? Steam link came out in 2018 and is still available.
Moonlight, Sunshine and Xbox have also been a thing for a very long time.
Or are you mocking their failed Steam Machine?
I’m not talking about those. The idea here is the apps still look and behave like local apps. You don’t open an app to open an app. One tap and it just does the thing.
One tap and it just does the thing.
Moonlight already does that. You can have an icon on your home screen that when you click it automatically loads a stream connection to your home PC and runs that game.
Valve should release a phone if they get into the mobile gaming industry of course steam isn’t based around that, but it would be nice if valve at least officially port their games to there…
No, but since the frame is arm based, a phone with clip on controller bits like the switch that could also play my steam games is absolutely something I would throw money at.
I’m a self proclaimed apple fanboy and I would seriously consider switching to a Linux phone by Valve. I have to admit all this hardware they’re releasing is quite intriguing.
Well, it would need to be open with open sauce drivers to run whatever OS you choose.
It would also have to be of higher spec.
Basically just take that Frame, cut the battery in half, change the cameras to 1" (wide & telephoto), swap the LCDs with one big ol’ OLED, and cram it in a nice alloy body. And RGB lighting everywhere (kidding).
Maybe even make the hardware open so the folk can mod on various things like a qwery keebler.
I kinda wanna hate that but, while pricy, it…it would be good, wouldn’t it? It’s Valve after all. It wouldn’t be astounding. But it would be stable, reliable, accessible…
All dreams as of now but…
But it would be stable, reliable, accessible…
And have a 50% chance to be abandoned/unsupported in 2 years. In the real world they have zero reasons to release a standalone phone, (huge) maybe they could make a tablet for remote play.
last year i plugged in my steam link just to see if it still works and it had an update
it gets a “nicer than amd link” award then lol
stable
SteamOS is by far the least stable experience I’ve ever had out of all consoles and handhelds I remember owning. Linux phone would be nice though.
Do you guys not have phones?
Yes, but we despise the companies behind them. Valve is still in good graces after all this time.
Hm, maybe the reference was not clear or maybe it was and we’re stuck in layers of implied references:
Ohh, wow, what a reference!
deleted by creator
G*mers will buy anything if it has their favourite monopoly logo on it.
I have one
Pls with a jack and sd slot
Ah yep. 1st gen will have those, but only in 2G/GSM network, no wifi
Shut up and take my pixels!
If it’s the size of an iphone 13 mini or smaller, I’ll buy it.
