When I got my original Pixel Fold, I hit this snag a few times: I’d open an app with my phone unfolded, expecting to get a big display-filling experience, only to see it show up in the middle of the screen with two humongous black bars on either side. I’d start scratching my head, wondering how I can see this app in proper fullscreen, then realize I have to turn my phone sideways (from book-style with a vertical hinge to laptop-style with a horizontal hinge) to get it to fill the whole screen. But now I’m holding the phone awkwardly, and my thumb goes across the crease every time I scroll up or down. Yikes.
The new Pixel 9 Pro Fold fixes that, and the solution is done through simple geometry — rectangular geometry, to be exact. Or aspect ratios if you want the fancy technical term for it.