- Android has had a desktop mode since Android 10, but it’s incredibly barebones.
- Google has been working on revamping this desktop mode since late 2022.
- In Android 15, Google is making significant changes to the desktop mode, focusing on better windowing capabilities.
Android excels as an operating system for mobile devices, but it’s always fallen behind the likes of macOS and Windows when it comes to desktop computing. This is because the Android OS still lacks basic features seen on most desktop platforms. That could change in the upcoming Android 15 update, which is poised to introduce a significant revamp to the OS’s desktop mode experience.
Google first added a desktop mode experience in 2019’s Android 10 release, but the original implementation was incredibly barebones. That’s because it was never intended for regular users but rather for developers to test how their apps behave in multi-display scenarios. With the release of Android 13’s first quarterly platform update in late 2022, though, Google has quietly been working on revamping Android’s desktop mode to be more user-friendly. One of the areas that Google has focused on improving is window management, i.e., how to handle showing and controlling multiple Android apps on screen.