Sync for Reddit picks up dual-pane support for Surface Duo and tablet devices
Fans of Reddit and those with a Surface Duo will enjoy the latest version of Sync for Reddit, which optimizes the layout for dual-paned Android devices.
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What you need to know
Google’sAndroid 12Lis still months from being released, and with it comes official APIs for developers to begin making apps optimized for foldable and dual-screen devices and larger tablets. However, developers can get a head start with some existing tools, which is why many of Microsoft’s own apps already support dual-pane layouts forSurface Duo 2.
One popular Reddit app, Sync for Reddit, just haddual-pane support addedto the Dev version. Just released within the last day, version v22.3.14 brings dual-pane and tablet mode support options. Thechangelogis as follows for the new tablet feature:
When combined withSurface Duoand Surface Duo 2’s auto-span support for selected apps, users can open Sync for Reddit into full screen, the dual-pane mode automatically. The experience is quite good, too, as the app has much smoother scrolling than something like Relay (another popular Reddit app for Android).
Of course, there could still be refinements. For example, if you hold an image to view, it only appears on a single screen, which is the expected experience for a dual-paned phone. However, it opens a full-screen image with the Duo’s gutter cutting it in half if you tap it. Users have already submitted a request to choose the first behavior instead.
Reddit and Sync for Reddit are great examples of services/apps that can benefit from a dual-screen experience as users tend to open Reddit and spend minutes, if not hours, in it, scrolling, reading, commenting, sharing, and more. These immersive experiences, like Amazon Kindle, or Microsoft Outlook, make sense to be optimized for tablets and foldable phones going forward.
While Sync for Reddit is free (with in-app purchases), the dev version is $4.99 with the twist that you get the latest version and new features much quicker along with an ad-free experience. As the dual-pane part is optimized, along with the other changes in v22.3.14, and there are no bugs, the features will move to the beta version and free production version of Sync for Reddit in the coming weeks.
Android 12L is slated for Surface Duo and Surface Duo 2 “later this year,“according to Google.
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Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer,podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.
