Google’s new Android tablet is here, and in a break from tradition, it’s not a Nexus model at all: earlier this week, Google Store sales opened for the new Pixel C.
Understandably, Google’s out on a PR blitz to help spread the word
about the new tablet, and yesterday that included having some members of
the Pixel team participate in a Reddit AMA. During the course of
questioning, Google’s Andrew Bowers confirmed ongoing work on a
long-awaited Android feature, and one that might be ready in time for
Android N: split-screen multitasking.
Individual OEMs have already been giving certain Android devices their own forms of split-screen, but Android as a whole has lacked universal support for such a feature – an oversight we were lamenting just the other day. And while we’ve seen hints that Google devs have been working on this kind of support on in-development Android builds, leaving traces of their progress under the surface, we haven’t had a great sense for when, if ever, split-screen multitasking could be ready to see the light of day.
In response to a question about features that may have been in the works for the Pixel C but weren’t done in time for its release, Bowers explains:
We’ve still got a million questions about how a native Android split-screen mode might function, including hardware requirements, but we’re excited to hear that those answers could be just a few more months away.
Source: Andrew Bowers (Reddit), Pocketnow.
Individual OEMs have already been giving certain Android devices their own forms of split-screen, but Android as a whole has lacked universal support for such a feature – an oversight we were lamenting just the other day. And while we’ve seen hints that Google devs have been working on this kind of support on in-development Android builds, leaving traces of their progress under the surface, we haven’t had a great sense for when, if ever, split-screen multitasking could be ready to see the light of day.
In response to a question about features that may have been in the works for the Pixel C but weren’t done in time for its release, Bowers explains:
That’s less than an outright guarantee that split-screen support will arrive with Android N (presumably debuting sometime in H2 2016), but just seeing split-screen and a specific Android release mentioned in the same breath is a lot more to go on than we’ve had so far, and has us hopeful that next year really could be the year when Android picks up some full-blown multitasking.“We’re working on lots of things right now for N that, of course, we wish we had, you know, yesterday. But we’d spoil the surprise of N if we shared all of them. Split screen is in the works!”
We’ve still got a million questions about how a native Android split-screen mode might function, including hardware requirements, but we’re excited to hear that those answers could be just a few more months away.
Source: Andrew Bowers (Reddit), Pocketnow.
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