![]() The lack of apps that properly make use of dual-screens has been a major obstacle in the category succeeding. That’s good news, since not all developers want or can afford to do extra work for a platform that isn’t proven. “In the APIs we created, you can do more magic if you're a developer,” he added, pointing to Amazon’s Kindle and Spotify as some third-party options that have tweaked their apps for the Duo. Having the Play Store is critical.” The multitude of apps available via Google’s store will all work on both of the Duo’s screens, Panay said, and developers won’t have to do extra work to take advantage of some of the basic new interface features. When asked why the company chose to go with Android as the Duo’s operating system, Panay simply replied “Apps.” He added, “Mobile apps. Google and its partners with dual-screen ambitions stand to gain too.īut Android offers a compelling advantage to Microsoft. It won’t just be Microsoft that benefits from the collaboration, either. “We really do want Android to continue to adopt these pieces and kind of light up the best Microsoft experiences,” he said. It’s still unclear which pieces of what Microsoft calls the Duo UI are built into the Android code base and which will remain specifically for Microsoft, but Panay said the collaboration with Android chief Hiroshi Lockheimer was “very deep.” This means that the features Microsoft and Google worked to build could also roll out to any other company’s dual-screen phone that uses Android in the future. “We didn't create them just for Duo, we created them in the Android code base,” Panay said. This software won’t be exclusive to the Surface device, either. These are ideas we’ve seen or heard about on dual-screen devices for years, and it seems like with the Duo they might finally be coming to a phone that people would actually want to use. ![]() ![]() When you have the company’s To Do app and Edge browser open side by side, for example, you can drag and drop text between the windows. And of course, its own Office apps take advantage of the various modes as well. Another addition is something Microsoft calls App Groups that lets you pair apps to launch in each screen at the same time. These features aren’t new, but Microsoft offers some fresh tweaks, like a keyboard that appears only on the screen where you tapped the input field and is aligned to the respective bezel, making the letters easier to reach. You can also make an app stretch across two screens (a mode Microsoft is calling “Span”), or have a link that you tap in one window open in the other screen. With Microsoft’s help, the Duo offers a refined take on familiar features like “Book” mode for reading and “Tent” for presentations. This is all familiar - the Surface Duo is an Android phone at heart that’s wearing Microsoft clothes.īut dual screens are still uncommon, and Google and its partners have struggled to make Android work well on these types of phones in the past. Microsoft’s skin here also features square icons and lots of straight lines that are more reminiscent of Windows Mobile than Google’s Material UI. You can pin your favorite apps here, similar to Android’s bottom row of apps. The first thing you’ll see when using the Surface Duo is its home page, which looks almost exactly like any other Android home screen, except for a Windows-esque taskbar at the bottom. “But it's also for those who use Android apps or mobile apps in general.” “We built it for people who love Microsoft Office, Teams, Outlook,” he said. The software here is “the Microsoft you love and the Android you know,” Microsoft’s chief product officer Panos Panay said in a press briefing. The Surface Duo is our first look at the result of these two companies collaborating, and it gives me hope for future dual-screen phones.
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