I don't understand why in 2020 ability to dock and connect to K&M and display is not supported by most phones. There were attempts to do just that right before Windows Phone died, but hardly anyone tried this again. You now have enough RAM and CPU to run most desktop applications except maybe high end gaming. Why is it not done more?
Most actually do support docking, that includes both Android and iPad models. The catch is that only USB-C models do, to laptop docks.
What is actually supported however by the device/dock can be an absolute crapshoot though. On an Android device, if you plug in a laptop dock, you may/may-not get the screen replicated onto the monitor, you might get the wired ethernet to work, the keyboard and mouse will usually work, but applications on Android don't know how to deal with a mouse and only support emulating tapping the screen, not dragging, as most software that didn't start as desktop software doesn't implement the mouse and touch at the same time, if at all. Web browsers/HTML5 apps will often work with the mouse before the apps will.
With the iPad (Pro), the complaints are a bit different. The iPad will randomly reboot (suggesting a crash), 3.5mm audio is usually worse than Apple's own adapters, and 4K only outputs 30hz. However all docks tried on it do tend to work.
Really the answer to "why isn't this done more" is "third party vendors cheap out on parts", USB-C works pretty good on laptops for docking, but you run into some really god-awful problems. Take the Nintendo docking station as an example of "oops we didn't design something to spec", likewise, look at Dell's USB-C docks with the permanently attached USB-C cable that you can't replace with an off-the-shelf one, thus when the cable is inevitably broken by someone being careless, you have to replace the entire dock.
Many of the unpowered-docks are absolutely worthless (ones that don't power the device), as they take up your device's USB-C port without charging the device, so they consume additional power from the device, or require an enormous wall wart that is bigger than the charger for the device.
Docking smartphones (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Docking smartphones (Score:2)
Most actually do support docking, that includes both Android and iPad models. The catch is that only USB-C models do, to laptop docks.
What is actually supported however by the device/dock can be an absolute crapshoot though. On an Android device, if you plug in a laptop dock, you may/may-not get the screen replicated onto the monitor, you might get the wired ethernet to work, the keyboard and mouse will usually work, but applications on Android don't know how to deal with a mouse and only support emulating tapping the screen, not dragging, as most software that didn't start as desktop software doesn't implement the mouse and touch at the same time, if at all. Web browsers/HTML5 apps will often work with the mouse before the apps will.
With the iPad (Pro), the complaints are a bit different. The iPad will randomly reboot (suggesting a crash), 3.5mm audio is usually worse than Apple's own adapters, and 4K only outputs 30hz. However all docks tried on it do tend to work.
Really the answer to "why isn't this done more" is "third party vendors cheap out on parts", USB-C works pretty good on laptops for docking, but you run into some really god-awful problems. Take the Nintendo docking station as an example of "oops we didn't design something to spec", likewise, look at Dell's USB-C docks with the permanently attached USB-C cable that you can't replace with an off-the-shelf one, thus when the cable is inevitably broken by someone being careless, you have to replace the entire dock.
Many of the unpowered-docks are absolutely worthless (ones that don't power the device), as they take up your device's USB-C port without charging the device, so they consume additional power from the device, or require an enormous wall wart that is bigger than the charger for the device.