One of the biggest talking points around Android 17 was app bubbles. Pixel users finally got the option to turn any app into a floating window and multitask on the fly. I tried it on a Pixel 10a recently, and… it didn’t feel all that special. That’s probably because I’ve been spoiled by Samsung’s pop-up view for years now. And after actually using app bubbles, it just feels like Google missed an opportunity here.
Android’s app bubbles have a major problem
This isn’t true multitasking
Android phones have always been good for multitasking with features like split-screen and picture-in-picture. With Android 17, though, Google now lets you open any app into a floating bubble. Yes, this is something you could already do before, but only for chats in apps like Google Messages and Facebook Messenger.
Now, you can long press any app icon and choose “Bubble” to open it as a floating bubble. The bubble floats on top of whatever you’re doing, and you can expand it into a window. If you’ve used chat bubbles before, this works exactly like that. Android even lets you stack multiple apps in the bubble view, so you can switch between them quickly without opening the Recents menu.
All of that sounds great, but my biggest complaint with app bubbles is that they aren’t resizable. By default, an app bubble covers the entire screen, which means you are still using one app at a time. Sure, it makes switching between multiple apps quicker, but bubbles don’t let you use two apps at once like split-screen does.
I also don’t like how closing an app bubble kills the app entirely. That means if you want to switch from the bubble view to regular mode, you have no option but to close the app first. This obviously kills whatever you’re doing inside the app and forces you to start over.
App bubbles work slightly better on foldables and tablets. There, you get a dedicated bubble bar that lets you open apps as bubbles with a tap. On a bigger screen, Android lets you see the main app on one side and the bubble on the other, which feels like split screen mode, except here you can switch between five different apps in bubbles. Even then, though, you still can’t resize the bubbles, and closing one shuts down the app entirely.
Samsung’s pop-up view gets multitasking right
One UI already cracked it years ago
Android’s app bubbles are nice, but Samsung has offered something similar for years. It’s called “Pop-up view,” and it basically lets you open apps in a window mode, much like you’d on a PC.
On your Galaxy phone, open the Recents screen, tap the app icon, and choose Open in pop-up view. If the app is already open, you can even swipe from the top corner towards the middle of the screen to switch to the pop-up view. My favorite way, though, is dragging an app from the Edge Panel to the center, which automatically opens it in a floating window.
Once the app is floating, you can move it anywhere on the screen and even resize it freely. The title bar at the top shows options to minimize, maximize, and close the window. You can also hide the title bar and snap the app into split screen mode from here.
The big win here is that you can see multiple app windows at once, which makes it more useful than app bubbles and even split screen really. You can switch from window to full screen at any time, and when you minimize it, it appears as a floating icon, much like an app bubble. You can close the bubble by dragging it to the bottom, and yes, that doesn’t kill the app.
If you have a foldable or a tablet, this gets even better. One UI lets you open up to five apps in window mode, plus whatever app that’s already in the background. That means you can use up to six different apps at once. You probably won’t need that many at once, but you can still leave them open and switch between them without going back to the Recents screen.
The point is, Samsung’s windowed mode gives you much more flexibility than Android 17’s app bubbles. And this is something One UI has offered for years.
App bubbles may be Pixel-exclusive, but I don’t miss them
Google has kept Android 17’s app bubbles exclusive to Pixel phones for now. But as you can probably tell by now, I don’t miss them one bit on my Galaxy S26.
And I think the same goes for non-Galaxy users, too. Motorola, Asus, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo have all offered their own versions of pop-up view for years. So while Google’s app bubbles are a nice addition, it’s not something anyone will regret missing out on.
