After the Windows Phone project, which did not go exactly as hoped, Microsoft is ready to return to the smartphone market with its own Surface Duo. Perhaps also by virtue of the past, the Redmond company is actually trying to never associate the product with the world of telephones in official communications, defining it as a "dual-screen device". However, we are talking to all intents and purposes of a smartphone with two screens.
Another aspect that Microsoft has left only "to guess" during the presentation of Surface Duo is the operating system used. It almost seems that the Redmond company is trying in some way to "omit", or at least not to say explicitly through the official portals, that one of its most innovative products actually mounts Android.
However, despite the fact that Microsoft has finally decided to switch to the operating system of the competition, the Redmond company will carry out a strong customization of the OS, in a way similar to that done by many other manufacturers. Confirmation comes directly from ours direct test of the Surface Duo SDK, which makes us better understand the operation of this device.
Launcher, features and applications
An SDK is the set of all tools designed to allow developers to gain confidence with your smartphone and, in this case, adapt your applications to the dual-screen. For listeners, Microsoft has provided developers a QEMU based emulator which runs through the classic Android Studio and Visual Studio (remember to activate virtualization from the BIOS, but you should already know everything). We stop here with the technical details, promised: now let's go immediately to see the aspects that interest the final consumer that emerged from our first contact with the Surface Duo operating system.
Well, the first aspect to consider is that the emulator runs on Android 10. We are therefore talking about the latest version of the green robot and there are all the features that are expected from this OS. However, Microsoft has gone on to build its own launcher, or a graphical interface that changes some elements of the operating system, from the main screen to the app drawer (the page where all the software installed on the smartphone appears).
The launcher implemented in the emulator is clearly a preliminary version, but if you want to get an idea that comes closest to the final result we recommend you download the Microsoft Launcher application from the Play Store and take a look at how the company is working by Redmond. Probably the launcher dedicated to Surface Duo will be a little different from the one that can be freely downloaded, but Microsoft's vision is that.
In any case, once the Surface Duo emulator has started, the first thing that developers are faced with is the icon Launcher Settings. By tapping on the latter you can configure the settings relating to the search bar (search engine and country), change the app drawer (choosing whether to show recent apps or whether to group them in alphabetical order rather than keeping the classic view), activate the notification badges (the indication that appears at the top right of the app icons, you can choose whether to use the numbers or just the dots), show the page indicators, lock the home screen (in order to prevent changes of the layout) and enable the ability to add applications to the home screen.
Put simply, it looks like Microsoft wants to implement its own custom launcher on Surface Duo, a customized version of what it released on the Play Store. Also interesting are the changes made to the settings page, in which it is noted that the Redmond company is redesigning, obviously in pure Microsoft style, the classic icons found on Android. Part of the notification curtain was also given a new look for the occasion.
Also note the presence of an already functioning Dark Mode for system apps accessible directly from the Display tab. In the Security tab there is also an indication relating to the fingerprint sensor, an aspect that confirms the presence of the latter on the Surface Duo. According to those who got to see one of the first prototypes live, the reader seems to be positioned laterally.
One of the most interesting aspects is the presence of a card named Microsoft, marked with a profile icon. Unfortunately, this section is still in progress and we have not been able to get more details, but it seems that the Redmond company is working to integrate Microsoft accounts with the operating system.
It is not yet clear how this association could be used, but the company will probably use it to allow users to access its application ecosystem, just as it does with the Huawei ID in the Chinese company's smartphones. However, the Microsoft Launcher available on Android uses the account mainly to directly insert personalized elements such as calendar and documents into the feed, so at the moment we can not get too balanced on it.
As for applications, the Redmond company has preinstalled the mobile version of the Edge browser and the Beta version of the SwiftKey keyboard in the emulator. The latter is the same that is implemented by default in Huawei's smartphones and fans have now learned about it, so the choice of Microsoft seems to be sensible. Obvious the reason behind the implementation of Edge, since it is a browser made directly by the same company in Redmond.
Another information that we have found are the gestures that will be implemented on the Surface Duo. In fact, from the settings we managed to activate the navigation system through gestures which will be used by the smartphone. Well, in reality this aspect is managed in a very classic way: a swipe from the bottom up leads to the Home, a prolonged swipe from the bottom up allows you to change apps and manage multitasking and to go back you use a swipe from left to right or vice versa.
In short, the gestures seem to be those to which many users are accustomed, but the image that shows how they will be implemented on the Surface Duo still provides us with a visual indication of how we will see the operating system on the dual-screen smartphone.
Speaking of the dual display, during our test we discovered that it will be enough to simply press and hold on the line at the bottom and drag the application window to the area halfway between the two screens to make it view in its entirety on both. Clearly the "hinge" between the two displays will remain visible, but we are still talking about a line that according to Microsoft is thin (even if on the emulator it seems quite large).
Microsoft seems to have handled this functionality well in general. For example, by opening the Settings app in this mode, the various tabs are displayed on the left screen, while the settings relating to the chosen section can already be changed on the right display. This allows the user to quickly switch from one tab to another, without even having to go back to the main settings screen.
The Edge browser, on the other hand, adapts the website you are viewing to both screens, allowing the user to have a view similar to desktop mode. However, Surface Duo will have two 5.6-inch screens each, which combined essentially form the size of an ultrabook.
To test it with third-party apps, we installed and configured Twitch on the Surface Duo emulator.
Well, the operating system is already able to fully view the app, using both screens to show multimedia content. In short, surely Microsoft is aiming to do something very interesting, even if the "hinge" between the two screens could make someone's nose turn up a bit.
For the rest, it is obviously possible open multiple applications simultaneously and move a software from one screen to another to your liking. Microsoft has also already implemented nice transitions that make icons move across the screen, for example, when you decide to move an app. In short, the Redmond company is developing a customization that seems to have several interesting ideas. Will the end result convince the user? We'll see.
