Just as long as the device can display information in a different format on the full screen - the device itself would need to be prepared for the specific docking station (or “shell” as you put it) and the shell would likely need some chips in it to streamline things as well.
It’d be really annoying if it displays on the full 1920x1080 widescreen in a similar format as on the phone. Somehow you’d have to make it so that it looks totally different when plugged-in than it does on the phone.
It’d be pretty cool if it functions like a phone with the “portrait” aspect ratio and scrolling etc when in phone mode, but operates like a full-sized computer when in it’s docked state.
It might take quite a bit of creative thinking to get that to work on an iOS or Android device since they’re simply not designed to be that way - they’re designed just to be phone systems and only look right on a phone. But since Librem 5 will apparently be running a full-sized system on it, maybe it’ll be possible.
Purism will likely have to work very closely with KDE to make this work should they pursue it.
That being said, for now Purism probably has it’s hands full just building the phone itself. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and overstuff their plates right now. They just got back from late-December tech meetings and Meltdown/Spectre has already made January hectic enough as it is. I imagine Purism is very busy right now and a docking station idea, while cool, will probably come after they deal with what’s already on their plates.
Right now they’re probably trying to figure out what CPU to even put in the next Librem revision because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to release a new revision until they can get their hands on a CPU that has Meltdown/Spectre fixed at a hardware level. In regards to that - I say they wait until one comes out, even if that means waiting for Cannonlake or even Icelake. They need to get in-touch with Intel and get specifics on when a fixed processor will come around, if possible. If Intel is, by chance, crazy/stupid enough to not even have plans to fix it, then it’s time to change what brand they go with.
Er, sorry, getting off-topic. But you get what I mean, they’ve already got their hands full. But this is a cool idea, sure. Definitely something worth thinking about when they actually have the time.