Is Android lacking when it comes to tablet optimized apps?

[mr_nobody]

If you think it's a non-issue, great.

This. I would wager that just like the rear camera issue, the majority of users _don't actually care_. *shrugs*

 

[anthonycr]

That's the other thing, we might complain that apps aren't optimized for tablets and Apple tries to say that its a disadvantage for android tablets, but like you both said, android scales up. iOS does not. So in reality there are no problems with apps on tablets in android, they all work fine (unlike what happens when apple releases a device with different screen size), they just look the same as on a phone... who's to say developers want the experience to be different on tablet.

 

[Ry]

That's the other thing, we might complain that apps aren't optimized for tablets and Apple tries to say that its a disadvantage for android tablets, but like you both said, android scales up. iOS does not. So in reality there are no problems with apps on tablets in android, they all work fine (unlike what happens when apple releases a device with different screen size), they just look the same as on a phone... who's to say developers want the experience to be different on tablet.

I'll continue to complain about the quality of tablet apps on Android. I want Android to succeed. Not optimizing your app for a tablet - especially for one that is supposedly as popular as the Nexus 7 - just looks downright lazy. I truly believe it "cheapens" Android. There's no reason why we can't have quality apps on all common screens.

But hey. If you don't care that the Twitter app or the Facebook app or the Yelp app on a Nexus 7 just looks like a blown up phone version instead of a truly optimized tablet version, I won't lose any sleep over your opinion.

 

[anthonycr]

I'll continue to complain about the quality of tablet apps on Android. I want Android to succeed. Not optimizing your app for a tablet, especially as one that is supposedly as popular as the Nexus 7 just looks downright lazy. I truly believe it "cheapens" Android. There's no reason why we can't have quality apps on all common screens.

But hey. If you don't care that the Twitter app or the Facebook app or the Yelp app on a Nexus 7 just looks like a blown up phone version instead of a truly optimized tablet version, I won't lose any sleep over it.

You're completely right and I agree. Of course Facebook sucks just as bad on a phone as on a tablet right now, until their team gets off their butts and makes the app better...

What I want badly is all apps to follow the holo guidelines. I'm sick of seeing gingerbread assets. Tapatalk is the main offender for me.

 

[natehoy]

The phone versions work fine on a (7") tablet. The functionality is there. No one seems to be disagreeing with that. The issue is they haven't been optimized for the tablet's screen. If you think it's a non-issue, great. But still, you can't deny the fact that as of today Android is lacking (relative to the iPad) when it comes to tablet-optimized apps.

No, I can't. I can't say it bothers me all that much, since all but the worst-designed phone apps look pretty good at tablet scaling.

Such is the nature of a high degree of variability in screen sizes.

iOS developers have 5 sets of screen resolutions and 3 aspect ratios. Except for the iPhone 5, 2:3 (phone) and 3:4 (tablet) are it. So"tablet-optimized" is literally as simple as (if 3:4 then tablet else phone). This is, at its core, why the mini cannot have retina. 3:4 dictated that it either be 1024x768 or an utterly impractical 2048x1536. So they chose the gizzards from an iPad 2 and used 1024.

The nexus was not limited by such design constraints (whether you consider such constraints a good or an evil is a matter of opinion). Google could design a device to the resolution they wanted to get the aspect ratio, case size, graphic processor requirements, etc precisely to their liking.

Android devices come in a wide range of screens from tiny (droid pro) to huge (10 inch tab) with various different aspect ratios. So what design elements you may wish to include on a UI for an optimum user experience is not as clear.

Tablet-optimized changes to "have I included sufficient design elements into this UI to take advantage of the screen size without cluttering it to uselessness?" It's not as easy an answer on android.

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

 

[Ry]

No, I can't. I can't say it bothers me all that much, since all but the worst-designed phone apps look pretty good at tablet scaling.

Such is the nature of a high degree of variability in screen sizes.

iOS developers have 5 sets of screen resolutions and 3 aspect ratios. Except for the iPhone 5, 2:3 (phone) and 3:4 (tablet) are it. So"tablet-optimized" is literally as simple as (if 3:4 then tablet else phone). This is, at its core, why the mini cannot have retina. 3:4 dictated that it either be 1024x768 or an utterly impractical 2048x1536. So they chose the gizzards from an iPad 2 and used 1024.

The nexus was not limited by such design constraints (whether you consider such constraints a good or an evil is a matter of opinion). Google could design a device to the resolution they wanted to get the aspect ratio, case size, graphic processor requirements, etc precisely to their liking.

Android devices come in a wide range of screens from tiny (droid pro) to huge (10 inch tab) with various different aspect ratios. So what design elements you may wish to include on a UI for an optimum user experience is not as clear.

Tablet-optimized changes to "have I included sufficient design elements into this UI to take advantage of the screen size without cluttering it to uselessness?" It's not as easy an answer on android.

