Posted by Patrick Fuentes, Developer Relations Engineer, Google ChromeOS
Folks’s urge for food for apps on bigger screens is rising quick. In Q1 2022 alone, there have been 270 million energetic Android customers throughout Chromebooks, tablets, and foldables. So if you wish to develop attain, engagement, and loyalty, taking your app past cell will unlock a world of alternative.
In case your app is on the market in Google Play, there’s a superb likelihood customers are already partaking with it on ChromeOS. And when you’re simply beginning to consider bigger screens, tailoring your app to ChromeOS — which runs a full Android framework — is a superb place to begin. What’s extra is that optimizing for ChromeOS is similar to optimizing for different larger-screen gadgets, so any work you do for one will scale to the opposite.
At Android Dev Summit 2022, I shared just a few ChromeOS-specific nuances to remember when tailoring your app to bigger screens. Let’s discover the highest 5 issues devs ought to take into account, in addition to workarounds to frequent challenges.
1) Finessing enter compatibility
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2) Making a fit-for-larger-screen UI
Folks freely resize apps on ChromeOS, so it’s vital to consider how your app seems and feels in a wide range of side ratios — together with panorama orientations. Though ChromeOS affords automated windowing compatibility help for made-for-mobile experiences, apps that particularly optimize for bigger screens are inclined to drive extra engagement.
The additional display screen actual property on Chromebooks, tablets, and foldables provides each you and your customers extra room to play, discover, and create. So why not profit from it? You possibly can implement a responsive UI for bigger screens with toolkits similar to Jetpack Compose and create adaptive experiences by sticking to design finest practices.
3) Implementing binary compatibility
In case you’ve completely run your app on Android telephones, you would possibly solely be conversant in ARM gadgets. However Chromebooks and lots of different desktops typically use x86 architectures, which makes binary help important. Though Gradle builds for all non-deprecated ABIs by default, you’ll nonetheless must particularly account for x86 help in case your app or one in every of your libraries contains C++ code.
Because of binary translation, many Android apps will run on x86 ChromeOS gadgets even when a suitable model isn’t out there. However this may hinder app efficiency and damage battery life, so it’s finest to present x86 help explicitly each time you may.
4) Giving apps an intensive take a look at run
The surefire means of making certain an important person expertise? Run rigorous checks to ensure your apps and video games work as anticipated on the gadgets you’re optimizing for. While you’re constructing for ChromeOS, testing your apps on Chromebooks or one other larger-screen gadget is good. However you have nonetheless obtained choices if a bodily gadget isn’t out there.
For example, you may nonetheless take a look at a keyboard or mouse on an Android handset by plugging them into the USB-C port. And with the new desktop emulator in Android Studio, you may take your app for a spin in a larger-screen setting and take a look at desktop options similar to window resizing.
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5) Sprucing apps for publishing
Generally, even apps examined on Chromebooks — and listed in Google Play — aren’t really out there to ChromeOS customers. This often occurs as a result of there’s an entry within the app’s manifest declaring it requires options that aren’t out there on the unsupported gadget.
Let’s say you specify your app requires “android.{hardware}.digital camera.” That entry refers to a rear-facing digital camera — so any gadgets with solely a user-facing digital camera could be thought of unsupported. If any digital camera will work on your app, you need to use “android.{hardware}.digital camera.any” as an alternative. And if a {hardware} characteristic isn’t a should on your app, it’s finest to specify in your manifest that it’s not required through the use of “required=false.”
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Join with thousands and thousands of larger-screen customers
As individuals’s love for desktops, tablets, and foldables continues to develop, constructing for these kind elements is turning into increasingly vital. Take a look at different talks from Android Dev Summit 2022 in addition to sources on ChromeOS.dev and developer.android.com for extra inspiration and how-tos as you optimize for bigger screens. And don’t neglect to join the ChromeOS publication to maintain up with the newest.