Google pushes devs to make better tablet apps

posted by Michael H. / Oct 08, 2012, 4:04 PM

Google pushes devs to make better tablet apps

Google has put in place a lot of tools to help out developers and allow for apps to scale to the various screen sizes available with Android devices. Of course, responsive design is only a partial answer, and ultimately it is still on developers to make their apps better for Android tablets. This means that while a lot of apps will scale well, not all do, and now Google has put out some guidelines to help devs make sure their apps are ready for Android tablets.

The guidelines are split into 10 sections, and the overall guidelines seem like fairly common sense things starting with making sure your app meets the Core App Quality guidelines, and moving on to pretty reasonable ideas like making sure your layout, fonts, images, and widgets all are designed for use on larger screens, and that the app has all of the features of the phone version.

It's the last few points on the list where Google gets into more interesting ideas that aren't necessarily common sense, because they are common issues that may be overlooked. First, Google wants devs to stop requiring hardware features in tablet apps, specifically making sure that apps don't require telephony or cameras, because those are the most likely omissions from tablets (like say the Nexus 7). On the flip side, devs need to be better about declaring apps compatible with declaring screen support sizes, especially now that there are layouts for phones, 7" tablets, and 10" tablets. And, lastly devs should be taking advantage of the various options available in the Google Play Store like being able to have multiple APKs on a single listing that will dynamically be pushed out depending on the device of the user.

source: Android Developers & Tablet App Quality Checklist

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7 Comments

1. XPERIA-KNIGHT unregistered

nice sounds like things are crackin down........this is good

posted on Oct 08, 2012, 4:53 PM 3

7. MeoCao unregistered

This is Google's shift in strategy and the right one. Apps autoscaling just doesn't work.

posted on Oct 08, 2012, 11:18 PM 2

2. Mxyzptlk unregistered

Every time Google does something to streamline the process for one of its services it never works in the end. Just like ICS was supposed to unify Android and keep devices updated for at least a year, it ended up causing a lot of devices to not get ICS until later while Jellybean is the current iteration.

posted on Oct 08, 2012, 4:56 PM 2

3. protozeloz

Posts: 5396; Member since: Sep 16, 2010

dude? you know what you talking about? ICS was supposed to unify android TABLETS and PHONES, you know what that means? dev only needs to wrhite code once and works everywhere unlike iOS where devs need to write code for every change done on the hardware, and devices shipping with ICS are the ones supposed to get updates..... not older phones, you should shut it of you don't know what you are talking about

posted on Oct 08, 2012, 5:07 PM 8

4. protozeloz

also google never gave time frame for older phones to get ICS

posted on Oct 08, 2012, 5:13 PM 5

5. XPERIA-KNIGHT unregistered

once again.......you are a bitter little man :(

posted on Oct 08, 2012, 5:25 PM 5

8. Stuntman

Posts: 843; Member since: Aug 01, 2011

One world: Landscape. If you go to any store that sells Android tablets, they are all displayed in landscape mode. Don't developers get that they need to ensure their tablet versions also run in landscape? It's annoying when I am using my Transformer with the keyboard dock and the screen is sideways. Make tablet apps default to landscape.