Years ago, smartphones changed our daily interaction with technology forever. Large desktops and laptops, complete with keyboards and mice, suddenly gave way to small, portable devices with intuitive touchscreens – devices that fit comfortably in our pockets and became indispensable to everyday life.
Initially, mobile apps were seen as an impressive extra, reserved mainly for innovative businesses. Today, they’ve become essential – users now expect apps as part of their everyday lives. This shift compels companies to continuously innovate, distinguishing their offerings in a crowded market and ensuring customer loyalty.
At the same time, technology continues to evolve rapidly, introducing an exciting range of new smart devices. Beyond tablets and smartwatches, we now have smart TVs, connected cars, intelligent refrigerators, and soon, everyday smart glasses – supported by the new Android XR platform. Foldable devices are also rising in popularity, introducing yet another entirely new category. All of these advancements are expanding the range of user environments and expectations, making adaptive apps not just valuable but essential for delivering consistent, high-quality experiences across the entire device ecosystem.
Adopting these emerging technologies is crucial for future business success. Adaptive apps allow companies not only to reach wider audiences but also significantly enhance user engagement. Imagine your app smoothly transitioning with users from their pockets to their cars, into their living rooms and kitchens, and ultimately right in front of their eyes through smart glasses. How exciting is that?
What are adaptive apps?
Creating an app that works smoothly across numerous platforms unlocks remarkable potential. Naturally, this raises the question: do we now need separate apps tailored individually for cars, TVs, smart glasses, and every other emerging device? Fortunately, the answer is no.
That’s precisely where adaptive apps shine. Much like cross-platform apps that allow one codebase to function across multiple operating systems, adaptive apps provide a unified, flexible design that seamlessly adapts to diverse form factors.
One design, many screens
The fundamental concept behind adaptive apps is straightforward. Different devices come with various screen sizes, resolutions, and aspect ratios. Instead of building distinct user interfaces for each device, adaptive apps employ a single, dynamic UI that intelligently adjusts to the device at hand.
However, adaptive apps are more than merely resizing content to fit larger screens. They strategically reorganize and optimize app features and elements – like displaying a side menu persistently on tablets or rearranging controls for easier reach on foldables – delivering an exceptional, tailored user experience regardless of the platform.
Benefits for teams and users
This approach is also beneficial for development teams. It encourages scalable, maintainable design systems and reduces the overhead of creating and maintaining multiple codebases. Designers and developers can collaborate more efficiently, focusing on user journeys rather than on redundant layout logic.
Moreover, adaptive apps foster consistency. Users experience the same brand look and feel, regardless of whether they’re using a smartphone, tablet, or casting to a TV screen. This coherence builds trust and increases usability, both critical for long-term retention.
Android 16’s adaptive requirements
For many years, mobile app developers primarily concentrated on smartphones, often restricting apps to portrait mode to simplify development and reduce compatibility issues. While this approach streamlined the development process, it meant apps frequently performed poorly on other devices, such as tablets, TVs, or foldables.
From a user’s perspective, the experience on larger screens often suffered. Apps displayed with distracting black borders, resulting in wasted screen real estate. Instead of leveraging this extra space for richer, more interactive experiences, the content merely stretched or was inadequately scaled.
The technical shift with Android 16
At Google I/O 2025, a significant shift was announced: starting with Android 16, developer-imposed restrictions on screen orientation and app size will be ignored on larger screens. This ensures apps on tablets, foldable devices, cars, and TVs automatically adapt to utilize the full screen, encouraging developers to embrace adaptive design fully.
While initially appearing challenging, this move clearly indicates Android’s strategic direction toward flexibility and inclusivity. Adapting to diverse form factors and device types is no longer optional – it’s essential for future growth and user satisfaction.
Why it matters for your product strategy
The implications go beyond technical compliance. Businesses that fail to adapt may find themselves offering subpar user experiences on modern hardware, ultimately leading to lower engagement and user churn. The Android ecosystem is expanding, and aligning with its evolution ensures long-term app relevance. In short, adaptive design isn’t just about compatibility – it’s a competitive edge that future-proofs your digital product strategy.
Benefits of adaptive apps
Businesses that start building adaptive apps today have a unique opportunity to stand out from the competition and establish a strong market position early. Providing a premium user experience across various form factors not only delights users – it also drives measurable improvements in engagement and retention.
Proven results from industry leaders
- According to Google’s research, top entertainment apps in the US (like Prime Video, Netflix, and Hulu) see nearly 3x higher engagement from users who use both a phone and tablet versus phone-only users.
