I'm not too fond of tattoos but that's not the point. What differentiates this phone from all of its Android predecessors that made it to the market so far is its meager screen resolution of 240 x 320. Yes, that's what you get when you put a dated BlackBerry on its side.
As Android framework engineer Dianne Hackborn points out:
One of the important things to know about the QVGA devices like this is thatThen she goes on about UI fiddling, alternative layouts, and low-density graphics.
none of the existing apps will show up on the market there, because until
1.6 developers have had no requirement to design for a smaller screen, and
there is little the platform can do to make existing apps work on a smaller
screen with a good experience.
It's all good and well other than I'm not gonna do that.
For many Android applications, ActionComplete included, the main differentiating factor is a neat and clean user interface. Addressing a different screen size is roughly equivalent to redoing 50% of the application.
Given the current Android market share, it's strictly prohibitive to develop for particular screen sizes or anything particular for that matter.
If you are an indie Android developer, here goes my advice. Don't waste your time on all kinds of weird configurations that device manufacturers might come up to - keeping up with that is a losing game.
Reach out to you users and ask them what they want, separate the wheat from the chaff, and create a beautiful user experience for a screen of your choice.
Don't let the fragmentation happen. When they see there's nothing ahead for outdated phones, the device manufacturers will have nothing to do but to accept the developer-friendly rules of the game.
2 comments:
The only thing I'd like to state is that IF your UI requires 50% re-doing to fit new screens, you must have something missed out in the beginning. I'm pretty sure you will have to adopt your application (now or later) to the new screen sizes cuz more phones are about to come out.
I respectfully disagree.
I am an owner of the Tattoo.
As a matter of fact, most of the apps (installed directly by .apk as the market does not offer them) works and feels just fine. As a matter of fact, I found only two that have problems and all of them were simply solvable by rotating the device.
I would like to propose to the Google to change the policy of the screen size limitation - to allow me to install also the other apps even when they are not designed for my screen resolution, but warn me of the possible problems before such action.
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