

Bogus Metrics for Honeycomb Apps - gregbayer
http://www.jeanhsu.com/?p=297

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terhechte
This is not about just up-scaling an app. Tablets are a completely different
form factor which means that from a UX perspective, one needs to think
different and create an entirely new UI. Have a look at different iPhone apps
with iPad variants. Oftentimes the iPad version embraces the additional space
to offer more or more detailed or very different functionality.

The comparisons in question list apps that have specifically been created with
this in mind. Apps for Honeycomb that rethought the Phone UI and adapted it to
fit the constraints and new possibilities of a tablet.

Since, after all, Tablets aren't just blown-up smartphones.

What the author of the article implies is that just recompiling a smartphone
app for the tablet form factor should count as porting. That's akin to Apple
saying they have 100.000 (or what) iPhone 4 apps because people updated the
background graphics for the retina display. That would certainly be true,
they're still iPhone apps though.

Thus, just changing some parameters so that font sizes are corrected doesn't
make a smartphone app be a tablet app. The form factor is different.

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notauser
This is the very misunderstanding that is being discussed.

Android's UI system does support tablets by 'upscaling'... but the API has
been improved (with Fragments amongst other things) to provide flexibility to
design one UI* that works well on any size of device.

I'm sure they felt it was necessary to do it that way because of the fact that
you can get an Android device with just about any common screen resolution
these days.

Sure, some people will be lazy, and won't bother to make their UI take
advantage of all that space. But a lot of iPad apps (especially early ones)
weren't exactly high quality either. But lazy developers are an issue on all
platforms.

*One UI that might include components and layouts that only show up when viewing it on a phone, or a tablet, or a whatever.

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glhaynes
Are there guidelines around this? If so, how many levels do they specify? I
imagine a 4" screen is "small" and a 10" screen is "large", but what's a 5" or
a 7"?

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arron61
Android Market needs a filter for x-large screen size. That's how I am
detecting a tablet form and displaying a different layout.

Unfortunately even for apps that have done this, they are not placed in the
featured tablet app list and thus people do not know.

Most apps do work completely fine and scale fine on Honeycomb.