- Microsoft enhanced their Outlook, Teams, and Office apps for large screens and foldables, which led to increased active users and improved retention.
- After optimizing for large screens, the Google Photos app experienced a 53% increase in daily active users.
- The Asphalt game saw major boosts in user retention after supporting foldable devices: +42% after the first day, +33% after a week, and 2x better retention after a month.
And these are just a few examples. Across industries – from productivity tools and e-commerce platforms to social media and healthcare apps – the ability to adapt interfaces to new device types directly correlates with higher user satisfaction and long-term success.
Smart investment with long-term value
At the same time, building adaptive apps delivers substantial value at a relatively low cost. Rather than creating separate user interfaces or even entire applications for each device type, companies can use adaptive design principles to support them all with a single codebase. This efficiency makes adaptive development a smart investment that pays off in scale and quality.
Looking ahead, adaptive design won’t just be a nice-to-have – it will become a necessity. As users increasingly interact with new form factors – from foldables to in-car systems and smart glasses – they’ll expect apps that adapt intuitively to each environment. Just like mobile-first apps transitioned from a premium offering to the industry norm, adaptive apps are poised to follow the same trajectory.
Building adaptive apps made simple with new tools
At Google I/O, we learned not only that mobile apps must evolve to be adaptive – but also that the tools to make it happen are already here. Google has introduced a rich collection of resources and APIs to support developers in this transition.
Adaptive layouts
Android now includes a set of canonical layouts designed to provide a dynamic user experience across different screen sizes and device types:
- List-detail layout: Lets users browse a list and see detailed content. On smaller devices, list and detail views are separate; on larger screens, they’re shown side-by-side.
- Feed layout: Displays content in a flexible grid that adapts from a single scrolling column to a multi-column feed depending on screen size.
- Supporting pane layout: Splits the UI into primary and secondary panes, with the main content in the primary pane and additional info in the secondary.
These layouts offer proven design patterns that can help teams implement responsiveness without reinventing the wheel. They’re easy to extend, well documented, and compatible with Jetpack Compose – a modern toolkit for building native Android UIs faster and with less code, designed to make adaptive layout implementation more intuitive.
APIs tailored for foldables
To better support foldable devices, Android now offers dedicated APIs that detect whether a device is closed, partially open, or fully unfolded. This allows apps to adjust their UI structure accordingly. For example, in a messaging app:
- When closed, the app behaves like a phone with separate views for the message list and chat.
- When fully open, it displays both views side-by-side.
- When half-open, one half can show the chat, and the other the keyboard.
This real-time flexibility improves usability while reducing the need to maintain separate logic for each mode. It’s a major productivity win for developers and a clear upgrade for end users.
Seamless multitasking on large screens
Full multitasking is now supported on larger screens with with floating, resizable windows. Users can open multiple apps, or even multiple instances of the same app, and move them around freely.
Each window can be resized dynamically, and your app’s UI is expected to adapt in real time. This is ideal for productivity apps, for example, where users might want two editors open at once.
Support for drag-and-drop interactions, keyboard shortcuts, and split-screen views further enhances multitasking. These features make tablets and foldables more like laptops, turning your app into a desktop-class experience without the overhead.
3D app spaces with Android XR
Android XR brings a 3D workspace to VR and AR devices. Apps can now launch in windows that float in 3D space, allowing users to resize, move, and pin them wherever they like. This spatial flexibility unlocks immersive user experiences, where multiple apps or tools can coexist around the user.
Built with adaptive UI at its core, Android XR enables developers to reuse their existing UI implementations across spatial and traditional experiences. This not only reduces development time but also ensures a cohesive design language, whether users are navigating via headset or touchscreen.
As spatial computing grows, building adaptive apps that work in both 2D and 3D contexts will be critical. Whether viewed through glasses, headsets, or mirrored on a large screen, your app will need to perform fluidly – and consistently.
Summary: Are adaptive apps the future?
Adaptive apps are no longer just a futuristic concept – they’re quickly becoming a business necessity. With users expecting seamless experiences across an ever-growing variety of devices, from foldables and tablets to smart TVs, cars, and even AR glasses, companies must adapt to stay relevant.
Android 16 and the expanding Android ecosystem offer a clear roadmap for building apps that scale and adapt. Thanks to new tools like Jetpack Compose, canonical layouts, and XR-ready APIs, creating flexible user interfaces has never been more accessible.
By embracing adaptive design now, businesses can future-proof their apps, deliver better experiences, and tap into a broader user base. The time to act is now – because the next generation of users is already interacting with your product on screens of every shape and size.
