Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is working on letting you put three apps into split-screen mode.
- This feature will likely only be available on tablets due to their larger screen size.
- The inspiration for this feature may have come from OnePlus and its Open Canvas feature.
We’re still months away from the release of Android 16, the next major version of Android. Given that we’ve only seen two developer previews so far, there’s still a lot we don’t know about what’s coming in the big update. However, while digging through the second developer preview, I found some clues about a major upgrade potentially coming to split-screen mode. Android 16 may be implementing a multitasking system inspired by Open Canvas from OnePlus, which is widely considered one of the best approaches to split-screen multitasking on tablets.
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The Open Canvas multitasking system debuted on the OnePlus Open, the company’s first book-style foldable phone, before making its way to the OnePlus Pad and the OnePlus Pad 2. Open Canvas lets you run up to three apps side-by-side, with two apps sharing 90% of the screen and the third occupying the remaining 10%. The genius of this implementation is that, while the third app is usually far too small to be usable, it can be quickly enlarged by tapping anywhere on the app window.
Tapping like that shifts the screen so that the leftmost app now takes up 10% of the screen while the middle and rightmost apps take up the remaining 90%. You can swap app positions, change apps by dragging and dropping from the taskbar, or view all three apps by performing a four-finger pinch gesture.
Since Open Canvas is a proprietary feature, it isn’t available on other Android tablets. However, I’ve uncovered evidence suggesting Google is working on a revamped multitasking system with potential similarities to Open Canvas. While digging through Android 16 DP2, I found code for an in-development “flexible” split-screen mode. With a bit of tinkering, I managed to enable this new mode on my Pixel device. This new “flexible” split-screen mode is far from ready, though, so I wasn’t able to actually get three apps into split-screen mode.
When I opened two apps in split-screen mode and then attempted to drag and drop a third app, I noticed that there were previews for three positions I could drop the app in. This suggests that Google is indeed working on implementing support for three-way split-screen multitasking in Android 16, akin to the Open Canvas system found on OnePlus devices.
With the introduction of desktop windowing support in the first quarterly release of Android 15, some may find this revamped split-screen mode to be redundant. However, this new split-screen mode offers a simpler user experience and will likely integrate with the new app pairs feature for state saving. Desktop windowing’s ability to handle more than three apps offers greater flexibility, but many users rarely need that many, particularly given the limited screen space on most devices.
