Surface Duo: A Quick Look at the Software

Microsoft showed off its upcoming dual display smartphone, the Surface Duo, at its Surface upshot last year. The device is expected to exist formally appear this fall, and the hype around information technology is pretty high. So obviously, when the Redmond giant launched the official Surface Duo SDK and emulator for developers yesterday, I downloaded it as well and played around with information technology a fleck. Here's a quick wait at the Microsoft Surface Duo's software.

Note:The emulator is pretty buggy, but it does give usa a practiced early look at the software experience of the Surface Duo, and how the company is planning on utilising the dual-displays on the phone.

How the Dual Displays Work

This is plainly the most heady aspect of the Surface Duo, even more then than the fact that this is a Microsoft smartphone running Android. I really wanted to take a look at how apps bear on the dual-screen display, and the means it might brand things easier for users.

There are diverse ways you can utilise the ii screens on the Surface Duo, here are the ones I have tried out:

Use Two Apps Side-past-Side

This is useful for me because this style, I can open a note-taking app on i screen, and keep all my research-related browser tabs on the other screen. This results not just in being able to come across more content at the same time, just likewise enables like shooting fish in a barrel copy-paste between apps, and (presumably) drag and driblet functionality.

Or you can keep a to-do listing open on i screen and complete your tasks on the other screen for easily handling multiple tasks at the same time. So that's great.

Expand an App to Both Screens

Another impressive manner of using the dual screens on the Surface Duo would be to open a unmarried app and spread it across the entire two screens; kind of similar something you might do on a multi-monitor ready-upward for a PC.

As of right at present, in that location aren't a lot of apps that make full utilise of this actress screen real-estate, but some of Microsoft'due south own apps do make very nice apply of information technology. For case Outlook. If you open Outlook and spread it over both the screens, it handily shows yous your inbox on the left screen, and the content of any selected emails on the right screen, making information technology easier to speedily read and answer to emails and get to inbox zero.

Microsoft's To-do app besides makes nice utilize of the two screens, showing your tasks for the day on the right screen, while displaying the master interface of the app on the left.

This feature could come in actually handy for games, by the manner, if we could go the gameplay on ane screen and the actual controls on the other one; kind of similar a gamepad. I tried installing Asphalt to see if it would let me play the game that style, but the app only wouldn't launch.

Moving Apps betwixt the 2 Screens

One matter I'm really impressed with on the Surface Duo software that I checked out is the sheer fluidity of moving an app between the ii screens, or making information technology full screen. There are multiple ways to do this, based on what you're trying to achieve and whether the app is in the foreground or not.

If the app is in the foreground, you can simply swipe the navigation pill towards the other screen to movement the app to that screen. You tin can also swipe and hold the app-window in the heart of both the screens to make it go full-screen.

If the app is in the background, you tin can simply open up the recents menu and elevate the app's window to the screen you want.

New Wallpapers

Another thing I was really excited to bank check out were the new wallpapers that Microsoft has designed for the dual-screen display on the Surface Duo. Other than the usual "Microsoft Launcher" wallpapers that you lot'd notice when you lot install Microsoft Launcher on any Android telephone, there are two new wallpapers under a "Surface images" collection.

I tried both of these wallpapers on the emulator, and they do expect pretty keen spread out over both the displays. Here are some screenshots of the Surface Duo's new wallpapers.

Plainly, the company might add more than wallpapers when the device really ships, and these might not even be in the final release, but they sure wait peachy.

Gesture Navigation

Out of the box, the Surface Duo will come with Android 10 (at to the lowest degree as of this SDK), and it volition bring the stock Android ten gestures in tow. So you can swipe up on the gesture-pill to get home, swipe-up and hold to open the recent apps menu, and swipe from the left or correct edge of the screen to go back.

However, if you lot're like me and you don't really find the gestures in Android ten to be to your liking, yous tin can switch back to using the one-time iii-button navigation system. The setting wasn't really visible in the Settings page, but it tin be found past searching for "navigation" in the Settings search bar. There's naught special about this by the mode, since this option is nowadays in Stock Android ten anyway, but information technology was basically hidden in the Surface Duo emulator.

Special Duo Themes for SwiftKey

Since this is a Microsoft smartphone, it obviously comes with SwiftKey out of the box, which is fine because that used to be my keyboard of option when I was using an Android phone. However, since this isa Microsoft phone, SwiftKey is also slightly more special here.

In SwiftKey settings, there are 2 new themes called Duo Lite and Duo Dark, which are similar to the regular Nighttime and Calorie-free themes in SwiftKey, only with subtle differences all around. The font is cleaner, and it definitely looks better to me.

User Interface

Autonomously from those things, the emulator as well helps with giving a good await at the over all user interface that the Surface Duo volition probable send with. A lot of the things here are bones stock Android, including the notification shade. The lock screen looks really impressive though, in that wide display with the Surface wallpaper spanning across both screens equally y'all tin see in the screenshot below.

We also go a look at the incoming call screen, both as a notification when the phone is existence used, and in full-screen when the Surface Duo is locked (see screenshot below).

There isn't a lot to test here, since the emulator comes with the absolute barebones. There are no Play Services either, and apps like Netflix weren't installing, at to the lowest degree on our re-create of the emulator.

One of my favorite things to practise on the emulator, and something I'm really excited to check out when nosotros get to play around with the actual device, is opening up Border in the full-screen manner, rotating the telephone and viewing webpages in a long scrolling format. It's really fun!

Excited for the Surface Duo?

All in all, using the Surface emulator has fabricated me even more excited to check out the bodily Surface Duo smartphone when Microsoft launches information technology later this year. There's merely so much I want to test on this device. Microsoft is too going to launch an emulator for the Surface Neo dual-screen laptop running Windows 10X next month, and you can residue bodacious I'm going to check that out every bit well.

Until then, what do you think almost the Surface Duo? Do you lot like the thought of a dual-screen smartphone in comparing to a folding smartphone? Let me know in the comments down beneath.

Source: https://beebom.com/surface-duo-quick-look-software/

Posted by: brownforwas.blogspot.com

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