Portal aims to bring Paranoid Android style multi-tasking and Halo to all

BY Rajesh Pandey

Published 15 Aug 2013

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The Paranoid Android ROM is known for some of the unique features that the ROM incorporates including Halo, PIE controls and Per-App DPI settings. Much more recently, the PA team introduced a new style of multi-tasking that allows apps to over-draw over the currently running application. This means that you can have a floating app running on top of any app you are already using in the background.

Portal aims to bring Paranoid Android’s Multi-tasking style and Halo (Floating notifications) style to all Android devices out there. The app shows a floating bubble that can be moved to anywhere in the screen, which will show all your new notifications. Right now, Portal only supports limited  number of apps for its floating apps feature which includes Facebook, Twitter, Messages and Browser. The notification feature a.k.a Halo a.k.a Chat Heads work across all your installed apps though.

Portal is a new cutting edge way to easily send updates to Facebook and Twitter, as well as send text messages, and browse the Internet with many more apps to come. Portal floats over your existing apps making it much quicker to multi-task and turns you into a phone ninja. Portal not only allows you quicker access to popular apps it also can show notifications for all your apps once the accessibility service is started.

The developers behind Portal are working hard on the app to add Paranoid Android style multitasking to more apps. The application also does not make use of the new Notification Listener API introduced in Android 4.3. Once the developer start using the said API, expect improved notifications reliability from the floating chat head on your screen.

Portal is currently in its initial beta stages, and can be downloaded for free from the Play Store.