Preparing apps for the nexus 10

Question

I am working on an android Audio Recording application, our app is currently designed to work on all android phones, the Nexus 7 and the Motorola Xoom tablets.

I was wondering if there are any guidelines or best practices to re-design/modify our app for Nexus 10. More specifically, any pointers on the below points would be really helpful:

• UI guidelines to support the new 2560x1600 resolution
• Android resource files related modifications (based on similar guidelines)
• Any sample or open sources apps that have been modified to work on the nexus 10
• Best practices creating and running a nexus 10 emulator since there is no such AVD device by default (screenshot below). Any thoughts on creating one, keeping the high resolution in mind.

Hypotrachelium

My app works fine on the Nexus 7 (actual tablet) but I don't own the Nexus 10 and so am using the emulator, and I'm finding that the vertical lines separating the squares of a GridView that I'm using simply disappear. The horizontal lines remain. The standard Calendar app also has no vertical lines between the white squares in the emulator (configured to simulate Nexus 10), so I'm suspecting that this is an emulator problem and that the lines would re-appear on the actual Nexus 10 device. Anyone else have an issue with the vertical lines of GridView disappearing when emulating the Nexus 10? – Stillman

let me try that out Carl. – Hypotrachelium

Soham: Just trying the Calendar app in your emulator might be sufficient if the lines disappear. My AVD is configured as described in the answer on this page by Paul Burke. I'm using API level 17 (4.2) for the AVD. Thanks. – Stillman

Hey Carl, the calendar app works perfectly on the nexus 10 emulator described by Paul anony.ws/4O4 – Hypotrachelium

Thanks for checking! I was setting my AVD to API 17 without Google APIs. When I changed this to API 17 with Google APIs, Calendar looked fine. However, my own app, which uses GridView, still lacks vertical lines on its grid, even with the Google APIs, and I still suspect the emulator, but am worried that it might occur on the real device somehow. Anyway, I won't hijack your comments any longer! – Stillman

not a problem Carl, if you want, I can test your apk on my emulator just to be sure. – Hypotrachelium

It was my own stupid mistake; I was using a pixel value uncorrected for density for my grid spacing in my code (setVerticalSpacing()), and apparently it just vanished due to the extremely high resolution of the Nexus 10 display. Easily fixed and now the lines are fine. This surprises me just a little because even a two-pixel spacing should be something on the screen. But no. As soon as I corrected for density, 2 pixels became 4 and the lines came back. So hopefully, that information is useful to somebody. – Stillman

Answer 1

Regarding your second point, resources: While the nexus 10 is a xhdpi device, it will use the launcher icon from xxhdpi "one bucket up" if available, so make sure to provide one as it will look much better/clearer/sharper. Reason is that there is room for a bigger icon on this device. Launcher icon size at xxhdpi is 144x144 pixels.

For reference see: https://plus.google.com/118292708268361843293/posts/ePQya3KsTjW

Fiann

Answer 2

As long as you have xhdpi assets, and layouts made for 10" tablets, you shouldn't have to do anything (except add a new xxhdpi launcher icon, as @Mattias mentioned).

To make a Nexus 10 AVD, navigate to Device Definitions:

Then, click New Device. Fill it out something like this:

Now it will be listed in the devices drop-down that you show above.

Lightyear

Thank you for the screenshots. Pics make it so easy. – Pistol

Answer 3

The best way to emulate the Nexus 10 is to use AndroVM. I am currently running Android on it with the full Nexus 10 2560x1600 resolution and it fits onto my HD screen if I set AndroVM to use 320dpi.

Oh.. and it's VERY fast :-)

I personally use it over emulators and real hardware devices as it's extremely responsive and the deployment of the APK is lightning fast.

I do not contribute to the AndroVM project myself by the way, but it has speeded up my own development cycle considerably. In all development cycles, a developer waiting to see if their code tweaks work using an emulator or a hardware device adds considerable time overhead. I would thoroughly recommend using AndroVM regardless of screen size during normal code development.

Chaperon