It was Oscar Wilde who said “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, so it would seem the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 has some admirers in the Google engineering team – as one of the foldable’s best features is now available on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
As spotted by Android Authority, the new Google foldable – the successor to the Google Pixel Fold launched in 2023 – adds built-in support for app pair functionality, which means you can save pairs of apps to run side-by-side on the main display.
So, for example, if you often have Instagram up on one side of the foldable screen and Google Chrome up on the other, you can save this combination as a pair, and get back to it whenever you need to with a couple of taps.
It’s something we’ve seen on the best foldables from Samsung for several years, and it’s a welcome addition to the capabilities of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold – making it easier to take full advantage of that extra-wide, 8-inch display.
Saving an app pair
To save an app pair on the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, first get your pair up on screen, then launch the recents menu by swiping up from the bottom of the display and holding your finger in the center of the screen. Then, tap Save app pair.
This puts a quick link to the app pair on your home screen, ready to relaunch at any time. For a more detailed look at the foldable, including its software capabilities, head over to our full Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review.
In the interests of balance, our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 review is also well worth diving into too: Samsung has of course been making foldable phones for a lot longer than Google has (and maybe one day in the future, Apple will join in, too).
The same app pair functionality is coming to more devices soon, with the introduction of Android 15. The operating system update has now been released to developers, but we’re still waiting for it to arrive on actual smartphones and tablets.