The full version of this article, along with thousands like it, can be found here: Android has a brand new taskbar and multi-window function

Google’s Android OS was originally designed for smartphones, but eventually found its way to tablets and notable other devices such as Smart TV's and e-readers.

The Mountain View, California-based initially positioning Chrome OS as its operating system for laptops such as Chromebooks… but it seems that a new version of Android could be about to change that. A recent look at a beta version of Android 13 has all but confirmed the rumours that had been doing the rounds for the past few months.

It seems that Google has started to look into ways of positioning Android on larger screen devices, such as desktop and laptop pc's. For example, the recent Android 12L update added a taskbar and updated layouts for tablet devices and it now appears that the next major release of Android (Android 13) is continuing the trend with a new interface tweaks designed specifically for large devices.

The new design is closer to the design of 4.x release versions, with settings and notifications along the bottom of the screen. However, it must be said that the earlier releases of Android didn’t show open apps within the taskbar.

The developer preview of Android 13 also opens applications in freeform multi-window mode by default, instead of maximising the window to the entirety of the screen.

All the new changes will be helpful for folk running Android on desktops and laptops, but it is currently unknown as to whether the functionality will be available on tablets.

What do you think about Google’s renewed focus on Android for large-screen devices?

The team at Platform Executive hope you have enjoyed this article. Automatic translation from English to a growing list of languages via Google AI Cloud Translation. Reporting by Rob Phillips.

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