Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- OnePlus is bringing Open Canvas to its candy bar smartphones with Oxygen OS 15.
- Once the feature is enabled, you can swipe up with three fingers to enter split-screen mode and then resize the app windows to get an app that is almost full-screen and another overflowing on the top or bottom.
One of the big highlight features of the OnePlus Open at its launch was Open Canvas. As we mentioned in our OnePlus Open review, it is one of the best approaches to multitasking on any foldable phone. Open Canvas allows you to run up to three apps side-by-side in fullscreen, letting you seamlessly switch between them. If you’ve been envious of OnePlus users who could use Open Canvas, here’s some good news: OnePlus is bringing Open Canvas to its candy bar phones with Oxygen OS 15 based on Android 15.
Open Canvas was launched with the OnePlus Open and later extended to the company’s tablet, the OnePlus Pad 2. On these large-screen devices, Open Canvas lets you run two apps in split-screen mode and hang a third app to overflow on the side. A quick four-finger pinch will reveal all apps simultaneously on the screen, but more often than not, the two-plus-one layout works better for multitasking.
Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
With Oxygen OS 15, OnePlus is bringing Open Canvas to its candybar smartphones. However, since the size of the display is an obvious limitation, you can only launch two apps simultaneously — one as your primary app and the other overflowing for easy switching.
Android has had split-screen multitasking since Android 7 Nougat in 2016 and even earlier on certain OEM skins. What OnePlus does differently with Open Canvas is that it lets you maintain an almost-full-screen window size on your primary app while keeping the second app also active for easy switching. This makes multitasking efficient and convenient, as you don’t have to make do with half-panes on your apps if you so choose.
Of course, Open Canvas is more useful on a larger-screen OnePlus device. But this two-app implementation isn’t that bad either on candy bar phones. From what I can see, Open Canvas expands Android’s split-screen multitasking view — you can run two apps in half-half windows, or you can let one of them overflow to the top or bottom.
You can enable Open Canvas on Oxygen OS by navigating to Settings > Accessibility & convenience > Split View.
Once enabled, you can open split-screen windows in three ways:
- Swipe up on any screen with three fingers.
- Touch and hold an app in the Smart Sidebar, and drag it out.
- Tap the three dots in the upper right corner of an app window in the Recents tasks screen, and choose Split Screen.
I find the swipe-up to be the easiest to execute, though it requires a second hand to hold the phone.
What do you think about OnePlus Open Canvas being made available on more phones through Oxygen OS 15? Let us know in the comments below!
