This article is part of a 30-day Pixel C Challenge by Chip Colandreo. Read all the articles in the series here: Pixel C Challenge.
Wow. Just wow. Out of nowhere, Google dropped a bombshell on the Android community this week with the release of the very first developer preview for Android N, the next version of the mobile operating system. No one expected to see or hear anything about Android N until Google’s I/O developer conference in May. The preview brings plenty of new features for rank-and-file Android phones and tablets, but the Pixel C is far and away the big winner. Googlers have said publicly that multi-window app support (the ability to run two apps side by side on the screen at once) was in the Pixel C’s future, and all of a sudden, the future is now. The #1 gripe about productivity on the Pixel C has suddenly been addressed with the Android N preview, and I’ve been running it since the announcement on Wednesday.
Clearly — obviously, even — Google knew about my 30-day challenge to use the Pixel C as my exclusive desktop/laptop computer, because it even provided a way to install the developer preview without connecting to a Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux machine — something that was never before possible. Alongside the Android N preview, Google also launched the official Android Beta Program. By visiting google.com/android/beta, I was able to enroll my Pixel C (and any other compatible devices associated with my Google account) into the program with a couple of taps. Within seconds, I was prompted to download the developer preview and install it over my existing OS without wiping any of my user data. Amazing!
Once installed, I couldn’t fire up multi-window fast enough. To describe the process as easy and intuitive is an understatement. It’s slick, simple, and despite this being literally an initial beta build, it worked almost without fail on every app I threw at it. As a friend of mine said, Android’s new multi-window implementation is basically identical to what Apple offers in iOS … and that’s perfectly okay. It just works, to coin an overused and irritating phrase.
But has it actually made me more productive on the Pixel C? Yes, though I’d argue the benefit is as much psychological as it is tangible. In all but the most literal sense, multitasking is an illusion. As human beings, we almost always do one thing at a time. As I’m writing the words of this post, if I need to research something, I stop writing and turn my attention to the topic in question. When the research is done, I return to the physical act of typing these words. It’s a linear system — I must research before I know what to type. I literally, physically, can’t do both at the same time. Likewise, if two apps are on my screen simultaneously, my eyes can only focus on one of them. Unless you’ve reached a new evolutionary plateau, you can do no better.
So, really, is the difference between multitasking among two apps by moving our eyes from one side of the display to the other actually that much better than multitasking via Alt-Tab? Well, yes — but I’ll bet it’s not because of the speed. It’s because when we divert our attention from one task to another, we just feel better knowing the previous task hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s waiting there patiently, subconsciously visible in the corner of our eye and our mind.
Enough with the psychobabble. What am I actually doing with multi-window on my Pixel C? My favorite use case so far addresses the #1 complaint in my previous Pixel C Challenge post: active spellcheck doesn’t work in my email app’s compose window, meaning I’m typing emails to clients and colleagues with no spellcheck safety net. My workaround has been to write emails in my word processor of choice (with its functioning spellcheck) and then copy/paste the content into a new email. The problem is, when I’m working fast in my inbox, I’ll often start a new email out of habit and then find myself too lazy to stop, open my word processor, and restart the body over there. With multi-window, I can now open the word processor right next to my email app and quickly move back and forth between them. To my point above, nothing functional has changed with multi-window — I’m still stopping the email, switching apps, and going back with completed text ready to paste. But being able to do it all without ever losing sight of the email, with its address fields and subject line already filled in, makes me more inclined to go through the whole process. So yes, my emails are now more likely to be spelled correctly thanks to multi-window support. Let the record also show that you can drag and drop highlighted text from one window to another to copy/paste it. It’s a neat trick, but it’s slower than Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V. Again, multitasking is an illusion. Sorry to ruin the party.
Here’s a more functional example of multi-window at work on the Pixel C: when I installed Android N, my favorite file explorer app, Solid Explorer, was suddenly crippled. It took an uninstall/reinstall to get it working, but that forced me to re-enter the login information for my office’s file server. That info, which I store in Slack, includes an IP address, a username I can never remember, and a complicated password full of obscure alphanumeric characters. This is a case where multi-window is clearly superior to Alt-Tab. With Solid Explorer open, I brought up Slack on the right-hand side of the screen and was able to reference the login information and type it into Solid Explorer without ever leaving the app. Nice. Productive. Nicely productive.
