{"id":53875,"date":"2016-03-21T17:11:56","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T17:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=53875"},"modified":"2016-03-21T17:11:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T17:11:56","slug":"android-ns-hidden-freeform-window-mode-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/03\/android-ns-hidden-freeform-window-mode-revealed\/","title":{"rendered":"Android N’s hidden freeform window mode revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Android N was released in beta last week, its biggest feature was a new splitscreen multitasking mode. The code hinted towards something bigger though, and now it’s been uncovered: a full freeform window mode, letting you turn Android into a desktop-optimised experience.<\/p>\n

You can see how the unlocked mode looks in the screenshots below, provided by\u00a0Ars Technica<\/em>. The look is unsurprisingly similar to Remix OS<\/a>, which launched in February\u00a0as an unofficial desktop version of Android. You can resize windows, move them around the screen, and even use them alongside split-screen apps (although it looks a little odd).<\/p>\n

That’s not to say that the mode is finished though — there’s no way to find apps that have become hidden behind others, changing the width and height of windows is done one at a time and the massive title bars waste a lot of space.<\/p>\n

\"2016-03-20-19.26.55\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The inclusion of a computer-focused mode isn’t too surprising, given the number of rumours we’ve heard regarding a potential mash-up of Chrome OS and Android in the past couple of years. Even if these rumours are bunk — and they’ve certainly been denied by Google — it does make sense to extend Android’s operability, as convertible and 2-in-1 devices continue to proliferate in the otherwise staid laptop and tablet spaces.<\/p>\n

How to try\u00a0it yourself<\/h2>\n

If you want to try Android N’s freeform window mode for yourself, Zhuowei Zhang (@zhuowei) has provided instructions on how to do it — but it’s not as easy as installing Android N<\/a>. First, you’ll need to have a bootloader-unlocked device running Android N, and a PC with the Android SDK installed. Flash a custom recovery (e.g. TWRP), mount the system partition as writable and open ADB on your PC. Then input the following, pressing enter after each line.<\/p>\n

cd \/system\/etc\/permissions
\nsed -e \"s\/live_wallpaper\/freeform_window_management\/\" android.software.live_wallpaper.xml >freeform.xml<\/code><\/p>\n

Boot into Android N normally, and you’ll have access to the new mode. Use the square button in the multitasking menu to turn apps into windows.<\/p>\n

Wrap-up<\/h2>\n

Thanks for checking out the article. Let us know what you think in the comments below, and we’ll see you again soon I’m sure!<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Android N was released in beta last week, its biggest feature was a new splitscreen multitasking mode. The code hinted towards something bigger though, and now it’s been uncovered: a full freeform window mode, letting you turn Android into a desktop-optimised experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":53883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[311,216],"tags":[8524,8549,8405,8548],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53884,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53875\/revisions\/53884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}