Surface Duo
Build pixel-perfect Microsoft Surface Duo apps with Uno Platform

This post originally appeared on the Microsoft Developers blog. For those of you who are Surface developers, there has never been a better time to get started. The technology just gets better and better, and the tools available to you to create amazing Surface apps are advancing right along with the tech. The Surface Duo team has demonstrated how you can build dual-screen apps using Java and Kotlin, Xamarin and C#, Flutter, React Native, Web, and games with Unity. Today’s blog post shows how UWP and WinUI developers can target the Surface Duo using Uno Platform. For those new to Uno Platform, it allows for creation of pixel-perfect, single-source C# and XAML apps which run natively on Windows, iOS, Android, macOS, Linux, and Web via WebAssembly. Uno Platform is Open Source (Apache 2.0) and available on GitHub. In this blog post you will learn how to: Use Uno Platform for your next Surface Duo application Test your application using the Surface Duo emulator Utilize Surface Duo’s unique Hinge Find code samples and resources for further Surface Duo development with Uno Platform Architecture of Uno Platform and Surface Duo Solution The Uno Platform philosophy is to replicate the WinUI and Windows APIs

August 12, 2021
Microsoft Surface Duo: Researching Android Development

Guest Blog Post by Andrew Hoefling The other week (10/2/2019) Microsoft had a special Surface event in New York City where they unveiled multiple dual-screen foldable devices. The Surface Neo, running a new Operating System, announced Windows 10X at the event, and the Surface Duo, a smaller device running Android OS. Both devices are being announced a full year prior to their release to give developers time to update their apps to support the dual-screen form factor of the new Surface devices. Since then developers have been looking into APIs and asking the following questions: When will there be a public simulator or emulator? When can we get a development kit? Where is the documentation on the new APIs? Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer at Microsoft, stated in an interview: We’ve got probably a couple months before developers are going to have their hands on it and be running. While we wait for the official documentation, I took it upon myself to start researching the Android APIs and how I would attempt to write a native Android App to support a dual screen device. As the research unfolded, I would share it on Twitter to discuss with others in the

October 15, 2019
Microsoft Surface Neo and Duo: Designing for Dual Screens  

How do we build apps that look beautiful on dual-screen devices? Building on top of our first post on Duo and Neo, let’s conclude with some light speculation on new UX challenges and opportunities. It’s hard to say anything definitive until we actually get the chance to play with the new devices.   The demo today showed the ability to drag an app from one screen to span both screens, and also emphasized the flexibility of the form factor, switching effortlessly from horizontal split-screen to vertical split-screen to suit what the user is doing. That means your app will need to reflow responsively when its available dimensions change. Honestly, that’s table stakes in 2019. Luckily the WinUI XAML framework excels at building responsive layouts.   Responding to size changes means more than just reflowing text – often, the right UI layout for landscape is radically different from that for portrait. Here as well, WinUI XAML provides advanced tools to make that easy, like the AdaptiveTriggers feature. The Win 10 Calculator, which we ported to Android, iOS, and the web using Uno Platform, uses AdaptiveTriggers extensively, and we also demonstrate them in our showcase app, UADO Azure DevOps Organizer.  Responsive design using AdaptiveTriggers in the UADO app  Dual screen tablets and phones lend themselves naturally to a mode that’s common on desktops and traditional laptops, but rare on existing

October 3, 2019
Microsoft Surface Duo and Neo: The Software Developer Perspective

Microsoft’s hotly-awaited Surface event landed today, and it didn’t disappoint. Surface head honcho, Panos Panay, announced two wholly new dual-screen devices: the tablet-sized Surface Neo, which will run Windows 10X, a new version of the OS optimized for the form factor; and the Surface Duo, a phone-sized device which will make calls, send texts, and “run every single app in the Android ecosystem.”   Panay highlighted that these devices were being announced far in advance of their ‘holiday 2020’ release date because Microsoft “want to bring developers on the journey with us.” In other words, they want apps on the devices to be taking full advantage of the dual-screen functionality shown off in the demo from Day 1. To do that, they need to bring devs along for the ride. But what’s the ‘dev story’ for the Neo and Duo?   Here the plot thickens – the two devices are running completely different operating systems.   The tablet-sized Neo will be running Windows 10X, a new version of Windows 10 optimized for the dual-screen experience.   The phone-sized Duo will run Android. From Wired:   “The Surface Duo that Panay has been carrying around for six months is black, not white, and it’s running a version of Android

October 2, 2019

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