Speaking of Slack, it does highlight a major problem with split-screen apps on Android. Like many Android apps, Slack’s main navigation lives in a hidden drawer that slides in from the left edge of the screen. If Slack ends up on the right-hand side of your split-window display, that left edge becomes the multi-window slider in the middle of the screen, making it impossible to open the drawer. Whoops.
Perhaps my favorite new productivity feature in Android N is the double-tap of the recent apps button. Tapping it twice instantly cycles between the current and most recent app — think of it as the soft-key equivalent of Alt-Tab. It’s great when using the Pixel C without the keyboard attached, and it makes moving quickly between two apps much more pleasant. It works in split-screen mode too, toggling the two most recent apps in the right-hand panel while the app on the left stays fixed.
As with every Android developer preview, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. Like my Solid Explorer experience, there are some app compatibility problems. Chrome Beta is especially (surprisingly) bad — sometimes it just won’t render specific URLs, and it randomly stops accepting text input in the address bar. Killing and reopening the app fixes things for a while. Some apps, even Google’s own, have major layout trouble in split-screen. Inbox is probably the worst I’ve seen so far: content in the app doesn’t scale, so you end up with UI elements that are too big for the suddenly-50%-smaller space, or email text that becomes too small to read comfortably. Google Docs is a mess in split-screen, too.
One very annoying change in this first dev preview is the behavior of the search key on the Pixel C’s physical keyboard. Previously, the search key would bring up the Google search overlay with the search bar highlighted and ready to accept a typed query — you could hit the key and immediately start typing. Now, the search key triggers Now on Tap, which is slower, and the search bar at the top isn’t active right away. You have to physically tap the bar with your finger to place the cursor there before you can return to the keyboard and start typing your query. This is annoying, but I imagine it’s an easy fix. I’ve filed feedback. We’ll see what happens.
Battery life on the Pixel C seems unaffected by the new build. Wish I could say the same for Android N on my Nexus 5X. I’ve yet to really push the Pixel C, though, so battery issues may yet rear their heads.
I guess that’s it … oh, wait, did I mention the Pixel C got 25% cheaper?! Yeah, I saved the best part for last; I was too busy being productive to mention it earlier. Out of the kindness of its heart, Google decided to offer developers a 25% discount on the Pixel C. That amounts to $125 off the 32GB version and $150 off the 64GB version. Said another way, you can buy a Pixel C and get the not-really-optional keyboard for free. What, you’re not a developer? Doesn’t seem to matter — Google is letting anyone enter their email address for the promise of a discount code delivered “within a few days.” For the heck of it, I signed up and got my code in a matter of minutes. I am not a developer, nor am I in the market for another Pixel C, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this is just a quiet discount on a product that too few people bought at launch.
Which brings us to the critical question: why, oh why, did Google bother to launch the Pixel C before its productivity potential could be fully realized? The Pixel C was very obviously rushed to market with software that was feature-incomplete and extremely buggy. Early reviews blasted the C for its software derps and keyboard connectivity issues. They also laughed it out of the room for claiming to be a productivity device without the (real or imagined) Holy Grail of productivity features: multi-window support. Was Google desperate to put the C on sale in time for the holiday shopping season? If so, that was a questionable call — and it’s hard to imagine many people buying it after reading the initial reviews. I am not in my right mind, so I, of course, am exempt from the question.
Had the Pixel C launched alongside the new productivity features in Android N, that would have been something to write home about. The damage has been done, however, and I don’t think version 1.0 of the Pixel C will ever fully recover in the marketplace. That’s fine by me, but with a new, lower price point and software that finally deserves to run on hardware this good … let’s just say if you’ve made it to the end of this article, you and the Pixel C were probably made for each other. I doubt you’ll be disappointed. The future for the Pixel C is now, and the future is bright.
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