Updating an old pre-tablet Android app to a tablet version

Question

So here's the scenario: we have an old app on the Play Store that was published before there were any tablets (it runs on tablets using the phone interface.) We want to release an update to that app (because it has >150K users) instead of a new app but because the design for the phone UI won't be ready in time for our deadline we want to release an update that targets only tablets for now while the existing users continue to use the old phone-only app. Later, when the design and implementation of the phone UI is complete, we want to release another update that adds support for phones.

Ideally what should happen is if a user is using the old app on a phone, they will not get the first upgrade notification but a user running it on a tablet will get the update notification (and a new user installing it for the first time will get the the old apk if, for example, they're running a Gingerbread phone while a user using, say, a Nexus 7 will get the new apk.) Eventually, all users will get the update notification to the second release no matter what Android version/device type they are running.

If we do this, what will the experience be for the current users that are using the old version on phones? Will they be prompted to upgrade to an app version they cannot run or will they get no update notification at all? Later, when we release the second upgrade that does support phones will they then get the update notification?

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure what you mean by having an update only available to a certain device. Tablets and phones work quite differently and the Google Play market is capable of differentiating what will run on the user's current device and what won't.

Like the previous answer you WILL be required to construct different layouts specifically for tablets.

However if you only want an update to tablets to take place on tablets - You need to get as much information about the screen size, density, device version and maybe even the current users android OS version to really help you narrow down whether the current device is a tablet or large screen device or not.

For example: Get screen dimensions in pixels shows you how to get screen dimensions.

How can I check the system version of Android? Gives you more information about the current android version.

getting the screen density programmatically in android? will allow you to find out the screen density of the current screen.

Using all of the above, or some similar combination, you can determine if the user is running your app on the tablet, if they are, provide them with an update, if not, the app continues with its regular layouts as normal.

I'm not quite sure if this is the answer you were looking for, but I hope it helps. Take care

Answer 2

To make your app look great on tablets, just add specialized layout types, just like layout-large or layout-sw600dp. Then copy your existing layout-xml files from your layout folder to these and modify them as required. I suggest reading Supporting Different Screen Sizes.

This way, you add tablet-optimization without throwing away phone compatibility.