Android Adds Mode for Apps on Large Screens

Apps really don’t matter, but those who insist they do like to point to the dearth of so-called tablet apps designed to run on Honeycomb.

One of the first things I noticed about Honeycomb on the Motorola Xoom was that unlike iPhone apps running on the iPad, Android apps look just fine in large screen format, for the most part, negating the need for tablet apps.

For the few apps that don’t handle large screens well, Android just added a new screen compatibility mode feature to Honeycomb.

Android Developers Blog: New Mode for Apps on Large Screens

Apple made a genius move by preventing iPhone apps from looking good on the iPad, thereby allowing developers to sell large format versions of their apps.

Google made a similarly smart move by scaling small format apps to look good on larger displays. However, they haven’t marketed this feature.

So, bloggers with iPads and pundits assume that the model is the same and count lack of tablet apps as one of the reasons why Android tablets won’t succeed. That’s just not true.

AboutJake

a.k.a.:jkuramot

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