I don't think this is the right end game. Now that almost every adult in the 1st world has a mobile phone in their pocket that is more than capable of being a desktop PC, the solution we should be heading for is universal docking stations (preferably) wireless. So that wherever you are, there's a large screen+keyboard+mouse (or the phone screen can be a trackpad) and your phone just connects to those, be it at work, or home, or in a hotel.
Your main machine is in your pocket; a lot of non-techie people don't even have any other personal computing device (laptop/desktop etc.).
Personally tho, I like having a division between my work machine(s), and my home machine(s).
If I could also get a laptop-like dock, my phone would take care of ~95% of all my computing needs.
Strictly personal, though. I envision simply having a different phone for for work, for privacy reasons. But plugging it into the same docks.
Rumors have been circulating for years about some future Microsoft mobile device. The latest rumors suggest a Windows 10 ARM device with x86 emulation and their new CShell "responsive" UI. If that rumor pans out, it's possible Windows 10 ARM may also include the Windows Linux subsystem, getting you closer to your ideal.
The docking station for my Thinkpad doesn't lock me into a specific software ecosystem. I see no reason why a hypothetical phone dock should be any different.
And yet, I insist on having a completely separate phone of my own, on my own subscription, completely separate from work.
The work phone is business-only, I have my company email, all of the apps we offer, and the ones we use internally, and that's it.
The personal phone has all the Facebook and messaging and other funtime apps that I use personally, and nothing work-related whatsoever.
The reason for all of this is that I used to have a boss who would call or email at 23:00 and ask me to do something, expecting it to be ready at 09:00 next morning, at the very latest. Because I'm on a "no maximum work hours" contract, he expected me to put in hours basically whenever he wanted (he was later fired, big surprise).
This is why I have two phones, and why my work phone now gets turned off when I leave work, and turned back on when I arrive in the morning. My personal life is not to be mixed with my work.
I fully understand the revulsion towards the day phone/night phone thing. My setup is not a case of handing over, it's a matter of keeping my personal life private.
We have two of them in this household, they are VERY nice phones.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/
I also like a division between home and work devices, but I largely accomplish that by simply having a Personal and Work account with Google.
More appealing to me is the idea of being able to have my Work computer with me all the time if needed, without carrying a special bag, etc. I like the vision of Universal Docking Stations, where you go the coffee shop and just sit down and start typing on your own device, with a full sized screen and keyboard, which you carry in your pocket.
A lot of people have had that idea over the years (remember John Gage's "the network is the computer"?) You could even argue The Shockwave Rider, a 1975 Science Fiction novel, described it pretty well.
I don't know about the Steve Jobs quote though, do you have a link?
Technology-wise it was a bit of a dead end. However the underlying protocol was VNC which they invented for this purpose.
We don't have the infrastructure for this yet.
The absolutely open version - even if it was just storing apps centrally and downloading them on demand, and not downloading everything - would still require something like 100 times more bandwidth than we have now to be usably fast.
A workable version, with local storage providing device accounts for a small number of users, would still need more local storage than we have now, and storage isn't cheap enough yet to make this fully affordable.
256/512GB devices could possibly handle family needs, just about, but would struggle at work.
[1] via sshfs
In any case, my desires are for the opposite. If you don't own the storage substrate, you don't own the data on it, and I prefer to own my data. I have an iPhone, but don't use iCloud, except for syncing a couple specific things.
I remember the first release, and remember the NeXT model of "home directories on an optical drive". I was really, really hoping at the time that the iPhone would be that home directory, portable between machines. Now, I join the chorus of folks who think I should just be able to plug a monitor and keyboard into my phone. But that also needs to come with a viable computing environment, which for me means a unix shell and hardware control. Which is why I'm bolting for an open phone, as soon one actually gets off the ground.
I think the ideal should basically be that. You can pick up a phone, any phone (limited to iPhones for Aplle), login to your iCloud account and suddenly it's your phone, indistinguishable from the other phone thst was yours, outside maybe unavailable hardware features.
That's one of the great things about web apps. I can log into Gmail anywhere and it's the same thing. I haven't used it, but I believe this is the promise ChromeOS delivers.