Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
With Android 15, Google introduced app pairs, or the ability to save two apps together as one icon, and launch them at the same time in split-screen mode. The feature was limited to tablets at first, but it soon expanded to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and other phones.
Initially, I thought I would use this all the time, but I soon realized that the issue was with the multi-window mode itself, and how it displayed a tiny part of both apps and made using either of them clunkier. So I forgot about app pairs for a while, until Android 16 came along, and with it, a significant improvement to multi-window and split-screen multitasking on Android.
Do you use App Pairs on Android? 3 votes Yes, all the time. 33 % I tried them, but they weren't for me. 0 % No, I don't use them. 0 % I had no idea this was possible! 67 %
90:10 split-screen makes app pairs useful on Android
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
As nice as it’s been to have split-screen and multi-window on Android phones for nearly a decade now, the feature never felt useful to me because of how it works and how small phone displays are. It essentially splits the screen in half or in two-thirds to one-third, and keeps it like that, which means that at least one of the apps is completely hidden each time I open the keyboard. Plus, no matter the setup — 50/50 or 70/30 — it felt like I was using a compressed version of my apps and not the real deal. It was almost always easier to switch between full-screen apps than to use them at the same time in the awkward and clunky split-screen mode.
With Android 16, Google brought a modified split-screen 90:10 mode that practically maximizes one app and minimizes another. The main perk here is that the two apps automatically switch when you tap on them, so if I have Spotify and Slack open, with Spotify minimized and Slack maximized, I can just tap the Spotify window to maximize it and minimize Slack in one go. This works really seamlessly.
On a relatively small 6-inch or 7-inch phone display, the option to see more from each app and the ability to switch between both apps very quickly make split-screen a lot more usable. I can finally use two apps together and not sacrifice screen estate or practicality.
What makes this more interesting, though, is saving the app pair as a single icon in order to launch them immediately as I intend. This takes away a lot of the guesswork and meaningless tapping to get my two apps launched side-by-side and in the exact ratios I need. And because of the combination of app pairs and 90:10, I’m finally using — and loving — multi-window on Android a lot more.
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