Google Confirms It Will Bring Desktop Windowing to Android

With Android 15 complete, Google is turning its attention to the desktop windowing capabilities it will deliver in a future quarterly update. That’s right: Google is going to enable users to run multiple apps simultaneously in resizable windows on Android tablets, a capability that is currently only available in ChromeOS and the third-party Samsung Dex solution.

“Desktop windowing allows users to run multiple apps simultaneously and resize app windows, offering a more flexible and desktop-like experience,” Google’s Francesco Romano and Fahd Imtiaz explain in a new post to the Android Developers Blog. “This, along with a refreshed System UI and new APIs, allows users to be even more productive and creates a more seamless, desktop-like experience on tablets.”

When this feature is enabled, apps will still run in full-screen by default, as they do now. But users will be able to press and hold on the top of an app and drag down to put it in a windowed mode. (And drag an app to the top of the screen to do the reverse.) Fortunately, there’s not much for app developers to do as Google has been implementing the underlying capabilities in Android for years to support folding and multi-display devices. So well-written modern Android apps will already support resizing, different display sizes and aspect ratios, and the other system capabilities this needs.

In addition to basic split screen capabilities, Android also support drag-and-drop between apps, multi-instancing (so you can have multiple instances of the same app running together), keyboard and mouse input methods, and title bar-like features similar to what we see on desktop platforms.

Developers who want to get started on this capability early can install Android 15 Quarterly Platform Release 1 (QPR1) Beta 2 on a Pixel Tablet (or a Pixel Tablet emulator in Android Studio). Or they can wait until this release heads out to AOSP more broadly in the coming weeks.

“By optimizing your apps for desktop windowing on Pixel Tablet, you are not only enhancing the app experience on that specific device but also future-proofing your apps for the broader Android ecosystem where freeform windowing will become prevalent,” the two write. “We’re excited about the windows of opportunities enabled by desktop windowing, and we look forward to seeing how you adapt your apps for an enhanced user experience.”

Android 15 QPR1 will ship publicly as a Pixel Feature Drop, most likely in December. But the desktop windowing capability will also head out to other Android devices in some future release.