The transition from bezel to notch and/or punch hole was hard… at least for app developers. Phone makers came up with their own implementations to handle the notch, and the lack of an official API resulted hundreds of buggy apps and games for the end users.

miui_9.3.14_hide_notch
Per app notch handling in an early build of MIUI

Innovation never stops and now we experience the (in)famous trend of foldable devices. While Samsung or Motorola is working on actual flexible display panels, LG opted for a more traditional solution.

Be it the LG V50 ThinQ or the newly released LG G8X ThinQ, the Korean OEM is using a form of dual display. Although you can fold the phones, there are two separate screens and the display contents are internally synchronized.

lg_g8x_thinq_fold
LG G8X ThinQ

Apart from some stock LG apps, most of the third-party ones are not compatible with such ‘unique’ setup. The company developed internal software tweaks to scale them, but there is no way to control those parameters – until now.

A Japanese ‘hacker’ named Yutaka Tsumori has managed to crack the barrier. They came up with a nifty app which can interact with LG’s internal APIs and help you to scale any app as per your requirement.

lg_g8x_thinq_google_maps_expanded
Google Maps running in expanded mode on LG G8X ThinQ (Click/Tap to zoom)

The process is really simple. All you have to do is install the app (dubbed as ‘G8X WideMode‘) from Google Play Store. After that, you have to add the corresponding tile by opening Quick Settings panel settings.

Launch the app you want to scale up, pull down the Quick Settings panel and select the ‘Wide Mode’ tile. Voila!

lg_g8x_thing_wide_mode_3
That’s second from the right

Due to the nature of the proprietary APIs, the rendering might not be perfect. In extreme cases, a reboot should fix things. There are some reported issues about broken navigation bar, but the developer is aware of that. Cherry on top, the app is fully integratable with Tasker.

Are you planning to buy a foldable phone? Let us know by commenting below.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

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