summary
- Google Drive's Android app lacks optimization for large screen devices such as flip phones and tablets, and the user experience is particularly poor when viewing documents.
- The app has developed a two-page layout option that allows users to view successive pages of a document side by side like a paperback book.
- This feature is currently available to beta testers and will be rolled out to all users in the stable channel in the future, although the timeline is unknown.
Google has several interconnected cloud-based utilities that work together to help Workspace customers collaborate remotely. The benefits of utilities like Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Google Meet extend to individual users with Gmail accounts. Of these, only Google Drive is advertised as cloud storage and stores files created using other Workspace tools. You can access Drive storage using the mobile app or web GUI, but the experience may not be optimal on large screen devices such as foldable phones and tablets.
Google Drive is one of the best cloud storage apps, and its app is available for Android, ChromeOS, and iOS. The former is used to power multiple devices with large screens, such as laptops and tablets. Most of these devices are used in landscape orientation, but the Drive app for Android simply stretches the same portrait UI to fit a landscape screen. When you open any document, you'll see a single page stretched to fill the entire width of your display. In some cases, text may appear unusually large.
A fix for this behavior is currently in progress. @AssembleDebug in X (formerly Twitter) has discovered a two-page layout option that has been widely rolled out to beta testers. If you're using v2.23.407.1 of the app, you'll see a new button right next to his three-dot icon in the overflow menu. Tap this to view two consecutive pages of the document side by side, like a paperback book.
This feature is controlled by a flag, but AssembleDebug reports that it's turned on by default in beta builds, so you don't need to touch the flag. This means that if you install the beta version of the above app on your tablet from APKMirror, you should immediately see a two-page layout. Android uses the display scaling factor to determine the screen width, so changing the display scaling to a value of 500 or higher in your device's developer settings may help. Doing so may cause Android to think the display is larger than it actually is, forcing a new landscape mode for Drive on your device.
However, be aware that changing your device's display scaling can also affect other apps you use in landscape mode. In time, this small change to Google Drive should appear on devices in the stable channel. However, the chronology is unknown.
