Android’s long-awaited native desktop mode is finally coming to Android 16, and Google gave a sneak preview during its I/O 2025 developer keynote. It was co-developed alongside Samsung – a logical move given Samsung’s experience with DeX, which first launched on the Galaxy S8 series back in 2017. We got a glimpse of the upcoming desktop interface at the 20:55 mark in the video below.
Android’s native desktop mode looks similar to Chrome OS with a row of apps pinned in a taskbar on the bottom. We can see some of Google’s first-party apps like Gmail, Chrome, YouTube, and Google Photos all lined up.
It will feature “enhanced windowing capabilities” and Google also confirmed that adaptive apps will automatically scale for desktop mode, Android Automotive and Android XR.