I don't think Apple will ever do that, to be honest. It took nearly a decade for them to get keyboard support working properly on the iPad, and they have zero incentive to copy Samsung DeX given they prefer to sell 3 different devices to people.
What they will do is allow you to record video directly to storage devices and preview photos on large displays as they are taken.
> I don't think Apple will ever do that, to be honest.
Apple sells lightning->HDMI adapters that could drive a display at 1080p and it’s been possible to pair a keyboard with your iPhone. I know folks that used that setup for writing longer texts while traveling.
Given that a lot of the infrastructure was already there, I wouldn’t be surprised if it trickles in over time.
You can see the same trajectory with iPads: At first they could mirror screens only, but with the recent changes to stage manager, they’re a pretty full-featured laptop if you use a keyboard and trackpad. My 11” pro is capable of driving a huge widescreen.
I’ve been doing that for years now on the iPad, and knowing Apple (my site’s 20+ years old, BTW), I would be extremely surprised if they ever put Stage Manager or anything similar on an iPhone. You can hack your way around things (Blink and Remote Desktop support external displays, etc., and there has been an external display API for a while that third-party apps have used creatively), but it is just not the way Apple thinks about the iPhone.
I regularly use my bluetooth mechanical keyboard (nuphy air 75) with both ipad and iphone. Works fine. Much better than the keyboards sold by apple. What are you missing?
My point was that there will never be a full “desktop mode” or even a good generic (supporting all apps) way of running apps on an external display. Right now you can develop apps that draw on an external display, but that has to be done on a per-app basis (there was a notable one a few years back that used “web apps” to build a “desktop” on the external display, but it’s not full, generic, zero code changes native app support).
What they will do is allow you to record video directly to storage devices and preview photos on large displays as they are taken.