question about split screen on Windows 10 tablets

I was hoping someone in-the-know or maybe someone from Microsoft can shine some light on this issue: take a Windows tablet like a Surface Pro, rotate it so it’s tall/long (like you would if you had a really long PDF or something like that), for some reason, you aren’t allowed to have 1 app take up the top half of the screen and another app take up the bottom half of the screen! Even Android tablets allow this, and tablets are almost an afterthought in the Android world. Is this feature coming to Windows 10 tablets eventually? What’s the issue? I honestly for the life of me cannot think of a reason this functionality is not present in Windows tablets. (I read that is was present in very early builds of Windows 10 but removed? I don’t know if that’s true or not though)

Conversation 8 comments

  • lordbaal1

    06 March, 2017 - 7:49 am

    <p>in Windows you can easily&nbsp;resize windows. And snap them to an one of four positions.</p>

  • Polycrastinator

    06 March, 2017 - 9:32 am

    <p>Well, I'd argue that Windows tablets are even more of an afterthought than Android ones. Truly, it had never occurred to me someone might want to do this: our eyes give us a letterbox view (that's why monitors, films, and TV are widescreen), I can't imagine processing efficiently 2 items arranged by this. Maybe they figured it's such an edge case it's not worth implementing?</p>

    • Chris_Kez

      Premium Member
      06 March, 2017 - 1:35 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#88655">In reply to Polycrastinator:</a></em></blockquote><p>Take the example of watching a video while browsing the web or Twitter. The same thing applies if you want to review a widescreen PowerPoint presentation while looking through a Word document or browsing the web.</p><p>Here's how that looked with left/right snap on my DV8 Pro with Windows 8</p><p><img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bh_tZrKCMAAuoSN.jpg"></p><p><br></p><p>Here's how it looks on a Nexus 5X using top/bottom snap:</p><p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/U4zkpCS.png"></p&gt;

  • evox81

    Premium Member
    06 March, 2017 - 9:44 am

    <p>I'm somewhat surprised this isn't offered. Although I rarely work in portrait, so I hadn't ever tried it.</p><p><br></p><p>Fortunately, the corner snap functionality makes this fairly easy. Take your two windows and snap one to the top left corner and the other to the bottom left corner. Then resize both to the right side of the screen. </p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    06 March, 2017 - 10:21 am

    <p>Portrait orientation is typically considered best for reading, as it provides a page-like experience. The problem is so many OEMs insist on damn 16×9 screens and it makes portrait ungainly. </p><p>Between the natural combination of that portrait aspect and readers, and the clumsiness of most devices, user testing likely bore out that nobody really wanted the ability. </p><p>Edit: "Even?" Android tablets? Nothing Android does on tablets is particularly special or good. iPads don't do vertical split, either. I don't think it would be a good experience. </p>

    • Bdsrev

      06 March, 2017 - 4:50 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#88660">In reply to jimchamplin:</a></em></blockquote><p>But the newer Surface devices have 3:2 aspect ratio, and if you did a perfect split in the center it would be like having 2 4:3 screens stacked on top of each other, which is perfect. PC content looks great on a 4:3 display. </p><p><br></p><p>There are many use cases where having this feature would actually be ideal, I'm so surprised it's not an option in the same way it is in landscape (I believe it's called snap split screen?)</p>

      • lordbaal1

        06 March, 2017 - 9:13 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#88749"><em>In reply to Bdsrev:</em></a></blockquote><p>it is in there. You can use snap, or resize and move the window.</p>

  • Chris_Kez

    Premium Member
    06 March, 2017 - 1:16 pm

    <p>I always wanted vertical/portrait snap on my Dell Venue 8 Pro with Windows 8. It would have been great for watching videos while browsing the web or using Twitter. Since Android added multi-window support I now do this on my Nexus 5X. </p>

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