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.

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

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.

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.