Criteria used by Google Play to determine whether an app is designed for tablets

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I have an application made for Android, and I took every possible care regarding layout, screen resolutions, dpi etc. Inclusive, everything is properly configured in the manifest.

The layout of the application is very different on a mobile phone and tablets.

Yet Google insists that:

...your APK does not seem to have been designed for tablets of 7"

...your APK does not seem to have been designed for tablets of 10"

Saying I should follow this rule here: Take Advantage of extra screen area available on tablets

I came to assume that "the robot" that does this analysis gives this result by not finding all XML layout files in separate folders, as

  • layout
  • layout-sw600dp
  • layout-sw720dp
  • etc.

However, although I haven’t created these folders, I handle all cases of layout and guidance via code, changing their elements and spacing as needed.

After almost two months of searching (from 24/4 to 19/6), I still haven’t been able to determine exactly what "the robot" is looking for, so I contacted the Google people directly for them to manually review my app, through the link Designed for Tablets Contact Form on the page Tablet App Quality.

They answered me as follows:

Thank you for contacting Google Play Support. Upon further review, we have determined that your application, br.com.carlosrafaelgn.fplay, does not Meet the basic tablet app quality Checklist to be considered Designed for use on tablet Devices as Explained here: http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/quality/tablet.html. Kindly visit this link and Concentrate your efforts on the following:

2 - Optimize your layouts for Larger screens

3 - Take Advantage of extra screen area available on tablets

4 - Use Icons and other Assets that are Designed for tablets screens

11 - Showcase your tablet UI in Google Play

Which confused me the most, after all, my app uses very few drawables (almost all icons of app are sourced from a custom font, so each icon is a Glyph of the font and can be easily resized to any size). And all icons coming from drawables have MDPI, HDPI, XHDPI and XXHDPI versions.

My confusion comes from number 4:

Use Icons and other Assets that are Designed for tablets screens

Someone has been there, and has the slightest idea what that means (since I created the 4 versions of drawables)?

What are the criteria that he, the Google Play robot, uses to determine whether an APK is not designed for tablets?

android google-play
  • 1

    My guess is that it uses as a criterion the presence of layout files in different folders even, because analyzing the compiled code would be a little complicated with the use of code obfuscators like Proguard for example. I’m a little surprised to learn that you had more ease customizing this programmatically than through XML. That’s right?

  • Yes, it was! In my case it made up for changing the layout via code. I noticed that most of the changes consisted of altered spacing and font size. The most brutal changes are in Activity Main, and for it I effectively created a layout folder-sw600dp.

  • 1

    I found it very wasteful to simply copy the other files into the layout-sw600dp and increase APK size without need.

  • I get it. I don’t know an alternative to font size, but for spacing I would have parameterized the value of each dimension in files dimens.xml customized for each appliance profile, a res/values/dimens.xml, another in res/values-land/dimens.xml, res/values-sw600dp/dimens.xml, etc. Get the idea? The values stored in dimens.xml are defined in dp (or dip, however you prefer).

  • I agree. But would that be enough for Google Play to understand? If it is, I change now :) I would very much like to have a list of the items they check...

  • I believe so, because it’s the only way I see for Google to define which device profiles an app accepts.

  • Complementing: on the criteria, it is worth reading this item of documentation, which says that you may have to specifically declare large and extra-large sizes of screens in the Manifest depending on the Android version that your application supports: http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/quality/tablet.html#support-screens

  • Yes, I already knew these rules, and this is duly stated in the manifesto. In fact, that’s why I was initially amazed by what Google Play accused. This is the manifesto of my application Androidmanifest.xml

  • 1

    Maybe that question of mine help you with something, it may be that add the support-screens in the manifest and enable all work.

  • Hi @iTSangar, this has already been done and without success. Take a look at my manifesto here Androidmanifest.xml

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Looking at your Manifest and seeing everything you’ve done, it seems to be right. But looking at the recommendations on the site, I don’t know if you added screen-shots for tablets of 7" and 10" which is recommended in item 11.

Also, I think it is not necessary to have sw600dp and sw720dp folders, having the standards (mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi and xxhdpi) enough. That’s what I did in an app I posted on play with tablet support.

  • I added the screenshots, by the way, it was because of them that I got a play error "you submitted captures for tablets, but your app doesn’t seem to have been designed for tablets". Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either had create sw600dp and sw720dp folders, otherwise like fullscreen games, which only have one Activity...

  • Is your app already in production? Could you provide the play link? Another question, when google says it is not compatible, is that tab "Optimization tips" no?

  • 1

    Yes! It’s open source, and it’s already up here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=br.com.carlosrafaelgn.fplay That’s it! It’s in Optimization tips...

  • Despite google say that is not compatible with tablet, I could install in mine without problems. To try to help you follow the folder structure of my project (http://postimg.org/image/ez5dld95l) and the layout for large screen that I use, it has two Fragments (I don’t know if google analysis checks this type of thing, http://postimg.org/image/4kxtbwac5). Another thing, in your project I noticed the suffix _l for large layout, isn’t it better to play for the folder (layout-large) so you don’t have to make the logic in the code? I don’t know if it influences the analysis, but it reduces the probability of error in your code.

  • Yes, I have two tablets to test, besides the emulator. And install and run ok... Only _l that is not for large, but for Landscape (w > h). I’ll look at your structure as soon as I get to the PC.

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