Surface Duo Blog
Build great Android experiences, from AI to foldable and large-screens.
Latest posts
Surface Duo testing tips & tricks
Hello Microsoft Surface Duo developers, Today’s post contains some tips to help automate the Surface Duo emulator for testing. Use the latest emulator Tip number one: install the latest emulator from Microsoft Developer Center to ensure you have all our latest fixes, feature enhancements, and performance improvements. The Surface Duo emulator preview is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. See the documentation for additional setup instructions. Android emulator drag & drop Another simple tip is that you can drag and drop items onto the running Surface Duo emulator! APK files will be installed auto...
Lighting-Up a Flutter application on Microsoft Surface Duo
Hello Flutter developers! In our last post, Get Started with Flutter on Surface Duo, we walked you through how to add the Surface Duo SDK to your Flutter project and how to use the SDK to obtain information from the SDK library. We can now tell if the device we are running on is a dual-screen device, if your application is running on one screen or both, and even what angle the hinge is currently at. A few of you have even gone so far as to begin creating packages for Flutter to help developers get started even quicker. You are encouraged to check out these packages, perhaps you might even like to contribute to...
Dual-screen web experiences preview
In previous posts, we’ve talked about building Android apps for Microsoft Surface Duo using Kotlin & Java, C# with Xamarin, React Native, Unity, and Flutter. Microsoft is also working hard to bring new capabilities to the web so that websites and embedded web experiences can also adapt to the Surface Duo and other dual-screen devices. Proposals: CSS primitives and window segments There are currently two proposals being considered: Today’s post shows how these features might work and explains how you can test them today to provide feedback and plan for future dual-screen web experi...
Microsoft Surface Duo dev resources recap
Hello Surface Duo developers! Given the recent events that are unfolding across the globe, we have decided to give this week’s blog a lower profile so you can focus on the well being of your local communities and families. Please be safe and we look forward to sharing lots of exciting announcements in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we have provided a recap of resources that are available to help you jumpstart your Surface Duo development. Documentation/Blogs: Recorded Developer Talks: Surface Duo SDKs/Samples: Open source access...
Resource configuration for Microsoft Surface Duo
Hello Android dual-screen developers! As we mentioned in a previous blog post, enhancing your app for dual-screen devices is easily done by following this three step process: Figure 1. Three steps to get your app ready for dual-screen devices Today we are going to provide some additional useful tips for embracing new features (Step 3), so your app can take full advantage of both screens when it is spanned. Different configurations When creating apps, we often have to deal with different screen configurations (dimensions) and make design adjustments so the app adapts to whatever device it is being used ...
Surface Duo at Microsoft Build
Hello Microsoft Surface Duo developers! Today at Microsoft Build we shared a session covering how to take advantage of the dual screen device, Surface Duo using Xamarin and C#. You can watch the recording below: Video: Microsoft Build 2020 on YouTube Existing Android™ apps run without modification on the Surface Duo, but there are additional capabilities that developers can choose to leverage in their apps. In this session I discuss how to enhance an existing app to take advantage of the Surface Duo’s unique features. Topics include: The code examples in the session were using C# ...
Get Started with Flutter on Surface Duo
Hello Flutter developers! Today we are going to get you started with our Surface Duo SDK for Android so that you can adapt your existing applications for dual-screens and the hinge. The sample code demonstrates how Android developers can add the Surface Duo SDK to a project and then access the screen and hinge APIs. Our ultimate goal is to develop a single codebase that runs on iOS, Android (targeting single-screen devices), Android (targeting dual-screen devices like the Surface Duo), Windows devices, Web, and anything else Flutter supports :) You can see the prototype we’ve built in this video: Vid...
Surface Duo Emulator image update and open-source access to libraries
Hello Surface Duo developers! Today we’re excited to release a refresh to our Microsoft Surface Duo Emulator Image. It has been a few weeks since our last Surface Duo Emulator image release and the team has been very busy addressing your feedback and has added several new features and optimizations that are detailed below. What’s new in updated build 2020.429.2 We have more improvements planned for future releases, so stay tuned to our blog for future updates. Download the latest Emulator image You can access the latest update here. It is recommended that you uninstall the pr...
Build React Native apps for Microsoft Surface Duo
Hello, React Native for Android developers! In previous blog posts we've shown how app developers can build dual-screen apps using Java and Kotlin, Xamarin and C#, and games with Unity. Today's post is about how JavaScript and TypeScript developers can also target the Surface Duo using React Native. Earlier this year, Kiki Saintonge and Yulia Klein introduced the dual-screen capabilities Microsoft is proposing for React Native – you can watch their Developer Day session below: Video: Building cross platform experiences with React Native Follow the instructions in this blog post to get started build...