Google will lastly be updating the App Pairs characteristic for the native model of Android 14, giving customers a strategy to save sure split-screen apps on their telephone.

For many who want a refresher, App Pair is a multitasking device permitting Android homeowners to open two apps, place them side-by-side, and work together with them on the identical time. The annoying factor was you couldn’t save them on Pixel {hardware}, so that you needed to redo the pairing each time you closed them. That’s, till this newest leak, which was found by freelance tech journalist Mishaal Rahman who shared his findings on Twitter. 

He got here throughout a “launcher flag” digging by the recordsdata of the second Android 14 beta “that, when enabled, surfaces” a brand new ‘Save app pair’ possibility “within the context menu of split-screened apps”. Rahman states the choice doesn’t work for the time being, however he does count on it to work as supposed later down the road. There’s no indication in his findings whether or not or not the characteristic can be out there with the launch of Android 14, nonetheless.

Now you could be asking: “doesn’t this exist already on Android?” Sure, it does. The issue was split-screen saving was by no means out there on the bottom model of Android OS nor on Pixel. It is one thing normally added by third events to their respective tech. Samsung, for instance, gave customers the flexibility to avoid wasting app pairings from the get-go when it launched its personal rendition of App Pairs to Galaxy telephones again in 2017. Pixel units, for no matter purpose, have lagged behind.  

Improved multi-tasking

Staying on this thread of Google enjoying catch up, business leaker Nail Sadykov found one other new multitasking characteristic within the newest Android 14 beta. This time, the working system will will let you “use system navigation” whereas dragging and dropping gadgets. So, you’ll have the ability to seize a photograph from one app, “open one other, [then] drop it there” with out a lot problem. It additionally works with textual content. Highlighting a string of phrases enables you to transfer them to some other place, successfully eliminating the necessity for copying and pasting.

Identical to Rahman’s findings, the improved drag and drop device does exist on different smartphones from iOS to Oppo {hardware}. It is simply that Google has been a bit sluggish on the uptake. Hopefully, these quality-of-life updates will seem on the Pixel 8. Whereas they’re not probably the most game-changing additions, the small stuff does add up, and it could possibly flip an okay machine into one thing particular. 

Talking of the Pixel 8, a current leak for the Professional mannequin reveals it might be getting a thermometer of all issues. It’ll be subsequent to the digicam lenses on the rear. We’re undecided what Google intends to do by including a thermometer to Pixel, which appears a reasonably random inclusion.

When you’re carried out catching up on our protection of Google’s subsequent flagship, you should definitely try TechRadar’s record of the most effective Pixel handsets for 2023 in the event you’re trying to improve.