Withthe OnePlus Open, the popular Android phone maker launched the firstfoldable phoneunder its brand. And, while it’s not the first company to launch a folding smartphone, OnePlus - and Oppo (its parent company) - have come up with a pretty ingenious method of managing multitasking in their version ofAndroid 13.
It’s a mixture of multi-window, split-screen and floating windows, which effectively means you can use multiple apps at the same time, without restriction. In fact, even the borders of the display aren’t rigid borders. App windows can be pushed off to the side, and brought back in, expanding beyond the screen surface area. It’s called ‘Open Canvas’ and this is how it works.
Split-screen done differently
For most previous Android versions and skins from various manufacturers, split screen meant having 2-3 windows split up in a pretty rigid user interface. OnePlus has most definitely not approached the software this way with the OnePlus Open.
You can - of course - have two long vertical app windows side-by-side in classic split-screen style on the large internal display of the OnePlus Open. That almost goes without saying.
Related:OnePlus Open review: A no-compromise foldable phone
To activate it you open an app as normal on the large internal screen, and you’ll see a dock of apps running along the bottom of the screen. You can either drag one of those frequently used app icons up to the screen to split it in two, or there’s an ‘apps’ icon that looks like a grey square icon with four rounded square icons inside. Tap that, or search in the search field for your desired app, and then you can drag it onto the screen.
To expand that and add a third, you follow the same process again, and then you’ll have three side-by-side vertical apps running on the screen next to each other. This is where you see the magic start, because it pushes one of those three apps off to the left or right side, keeping two in almost full-sized windows, with the third off to the side and not entirely on the screen.
If you want to move that app back into view you may easily drag the on-screen black split bars, both of which have three dots that you could tap, hold and drag. You can even switch app positions by dragging and dropping the app view to change the order.
This is really just the beginning of the experience though. With any of those apps there’s a small grey bar at the top of the app window that you’re able to tap to reveal a drop-down menu.
If you hit ‘expand’ it turns the app into a full-screen app and drops it below the other two apps running in split screen. With two above in the classic side-by-side view and a third in full screen beneath you can slide between the two split-screen and one larger full-screen apps by sliding the horizontal black split bar. You can also move that full-screen app to the position above the two side-by-side apps if you’d rather.
I’ve found this most useful when I have a video playing on BBC iPlayer or YouTube, but still want to flick between a couple of different other apps like WhatsApp or Chrome. What’s more, you can even save it as a group and keep going back to this cluster of apps, and then start another one with other apps. It’s pretty clever.
If ever you want to take one of the apps out of the cluster, just open it and tap that bar at the top of the app and choose ‘Full Screen’. Now it runs as its own app, away from the other two. Or if you want to just close it, hit ‘close app’.
Floating windows
As well as the awesome split-screen innovation, there’s the ability to have apps open in a smaller floating window too. And there are a few different ways to launch it.
Open any app you want in full screen, then swipe up slowly and keep pushing the app view up until you see a semi-opaque rectangular window that says ‘floating window’ on it. Now release and that app becomes a tiny floating window.
You can also just go into the recent apps view at any time by swiping upwards and holding the screen from the Home Screen. You’ll see all your recently opened apps in smaller cards here. Tap the three dots next to the name of whatever app you want as a floating window. In the pop-up menu that appears, select ‘floating window’.
Now you have your app in a small floating window on the screen, and you can tap to enlarge it from its miniature size just by tapping the app. From its larger size, you can adjust the size by touching and dragging from either of the bottom corners.
You can move it anywhere by dragging the top edge at the centre of the window, or swipe it off the screen by dragging it right to the left or right edge of the display. Then bring it back by tapping the little arrow that appears on the edge of the display.
You can also take it back to full-screen by touching the two-arrow icon in the top left corner of the floating window. All in all, with both the floating window implementation and the split-screen, the OnePlus Open delivers a comprehensive multitasking solution that sets it apart from a lot of other foldable phones.
OnePlus Open
The multitasking foldable champ
The OnePlus Open delivers exceptional speed and performance in a package with great displays and unrivalled multitasking abilities.
