Android 15 could allow more apps to take up 100% of the screen

Smartphones are much larger than they were 10 years ago. With more screen space, you can now display more content than before. But the size of smartphones and their bezels has plateaued in recent years, forcing app developers to get smarter about how they use the available space. Android has long given apps the ability to use the entire height and width of the display, edge to edge, but many apps don’t take advantage of this. However, things may change with the release of Android 15. In Android 15, some apps will go edge-to-edge by default.

Currently, to go edge-to-edge, apps must implement and opt-in to several APIs. This means that drawing UI behind the navigation bar and status bar (also known as the “system bar”) may not make sense for all apps, especially if there are interactive elements such as buttons that overlap the system bar. Because it is. Developers have ways to address these duplications before enabling edge-to-edge mode in their apps, but the fact that this is required means that Google has not previously forced this behavior for all apps. It shows you why you have chosen not to do so. But those days are coming to an end, as we’ve discovered code in the latest Android 14 QPR2 beta that suggests the OS may force this behavior on apps targeting the next version of Android. It may be.

Google wants to give developers time to update, test, and debug their apps against new versions of the Android OS, so the company is introducing a new settings page in Android 11 called “App Compatibility Changes.” has been introduced. This page allows developers to toggle individual system behaviors that might break the app. . The list of compatibility changes that apply to a particular app depends on the target API level (a number that describes how the app will run on different Android versions). Apps targeting API level 34 (the corresponding API level for Android 14) will receive all new internal battery, memory management, and API changes in the OS. What’s more, apps targeting API level 35 (the corresponding API level for Android 15) must deal with new system behaviors introduced in new OS versions.

With that in mind, while looking into Android 14 QPR2 Beta 3, I discovered a new app compatibility change named: EDGE_TO_EDGE_BY_DEFAULT This description: “Make your app edge-to-edge by default if the target SDK is” VANILLA_ICE_CREAM Or more. ” Vanilla Ice Cream is the internal dessert name in Android 15. This means that this compatibility change will apply to apps targeting future releases this year. Given that Google forces developers to update their apps annually to target newer API levels, it’s only a matter of time before most apps on the Play Store target Android 15. It’s a problem. Unless Google changes its policy again, the deadline for new apps and app updates to target Android 15 will be August 31, 2025.

One thing to note, however, is that we don’t know if Google actually plans to force this behavior change in Android 15. Google recently made some public changes that suggest it wants to improve edge-to-edge support on Android. Updates to the enableEdgeToEdge API for drawing around display cutouts such as notches and punch holes, and more (H/T @Nail Sadikov). Still, it’s been done several times with other behavior changes, so Google might punt it into a future release.

When this change takes effect in Android 15, you may be wondering how it will affect the UI of your favorite apps. With a bit of fiddling, I enabled the compatibility change and forced it to the app. Here’s how her UI changed in both landscape and portrait mode, before and after edge-to-edge mode.

For apps with large amounts of text, enabling edge-to-edge mode makes a lot of sense. We also forced existing apps like Gmail and Google Keep into edge-to-edge mode, but the results were not as encouraging as UI elements overlapped with system bars. But that’s to be expected, which is why Google will give developers time to update their apps before flipping the switch to force edge-to-edge mode. Of course, this assumes they actually have a plan to force this change.

Not a single developer preview of Android 15 is available yet, so only time will tell if this change ultimately comes to fruition. Of course, once preview builds of Android 15 become available, we’ll take a closer look to see if this change is scheduled to take effect in the next release.