When bringing new devices to the market to compete for consumer attention, successful differentiation is essential. But it may be difficult to achieve if the platform is technically challenging and requires rare-to-find expertise. Ixonos’ experts came up with a solution that addresses just such a conundrum and helps device manufacturers create innovative, differentiated Android tablets.
We designed a novel windowed UI for Android that addresses the platform’s limitations when it comes to multitasking and running several apps in parallel. The multi-window concept allows consumers to enjoy the increased efficiency that comes with desktop-like use cases.
We increased the UI’s flexibility by adding additional controls and modifying the Android Window Manager and Activity Manager. This allows the tablet user to see the whole workspace at one glance and use multiple applications simultaneously. The applications do not go into suspend mode when inactive, so the user can, for example, view incoming messages and a calendar side by side while streaming music. The user can also easily resize the windows, reposition them, and switch between active apps.
We designed the multi-window UI concept with the tablet format in mind, because the bigger screens can accommodate several activity windows side by side. The windowed UI takes the Android user experience to a whole new level as tablet users can enjoy significantly increased efficiency in handling daily tasks.