- Android 14 includes changes that indulge third-party app developers to build new foldable experiences, presuming the phone maker incorporates these changes.
- These new foldable experiences include dual-screen mode, where both displays can be used simultaneously by one app, and rear-screen mode, where the rear screen is used plane when the foldable is open.
- Apps like Google Camera/Pixel Camera and Google Translate use these changes to enable dual-screen mode already.
Foldables are transmissible the fancy of stereotype consumers, and the category is inching its way toward maturity with every new foldable launched. Foldables are once some of the best Android phones you can buy. The existence of two displays opens up several possibilities for using your phone with your favorite apps. With Android 14, foldables will get largest as third-party apps will now be worldly-wise to make use of both displays simultaneously.
As highlighted by Android Police, Google has updated the window zone module in the Jetpack WindowManager support library in Android 14. As long as the phone manufacturer does their homework correctly, third-party app developers can take the help of Jetpack WindowManager and its extension modules to build largest foldable apps. These apps will be worldly-wise to read the swivel position of the foldable (to respond to changes in the folding character) and moreover be worldly-wise to show two app activities simultaneously in a multi-pane layout.
In simpler words, Android 14 will indulge third-party app developers to build apps that can use the foldable’s inner and outer exhibit simultaneously.
We once see apps like the Google Camera/Pixel Camera use a “rear exhibit mode” to show the camera viewfinder on both displays. Google Translate on the Pixel Fold has a special interpreter mode that uses both displays, which is made possible through these new changes.
As the report mentions, Google and Samsung have implemented the window zone module in their respective Android 14 releases for their foldables. Phone makers have wiggle room and can skip this out depending on unrepealable hardware constraints, so one cannot presume that all Android 14 builds on foldables will enable this functionality. But we hope OEMs include this feature, as it would then indulge third-party app developers to build largest foldable experiences.
