Tesla to Update App To Better Handle Android Foldables

Tesla’s new big-screen app works well on iPads and iPhone Duo, but some Android foldable owners aren’t seeing it when they expect to. The good news is that Tesla is already working on a fix.

Tesla recently released a dedicated version of its app for iPad, iPhone Duo, and Android tablets and foldables. Before that, the app on these devices was just a scaled-up version of the phone app that didn’t make good use of the extra space.

The Problem With Foldables

Tesla only has a handful of screen sizes and aspect ratios to deal with on the Apple side of things, but Android has eight years’ worth of foldables and even more tablets. That makes it hard to get the layout right everywhere.

@FCastrillo86 shared a video showing the issue on his Pixel 10 Pro Fold. The Tesla app looks normal on the outer screen, but when he unfolds the phone, the regular phone layout just stretches to fill the inner display. Only when he rotates the unfolded phone to landscape does the app switch to the new big-screen layout, with controls on the left and a large vehicle visualization on the right.

He said the new UI is great but “doesn’t feel cohesive when the layout split runs perpendicular to the screen crease,” and asked Tesla to allow the new layout in both orientations. Other users ran into the same problem, noting that even with an almost square (1:1 aspect ratio) screen, they had to rotate the phone to get the new view.

Tesla Is On It

Tesla UI engineer Alex Guichet responded to the issue on X. “Android is quite varied!” he said. “There are so many devices that it’s impossible to test them all.” He added that “we’re going to continue to test and refine screen size breakpoints in a future release.”

Tesla already updated the big-screen app shortly after launch, which also brought the new FSD referral program. Still, it understandably isn’t possible to optimize the layout for every single Android foldable and tablet out there right away. With X Money payments also on the way, the next few app updates should be busy. Until the layout fix arrives, Android foldable owners can rotate their unfolded phone to landscape to get the big-screen view.