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I hope Apple continues to show common third-party iPad mini apps side-by-side with their Nexus 7 equivalents.

 

[natehoy]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I hope Apple continues to show common third-party iPad mini apps side-by-side with their Nexus 7 equivalents.

Me, too.

First, I think Google really needs to change the UI size to xlarge on the Nexus Seven by default so where there are "tablet"-sized apps they'll tend to use all that glorious Nexus resolution to its best benefit.

Second, showing the Android development team of a project that they aren't representing their product's "best side" when on a popular tablet means maybe some effort will go into making it better.

 

[nrm5110]

Me, too.

First, I think Google really needs to change the UI size to xlarge on the Nexus Seven by default so where there are "tablet"-sized apps they'll tend to use all that glorious Nexus resolution to its best benefit.

Second, showing the Android development team of a project that they aren't representing their product's "best side" when on a popular tablet means maybe some effort will go into making it better.

Paranoid android /problem lol

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

 

[badbrad17]

No, I can't. I can't say it bothers me all that much, since all but the worst-designed phone apps look pretty good at tablet scaling.

Such is the nature of a high degree of variability in screen sizes.

iOS developers have 5 sets of screen resolutions and 3 aspect ratios. Except for the iPhone 5, 2:3 (phone) and 3:4 (tablet) are it. So"tablet-optimized" is literally as simple as (if 3:4 then tablet else phone). This is, at its core, why the mini cannot have retina. 3:4 dictated that it either be 1024x768 or an utterly impractical 2048x1536. So they chose the gizzards from an iPad 2 and used 1024.

The nexus was not limited by such design constraints (whether you consider such constraints a good or an evil is a matter of opinion). Google could design a device to the resolution they wanted to get the aspect ratio, case size, graphic processor requirements, etc precisely to their liking.

Android devices come in a wide range of screens from tiny (droid pro) to huge (10 inch tab) with various different aspect ratios. So what design elements you may wish to include on a UI for an optimum user experience is not as clear.

Tablet-optimized changes to "have I included sufficient design elements into this UI to take advantage of the screen size without cluttering it to uselessness?" It's not as easy an answer on android.

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

I design websites and Web software and the problem is no different than what we have been dealing with for decades. Monitors come in different sizes and applications can be designed to do certain things based on device feedback. I like the idea of having a few different preferences that can be selected ie: small, medium, large, x-large etc. This could allow some parts to just scale and others to use native graphics that are specific to the size. The amount of work would be minimal if developers always thought about the largest size first and we stuck with consistent size ratios. 16:9 would be a good start. There will always be unique devices but the majority of 4in, 5in, 6in, 7in and 10in devices could be handled by one of these preferences.

Sent from my SGH-T989D using Android Central Forums

 

[Ry]

Kind of gets muddy when 1080p 5" phones start coming out. Would they get tablet versions or phone versions of apps?

 

[anthonycr]

Are you telling me Android doesn't have an api to determine the screenRect of the target device?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by screenRect, but if you mean diagonal size in inches or centimeters, the answer is no. For everything I've found online so far in order to determine diagonal size you have to do some simple calculations based on pixels and density.

HOWEVER, that's usually not really a problem because you can set a different layout for different screens just by modifying an XML and placing it in a different layout folder. The problem arises when you want to run different code for different screens.

 

[natehoy]

Are you telling me Android doesn't have an api to determine the screenRect of the target device?

You can do a GetMetrics to get the dimensions in pixels. But due to the vast difference in pixel densities amongst different Android devices (as opposed to the list of 5 pixel densities across the entire Apple product line, representing a total of three aspect ratios), it's hard to say whether you are dealing with a high-density 4" display or a low-density 10" display, and design considerations are going to differ.

On the Android platform, what I'd like to see is (for those apps where you want additional elements added to an app), some sort of menu option / configuration setting in the app asking me, the user, how "information dense" I want the app to be. Default it off the screen size, sure, but let me change it.

I'd like to see at least two, but preferably three choices for some apps. For example, when I'm using Facebook on my Thunderbolt phone, I want the same basic layout on both portrait and landscape - a 4.2" screen is simply too small for anything but a list of posts with a small "menu, tools, notification" bar up top. When it's on my Nexus in portrait, maybe I want a larger notification area up top and maybe a thin menu down the side. When it's in landscape, use the left half of the screen for tools and controls, and the right half to show me posts.

But I want to be able to choose that. A simple set of options: "Which layout do you want to use in Portrait?" and "Which layout do you want to use in Landscape?", preferably defaulted upon install from some reasonable assumptions based on screen pixel size.

Because maybe I bought my 7" tablet because I want to be able to see things clearer, not see more things at a time. Or maybe I bought it because I want to see ALL THE THINGS even if they are teeny.