A Floor Duo 3 Appears Unlikely. However the Concept Behind It Ought to Reside On

Microsoft has an advanced historical past with {hardware}. Although its Floor line popularized the concept of tablets that may double as laptops, it hasn’t been in a position to replicate that success with cellular units. The now-defunct Home windows Telephone platform, Zune music participant, Kin telephones and Microsoft Band are proof.

Now mounting proof is beginning to point out that Microsoft’s two-screened smartphone, the Floor Duo, might meet the identical destiny. Final 12 months, Home windows Central reported that Microsoft had scrapped plans for a Floor Duo 3 and as a substitute plans to launch a extra conventional foldable telephone with a bendable display, much like the units in Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold line. A patent software that surfaced this week (no pun supposed) additional fueled hypothesis that Microsoft might be transferring on this route, coming after questions have been raised about how lengthy the corporate will proceed to help its present Duo units. 

Sure, the Floor Duo has points. Regardless of its unconventional and hanging design, it hasn’t been ultimate for primary phone-related duties, like snapping photographs and shortly responding to texts on the go. Occasional software program glitches have additionally hampered its attraction. 

However the promise behind a telephone with two screens is not misplaced on me, and I hope Microsoft is not fully giving up on it. 

A Microsoft consultant stated the Floor Duo “stays an necessary a part of the Floor portfolio.” The corporate added that Android and safety updates can be offered for 3 years following the system’s launch, which implies 2024 must be the final 12 months the Floor Duo 2 will get updates.

Learn extra: Contemplating a Foldable Telephone? The best way to Resolve if One Is Proper for You

Two screens may be higher than one

If there’s one factor I’ve realized about foldable telephones within the final couple of years, it is that two screens can generally be higher than one. That was one in every of my takeaways when reviewing the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Motorola Razr Plus, each of which have miniature screens that make it doable to make use of apps with out opening the telephone. 

I felt the identical method when attempting the Microsoft Floor Duo 2 in 2021, although the telephone’s limitations in the end overshadowed my pleasure about its two screens. In the case of multitasking, having two full-size shows may be extra helpful than having a single display break up in half. I hardly ever use the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, which has one 7.6-inch inner display that folds down the center, to run a number of apps. As an alternative, I choose to make use of all the 7.6-inch show to view one app on a bigger canvas.

Learn extra: Finest foldable telephone for 2024

However the Floor Duo 2 is totally different. It has two full 5.8-inch screens on the within that may operate independently to run separate apps, or can run the identical app collectively. The catch is that apps must be optimized to work properly throughout two screens, and lots of fashionable ones weren’t after I reviewed the system a few years in the past.

Nonetheless, I do suppose Microsoft was onto one thing. Whereas the Floor Duo 2’s excessive value, occasional software program bugs, cumbersome design and subpar digicam made it arduous to suggest, it stays essentially the most attention-grabbing tackle how software program ought to evolve together with {hardware}. 

Microsoft did extra than simply create a break up display expertise and optimize apps for various display sizes; it thought of how apps ought to operate in another way given the Floor Duo’s uncommon design. When it labored, it felt like I used to be really utilizing apps in several methods. 

The Amazon Kindle app, as an illustration, turned the Floor Duo 2 right into a digital guide, with every display serving as an digital web page. The Xbox Recreation Go app made the Floor Duo 2 really feel like a Nintendo 3DS-esque handheld gaming console, however with out the bodily buttons. Even less-exciting apps like Outlook felt totally different on the Floor Duo, with Microsoft dedicating one complete display to your inbox and the opposite to a full e mail.

Samsung’s method — a telephone that turns right into a pill — is far simpler to grasp, even whether it is much less bold. The elevator pitch is less complicated to understand for most individuals, whereas Microsoft needed to actually show the Floor Duo 2’s goal. 

Pivoting to a foldable would make it tougher to face out

Although foldable telephones aren’t almost as fashionable as customary telephones, nearly each smartphone maker now affords one. Samsung was the one main participant within the US market preaching the promise of foldables, however in 2023 we noticed new fashions from Google and OnePlus too. 

These newcomers have not made a significant dent available in the market but, with Samsung nonetheless dominating the worldwide foldable telephone trade, in response to statistics from TrendForce from February 2024.

Which means if Microsoft had been to launch a brand new foldable telephone, it might face way more competitors than in 2021 when the Floor Duo 2 arrived. So it must do extra to make its foldable telephone stand out — particularly if it had been to launch a Galaxy Z Fold-style system like Samsung’s different rivals. Sticking with the dual-screened format would make Microsoft’s foldable really feel much less like a copycat, though it might nonetheless face the problem of promoting customers (aside from myself) on the advantages of two screens. 

Did the Floor Duo come too quickly?

Just like different Microsoft innovations (keep in mind the SPOT Sensible Watch from the early 2000s?), possibly the Floor Duo was simply forward of its time. Microsoft by no means actually needed to name the Floor Duo a telephone, and anybody who’s used one in all probability understands why. However given its value and performance, it wanted to excel as a smartphone to succeed — a requirement it in the end could not meet.

If a brand new Floor Duo had been to come back out in a few years, I ponder if issues can be totally different. Tech giants, together with Microsoft, are incorporating generative AI (the flavour of AI behind ChatGPT) into their software program, permitting for brand new use circumstances. Proper now the largest method that is exhibiting up in software program is thru the introduction of picture enhancing options like Google’s Magic Edit and assistants similar to Microsoft’s Copilot. However some corporations, like AI startups Rabbit and Mind.AI, try to make working techniques extra intuitive by serving up info as wanted quite than counting on apps to get issues performed. 

If that concept finally takes off and spreads to extra units, like smartwatches and wi-fi earbuds, possibly a tool just like the Floor Duo would make extra sense. What if a big language mannequin ran in your smartwatch — which communicated along with your earbuds — and made it simpler to ship texts or get instructions? You may technically do these issues right this moment in your watch, however doing so in your telephone continues to be usually less complicated.

If AI makes it simpler to depend on these ancillary tech merchandise, possibly you would not want to drag out your telephone as typically. Maybe that might change the telephone’s function from a gadget we rely on for primary on a regular basis duties to extra of a transportable leisure system, like a pill or laptop computer, for studying, enjoying video games and reviewing emails. That sounds lots just like the transportable laptop Microsoft envisioned within the first place when it unveiled the Floor Duo, and I hope it hasn’t completely deserted that imaginative and prescient.