Android has a desktop mode and there’s a reason. The one introduced starting from Android 10, in fact, has remained very simplistic and rudimentary over the years: a useful tool for developers as a test environment, but decidedly unappealing for the rest of users.
Android 15 will get serious with desktop mode
However, it seems that Mountain View has decided to work on it, and that already with Android 15 things could change. Digging into the code of Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2.1 (freshly released on the Pixel), in fact, the colleagues at AndroidAuthority have discovered and enabled new features that specifically concern the desktop mode.
Specifically, the new features concern the management of screen windows after connecting the smartphone to an external display and activating desktop mode.
Once the changes are enabled, when you open an app you may notice a bar at the top. Tapping it reveals the name of the app and most importantly a central menu with three options: full screen, split screen and free mode .
Particularly interesting is the last option, which allows you to obtain a floating window to resize and move as you wish . Furthermore, to simplify things, it is possible to drag the windows towards the left or right edge of the screen to “snap” them to one half and quickly divide the work space, a bit like what happens on Windows. Windows in this mode retain a top bar which for convenience indicates the name of the app and includes two icons: the one to switch to full screen mode, and the one to close the program.
