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Closed 10 years ago.
which android tablet i should buy for my development?
Do the android OS version matter when doing development for android tablet.
I want that my app covers most used android versions. I took a look at Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, it has android 3.1 version. So can i upgrade it to android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Well, if you can find one with Ice Cream Sandwich, that's going to cover the most bases in terms of current versions of Android. You may want to take a look at XDA Developers or Cyanogenmod Forums to see if the tablet you are considering is well covered by the modding community as well. I suggest this because if the manufacturer of your new tablet decides it doesn't want to upgrade to Jelly Bean, or whatever, in the future, the modding community may be your best best.
So those are my two points - try to find an ICS based device, so you don't need to upgrade right away - and so that you can test your app on live hardware for the newest SDK version; and try to make sure the device you are buying is pretty well covered by the modding community.
I can caution you to avoid Toshiba's tablets, as they have abysmal customer support and do not talk about their planned updates for their devices for months on end. I've not heard great things about the ICS update for Asus Transformers either, even though their Honeycomb is incredible. To be honest, I love ICS alpha 2 on my HP Touchpad.
I would get the Samsung Galaxy 10" tablet. This is the most common size of tablets so you can expect your applications to look good on most tablets. If you go with an 8.9 inch or 7 inch tablet your applications may not scale perfectly to the 10 inch tablets. You can always create more layouts to fit each dimension, but I usually try and target the 10 inch tablets first since they are most popular.
"I want that my app covers most used android versions"
Android 2.3 has the biggest portion of devices in the wild. You can see a break down of the version distribution here:
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
If you're going to target newer releases (and use things like fragments or loaders), you might want to consider using the Compatibility Library to ensure you cover 2.3 and older.
I'd probably +1 for Galaxy 10" tablet - They seem pretty popular, and good modding scene support. I have Xoom upgraded with ICS, and it works pretty well for development. Better then the emulator, that's for sure ;)
Related
I would first start off with saying sorry If I tagged this in the wrong section. However, I consider this a development question. I'm thinking on getting the Nexus 7 tablet (running Jellybean).
However, Is this tablet any good to develope on? considering the screen size is not HUGE, neither small.
And is there any difference developing on Jellybean?
As I couldn't find any opinions on this anywhere I decided to ask here.
Again, sorry If I'm tagging the wrong things. Feel free to edit!
I think the nexus 7 is a good enough tablet platform for developement. I have tried a few things i made there myself.
You need to consider the screen size and the dpi of the device.
For Nexus 7, it is large screen and tvdpi which is not suitable for mobile apps.
Mostly, mobile device has normal screen with hdpi.
i think one difference at least in older tablets is that theres one less route for the audio (mic)
I made an application under Android emulator provided worked perfectly on all types of dispositives (small, normal, large, xlarge) (-ldpi,-mdpi, -hdpi,-xhdpi). But the last few days I saw that in some phones with the latest versions of android (these phones consist with a lower bar like tablets) did not look properly.
So my question is: what kind of phones have or can upgrade to these versions of android? (small-HDPI, normal-HDPI, normal-xhdpi???)
Thank you!
Theoretically, nothing stops a manufacturer from making an ldpi device capable of running ICS or JB. However, in practice, most devices with ldpi and even mdpi to some extent do not have good enough processors in both CPU and GPU departments to be able to run the newer version of Android.
Till date, the lowest I've seen an ICS device go screenwise is a normal-mdpi display. However, I do not know the details of every device in existence, and there could be lower devices as well.
You should design your app keeping in mind all device configs, at most excluding only ldpi and small displays.
This question already has answers here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
What hardware devices do you test your Android apps on?
I'm porting my iPhone app over to Android, planning on releasing it in the Google and Amazon AppStores. I'm planning on targeting OS versions 2.2 and 2.3, as they have the highest market share.
But, what devices have the highest market share? I want to make sure I test on the "common" devices, and so I'm looking for resources / recommendations about which devices to include in my testing regimen.
It depends the target country as the market share of a device varies.
I would recommend covering some of the following attributes
Devices with screens : ldpi, mdpi and hdpi
Devices with screen sizes : small screen (3 inches), normal screen ( 4 inches ) large screen ; 7 inches or more
Refer to the platform versions link for more details
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
There are no dominating phone models in the android world. My app supports 2.2+ (API 8). The top three phones models among its users are Galaxy S2 7%, EVO 7% and Galaxy S 2.7% with a long tail of 'other models'. Welcome to the free world. ;-)
From compatability view point, it is safer, if you can live with it, not to use targetSdkVersion and to have minSdkVersion == target SDK version (as you set in eclipse).
