Surface Duo Blog

Dual-screen developer tools recap

Craig Dunn August 5, 2021 Aug 5, 2021 08/5/21

Hello dual-screen developers, Each week we cover a different aspect of dual-screen development, but with so much happening it’s difficult to cover ALL of the platforms that support the Microsoft Surface Duo. This post is a quick run-down of all the different tools and platforms that developers can use to create dual-screen ...

TwoDo dual-screen data entry sample

Hersh Vakharia July 29, 2021 Jul 29, 2021 07/29/21

Hello Android developers! A common “first app” for new developers is a simple to-do list app – it typically incorporates data entry, database storage, multiple views, and simple navigation, so it’s great for learning. The app I’m sharing today, called TwoDo, is exactly that, except it is also built for dual-screen devices...

eBook sample with Jetpack Window Manager

Raymond Liu July 22, 2021 Jul 22, 2021 07/22/21

Hello Android developers! Reading books on Microsoft Surface Duo can be a great take on the classic reading experience. In this blog, we will walk through an eBook reader sample I created as an internship project. This eBook sample demonstrates how the Two Page layout for foldable devices can naturally spread content across multiple...

New TwoPaneLayout Compose library preview

Joy Liu July 15, 2021 Jul 15, 2021 07/15/21

Hello Android developers! Google just announced the first release candidate for Compose on 07/01. We are getting one big step closer to stable this month! In previous blogs, Jetpack Compose on foldable and dual-screen development and Jetpack Compose on Microsoft Surface Duo, we mentioned that there are two main steps you can ...

Hover-ink over dual-screens

Meir Ben Itay July 8, 2021 Jul 8, 2021 07/8/21

Hello Android developers, This week we’re releasing the alpha4 version of our pen SDK preview. The pen SDK is intended to help developers add drawing capabilities to their Android apps, accepting input using touch or pen (including pen features like the eraser tip). The latest open-source SDK code and sample app are ...

ExoPlayer video on dual-screen and foldable devices

Hersh Vakharia July 1, 2021 Jul 1, 2021 07/1/21

Hello Android developers! The Microsoft Surface Duo is a great device for consuming multimedia content, and ExoPlayer is a simple, powerful widget for rendering video. Raymond and I are interns on the Surface Duo Developer Experience team, and we're excited to share two dual-screen enhanced samples that showcase video experiences on...

Developing for Android on Windows

Guy Merin June 24, 2021 Jun 24, 2021 06/24/21

Hello Android developers! Today Microsoft announced the next version of Windows and a new Windows Store, and we’re excited to see how people take advantage of its new features. One thing that hasn’t changed is that Windows is still the best platform to design, build, test, and deploy Android apps. All tools welcome No ...

Window Manager preview for Xamarin

Craig Dunn June 17, 2021 Jun 17, 2021 06/17/21

Hello Xamarin developers! We’ve discussed Window Manager in previous blog posts – it’s an AndroidX library that brings dual-screen and foldable support to Android, across a variety of devices including Microsoft Surface Duo. Window Manager is now available to test with Xamarin.Android apps via a prerelease NuGet Xamarin....

Surface Duo Design Kit update

Mehul Shah June 10, 2021 Jun 10, 2021 06/10/21

Hello designers, Today we are excited to share you with an update to the Design Kit for the Microsoft Surface Duo that’s available on Figma for download. The latest update to our Design Kit version 0.4 includes: In this blog post we want to highlight details of the guidelines, principles, and...

A new angle on Flutter

Andrei Diaconu June 3, 2021 Jun 3, 2021 06/3/21

Hello Flutter developers! Today we are taking a closer look at the hinge on Microsoft Surface Duo and other foldable devices. The hinge holds the two parts of the device together, but it also has a sensor inside which tells us about the angle between the two screens. Figure 1: Surface Duo Hinge in action Hinge angle vs ...