A beta construct of Android 16 incorporates an early model of Google’s new Android Desktop Mode that, sooner or later, may let customers merely plug their smartphone right into a monitor and use it like a laptop computer or desktop laptop.
The new characteristic 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 Pro operating the most recent 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’ll be able to see as in his video:
Android Desktop Mode places Android’s standing bar on the highest so you’ll be able to see your Wi-Fi and sign power, and there’s a taskbar on the underside that allows you to pin apps for simple entry. The taskbar additionally offers you a Windows Start Menu–model app drawer, and also you get entry to Android’s native navigation buttons on the suitable finish of the taskbar. Apps run in windowed modes that look so much just like the expertise on Android tablets, however you additionally get Windows PC–like talents resembling snapping home windows to the left and proper of the display.
Last yr, 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 an even bigger display. In March, Google upped its talents to incorporate a show placement administration setting that allows you to drag packing containers to rearrange your cell display 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 techniques.
Rahman says Desktop Mode won’t be prepared at launch for Android 16, which is predicted to launch this spring. It may come later in a quarterly replace and even as a part of Android 17, which gained’t doubtless come till 2026.
