A beta construct of Android 16 incorporates an early model of Google’s new Android Desktop Mode that, sooner or later, might let customers merely plug their smartphone right into a monitor and use it like a laptop computer or desktop pc.
The brand new function was shared by Android tinkerer Mishaal Rahman reporting for Android Authority. Rahman manually enabled Android Desktop Mode beneath developer choices on his Google Pixel 8 Professional operating the newest Android 16 beta. After plugging it right into a USB-C appropriate monitor, it instantly shows a PC-like interface on the exterior show, as you possibly can see as in his video:
Android Desktop Mode places Android’s standing bar on the highest so you possibly can see your Wi-Fi and sign energy, and there’s a taskbar on the underside that permits you to pin apps for simple entry. The taskbar additionally provides you a Home windows Begin Menu-style app drawer, and also you get entry to Android’s native navigation buttons on the fitting finish of the taskbar. Apps run in windowed modes that look loads just like the expertise on Android tablets, however you additionally get Home windows PC-like talents reminiscent of snapping home windows to the left and proper of the display screen.
Final 12 months, Rahman discovered an early model of Google’s desktop expertise didn’t do far more than allow you to drop a resizable windowed app onto a much bigger display screen. In March, Google upped its talents to incorporate a show placement administration setting that permits you to drag containers to rearrange your cell display screen and monitor so you may make it simpler to navigate your cursor between them, very similar to the show association settings you’ll discover on desktop working programs.
Rahman says Desktop Mode won’t be prepared at launch for Android 16, which is anticipated to launch this spring. It might come later in a quarterly replace and even as a part of Android 17, which received’t probably come till 2026.
