Google Android may be designed to show one app at a time in full-screen mode, but Samsung, LG, and other companies have been offering custom software that lets you view more than one app at a time.

Now Acer is joining the multi-window part with a new feature called Split Screen. It lets you view two apps at once on an Acer Iconia Tab 8 Android tablet.

acer split screen

Acer’s tablets feature 8 inch screens (there are 1280 x 800 and 1920 x 1200 pixel models, Intel Atom Bay Trail processors (with Atom Z3735G and Atom Z3745 options), 16GB of storage, and 1Gb to 2GB of RAM.

While the tablets aren’t much bigger than an iPad mini, they are bigger than most Android phones. So if you turn the tablet sideways you have a screen that’s just about the size of two small (and wide) smartphone screens put together.

Split Screen lets you sort of treat it like two screens by running two apps side-by-side. Or you can use Split Screen in portrait mode with one app stacked on top of the other.

This lets you, for instance, watch a video while surfing the web. Or keep Facebook open in one window while visiting the app drawer to find another app you want to load.

You can also drag the line separating the apps to resize each window so that they’re both the same size or one is larger than the other.

TabTech has a video showing Split Screen in action. The video is in German, but it gives a pretty good overview of how the feature works, whether you speak the language or not.

via Android Central and TabTech

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4 replies on “Acer Iconia Tab 8 Android tablet gains split-screen app feature”

  2. Never got it why Google is stubborn and not building it into Android including drag and drop support for taking notes and the likes.There is clear demand for it and sure it wasn’t a solution on 4inch screens but it is now. Maybe they just think it makes life easier on laptops and bigger and they don’t want that.

    1. Ever since 4.2, Google has relegated tablets to simply being large “smartphones” (not much smart left in them sadly, as they are pretty much just pocket media players with a wireless data channel).

      I really wonder what happened to the Toshiba and Acer push for Android tablets with actual full size USB port. These days you are lucky if the one micro you get is OTG capable. And even that has issues given that you may want to change the device as well.

      Frankly it seems as if Google has given up on Android as being anything more than a turbo charged pocket TV, and focused their “work horse” efforts towards ChromeOS.

      1. I don’t care too much about full sized usb ports though I admit having an extra one even if micro can be useful. For data transfers I normally deal with other smart devices so I use FTP or wifi direct. For peripherals I prefer bluetooth. My gripe on the port front is the fact that MHL normally doesn’t provide the power needed to actually charge the device while in use with the screen on so if we only have one port it normally works as a charging port OR a USB host OR a video out (with trickle charge so it doesn’t die QUITE so fast). If you could use a hub with one port so that it handled all three then it’d be fine.

        And personally I am not buying into the whole chromebook OS thing yet. It’s still too limited for my needs from what I’ve seen and I find Android more versatile in many ways.

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