Android 15 could make some phone features less annoying in landscape mode – Android Police

Summary

• Android 15 can optimize the UI elements of phones when used in landscape orientation.
• Reports suggest that a new quick settings interface and landscape orientation lock screen are in the works.
• The new interfaces resemble Android 14 features as implemented on tablets.

Android 15 could apply tablet-inspired optimizations to some UI elements on phones used in landscape orientation. Writing for Android Authority, certified Android expert Mishaal Rahman reports that the Quick Settings panel and lock screen on phones running Android 15 can be rearranged to better utilize the wide canvas offered when the device is in mode landscape, placing more information in the same area. with less wasted space.

On phones running Android 14, accessing the Quick Settings panel when the phone is held in landscape orientation displays a menu that looks more or less like the standard layout in portrait orientation, but awkwardly stretched to fill more horizontal space, showing a sliver of Quick Settings Thumbnails at the top, over one or two app notifications. On Android 14-based tablets, the Quick Settings panel is organized in a sort of side-by-side layout, with Quick Settings on the left and Notifications on the right.

This could be how Quick Settings looks in landscape mode on phones running Android 15.

According to Rahman, a quick settings interface like the one existing for tablets is also in the works for phones and could ship with Android 15 this fall. Rahman notes, however, that the implementation as it currently exists is unfinished and buggy.

A landscape lock screen too

A niche feature, but improvement is improvement

The phone’s lock screen in landscape orientation, eventually available on Android 15.

Rahman also reports that a new landscape lock screen interface that he first saw in last year’s Android 14 QPR1 Beta 1 release could also be available on phones running Android 15. In stock Android 14, the lock screen and unlock controls are only displayed in portrait orientation – they don’t have a landscape orientation at all. In Android 15, however, they will reorient themselves to fit a landscape display with the rest of the UI. The resulting interfaces also look a lot like what you’ll find on tablets running Android 14 (or Pixel-flavored).

And the landscape unlock interface that comes with it.

A landscape-oriented lock screen seems like something you won’t see often on a phone, but it could make the Android experience nicer at the margins – for example, if your phone is perched on a car mount in that position , or if you have a clip-on game controller attached.