Kindle App on Surface Duo (1 and 2)
I know not many people will be able to relate to this semi-rant because the Surface Duo 2 is not the prevailing foldable device in the current market, but I had to write about this since I use the Kindle App on the Duo 2 almost every day, and have used it since the first Surface Duo.
I think just about every tech reviewer sang the praises of the Kindle app on the Surface Duo when the device launched. Some of this praise was warranted, since the reading experience on a dual-screened Android device is pretty great. It's one of my favorite things to do on my Duo 2. It obviously feels so book-like, which is something you miss when you read mainly e-books, and have for years and years. I love this experience so much that I wish an e-book reader manufacturer would make a dual-screened device. How cool would a dual-screened e-ink reader be? VERY COOL.
Look, I can even tilt the screens in a little bit and make it even more tiny book-like!
"So what's the problem, Cheryl?" Well, it's a tiny UX rant. So many people are enamored with how the pages are laid out so well on the Duo's 2 screens and heaped all the praise on the Kindle app. But I don't think the dev team did that much to optimize for the Duo/Duo 2, if at all. (Maybe they defaulted the app to 2-page layout.) I think the page layout just happens to work for the dual-screens. The layout would look exactly the same on a tablet. The vertical break between the two digital pages happens to work well with the physical gap between the two screens. Otherwise, none of the app's UI is optimized for the Duo:
Every time I start a new book, I'm greeted by a cover placed smack dab in the middle of the 2 screens. When an app is spanned across 2 screens, it treats the surface as one large, wide screen. So in a screenshot of the book cover, it looks fine, but the physical reality is not.
You can’t take screenshots of problem UI on a dual-screened foldable.
Similarly, the thumbnail grid on the Kindle app Home screen is not laid out to accommodate the gap between screens.
Once again, the screenshot looks innocent. This is how the screen would look on a tablet screen. No optimizations made for the Duo 2.
The Library grid view below happens to be laid out such that the images do not land on the screens’ gap, but the thumbnail of the currently opened book at the bottom of the screen does, and is never readable. The search bar also spans the width of both screens without accommodation of the gap.
To correct the book cover display, the easiest thing would be to show it on the right screen (if the book is left-to-right script; on the left screen if right-to-left script, of course). For extra credit, they could fill the opposite screen with an image of some kind of calm reading scene for ambience. Or for a delightful touch, perhaps pull colors from the book cover and combine them in a pleasantly calm gradient or other graphic design, a la the dynamic color palettes in Material You/Material Design 3.
It should be relatively easy to rearrange the thumbnails and other UI elements to accommodate the gap between screens. The developer documentation on Microsoft’s site calls out the layout safe areas specifically.
Source: Microsoft
And finally, it would be a delightful touch if, when turning pages in the Kindle app, it would use a page turn animation, rather than sliding both pages horizontally, as if scrolling between slides in a deck. It definitely breaks the illusion of reading a tiny book when turning pages.
All this being said, I am well aware that none of these updates will happen. The app works okay as-is. And it's unlikely that if a Surface Duo 3 is released, it will remain a dual-screened device, as much as it absolutely pains me to admit it. It will more likely be a single-screened device similar to the Google Pixel Fold. I truly hope that somehow, Microsoft retains the Duo's methods for multitasking on the newer, singled-screened device, though. Multitasking on the Duo 2 is a breeze and so intuitive. Yes, Google and Samsung are doing better at providing simpler ways for opening 2 apps side-by-side, but so far none beat the Duo 2 for my usage, because you just physically open one app on one screen, and another app on the other, whether it's from the recent apps list or the launcher. A quick Google search reminds me that the latest Android versions still require you to pick apps from the recent apps list in order to start split-screen multitasking, which is fine if you already have the desired apps open. I don't recall what can be done if you want to open an app from the launcher into split-screen.
Tangent aside, the bottom line is that it's highly unlikely that the Kindle app's current performance will be changed at all for the Duo thanks to the way the foldable market is trending, but I can still dream.