Also, make sure to test in portrait and landscape (unless if your app is limited to a single app) including transitions mid activity.
AFAIK, As long as your app working on target OS, device shouldn't be an issue. Anyway, you may try on samsung galaxy, HTC etc., By the way you may need to make sure it is working for different resolutions.
The emulator that comes with ADK for use under Eclipse is fine for testing basic Android application functionality, but:
it's not very performant
it doesn't reflect real-world hardware and software configurations
it doesn't support varying input devices such as d-pads, touch screens, trackballs or even Bluetooth/USB controllers.
Android Developer posts some very helpful rolling graphs of Platform versions, Screen sizes and densities, and OpenGL ES versions as extracted from Android Market:
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/opengl.html
Those really help to narrow the scope of some of the choices, but I find myself really wanting to know what the proportions of input methods various devices support are... is touch represented by 90% of the market, or only 5%? What proportion of those support multi-touch?
For example... anyone who has played the free and open source game Replica Island ( http://replicaisland.net/ ) will know that how you control the game varies between devices because it supports multiple input methods. I think Chris and Genki have done a fantastic job here, but if you use touch screens you know that the game is much more playable on 5-7 inch devices than it is on 10+ inch devices. This is because the left-right slide control doesn't maintain the same physical size as the screen size increases - meaning that you have to move too far on large touch screen devices (such as Honeycomb tablets) to be comfortable.
These are the sorts of issues you only find out when you start using various hardware devices to do your testing on. Or you can wait until users do your testing for you and start bringing your app ratings down.
So after my long introduction, here are my questions to you:
What collection of hardware devices have you bought to use in your software development and have you found those choices to have been beneficial or detrimental?
Do you instead use 3rd party testing services and just tolerate the long turnaround times between test reports (hours/days instead of instant gratification)?
For me test devices are sort of like pickup trucks: I'll make friends just to get access to their phones ;-)
Seriously, I do tap friends and family as resources. I'm a small shop and can't afford to buy a lot of test devices. Yet even with this limited pool of resources I've go the following devices available and it seems to have served me well:
Original Moto DROID (seems like such a dog now).
DROID Pro (broken screen but still good for testing).
Asus eTransformer
Samsung Galaxy Tab (7")
HTC Rezound (my personal phone--it rocks)
Samsung Charge (my wife's phone)
DROID X (son-in-law)
HTC-something I can't remember right now (daughter & son)
Amazon Kindle Fire (father).
So, as you can see, without spending a fortune I've got a pretty good set of test devices, not counting all the friends I press into service as beta-testers. With all those I really haven't had many problems with platform specific issues. I hear a lot of grumbling about fragmentation (perhaps mostly from iOS developers), but if you develop your app intelligently it isn't a huge issue.
At this stage I'm just testing with two phones:
HTC Magic (3.5" touchscreen)
Samsung Galaxy S II (4.3" touchscreen)
There's a pretty big difference in the perceived density between these phones, so it's been helpful for comparison in testing my own games. The major omission at this stage is a tablet - just haven't been able to justify the cost yet.
I'm also playing around at the moment with LCDDensity for Root which allows you to change the screen resolution on-the-fly. Interesting to see what the same sized screen would look like with more pixels stuffed in (i.e. closer to Retina display)
I have own collection of devices:
tablet with 10" screen (Motorola Xoom);
Nexus S as reference smartphone;
device with hardware keyboard (Motorola Droid);
one device from HTC (HTC Desire HD). I need it because it has slightly different UI (HTC Sense) and HTC phones are quite popular in my country. It is the least useful device in the collection;
a pair of devices with non standard screen resolutions.
What screen sizes does (and will) Android honeycomb support?
When I try anything other than WXGA on the emulators, even the system apps and home-screen look odd. Should I assume that Honeycomb does not, and will not, support anything other than tablets?
What screen sizes does (and will) Android honeycomb support?
"Will" is impossible to answer, as nobody can predict the future with any accuracy.
"Does" is impossible to answer in the way you appear to be expecting (resolution).
Should I assume that Honeycomb does not, and will not, support anything other than tablets?
Since Google has indicated this repeatedly in 2011, I think that it is a safe assumption.
Note that Android 3.2 added support for tablets in the 7" range in addition to the 10" range. Resolutions are up to the device manufacturer. That being said, one likely resolution for 7" tablets is 1024x600.
The Android emulator only really supports WXGA for Android 3.x at this time, AFAIK -- at least, that's the only supported emulator skin.
Also note that Honeycomb concepts are likely to appear in Ice Cream Sandwich, which is rumored to be released later this year.