GoKawiilRita El Khoury / Android Authority
Google has been working on bringing desktop-like freeform windows to Android since the days of Android Nougat. The feature dwindled for a while and was recently revived, likely because of Google’s aim to evolve Android into a desktop OS, too. As part of that transformation, there’s a new Desktop Mode that shows up when you plug your Android phone into a large display, Samsung DeX-style, as well as an effort to bring a similar interface directly to your device, as long as you have a large display in your hands.
This is what Google is now calling “desktop windowing,” and after many months in testing under Developer Options, the feature is now available by default on tablets running the stable Android 16 QPR3. For now, that only means the Pixel Tablet, but any other tablet that runs or gets updated to Android 16 QPR3 — more likely, Android 17 — in the future should have this capability out of the box. I’ve been testing it to see how it works, and honestly, I’m impressed. It’s made me think of using my Pixel Tablet in a different light.
Do you prefer Android's split-screen mode or multiple resizable windows? 17 votes Split-screen all the way. 6 % I want the freedom of desktop windowing. 53 % Each has its use case. 24 % I haven't tried desktop windowing yet to judge. 6 % Neither. One fullscreen app at a time. 12 %
Android’s new desktop windowing is so fluid and fun
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If you’re curious about what desktop windowing feels like on the Pixel Tablet, please watch the demo video above to see how everything works and all the possible gestures and options Google has added. You can snap apps to each side of the screen, resize them, maximize or minimize them, add new apps to your desktop, adjust their size, get existing apps out of or into a desktop, and create multiple desktops and switch between them. It’s all pretty extensive for a feature that just rolled out.
The first thing I noticed, though, before all of this, is how smooth animations and transitions are. Resizing apps is seamless, though doing it with a finger on a touchscreen is a bit clunkier than what I’m used to when I resize windows on my computer. Snapping apps down into a desktop or back into full screen is smooth, and so is snapping them to the screen’s sides. I love that the bottom taskbar shows all of the currently open apps from ongoing desktops and lets me switch between them with a tap, regardless of which desktop they’re in or whether they’re in the foreground or background. Android switches to the desktop that has the app and brings its window to the foreground.
Preview of 3 apps in one desktop Preview of 4 apps in one desktop
The small window previews in the app switcher are excellent, too. No matter how wonky or misaligned my floating windows are, in different sizes or aspect ratios, the preview aligns them perfectly next to each other. And I specifically appreciate that if you snap app windows side-by-side, you can still drag the bar between them once to resize them both at the same time. I was afraid that using freeform floating windows like these would mean losing this handy ability to adjust two apps simultaneously, but Google had thought of it, too.
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