Google says Android apps need not be device-specific

If you thought Android was a mere smartphone platform, think again. Google is gleefully celebrating the fact that its operating system is finding a home on a Galaxy of devices, from tablets to TVs to home phone systems. Further, the company is claiming to Android developers that their wares need only be written once to support any number of screen sizes and resolutions.

A high level of ubiquity, portability, and flexibility may prove critical in the battle of portable, lightweight operating systems against rivals such as Apple iOS and HP’s webOS. Users will want to be able to get at their familiar apps, regardless of device. Developers, meanwhile, may see a benefit developing for a platform that lends itself well to relatively easy porting among devices.

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In a post on the Android Developers blog, open source and compatibility program manager Dan Morrill talks about the impact of having such an array of devices emerging with varying screen sizes, such as the 5-inch Dell Streak and the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab. “It’s pretty rare that we see problems with existing apps running on large-screen devices, but at the same time many apps would benefit from making better use of the additional screen space,” he writes. “For instance, an email app might be improved by changing its UI from a list-oriented layout to a two-pane view.”

There’s a platform for that — or at least, that’s what Google wants you to think: “Android lets you provide versions of your UI optimized for various screen configurations, and each device will pick the one that runs best,” Morrill writes.

Yet there’s also a critical caveat here: “To fully unlock this additional reach, you should double-check your app and tweak it if you need to, so that it puts its best foot forward,” Morrill cautions.

Or to put it another way: “Yes, you can do scaling, flow layouts and all that stuff on every platform if you know what you’re doing, and that works up to a point — just as HTML does when it’s designed well,” said InfoWorld’s Strategic Developer blogger Martin Heller. “But when you change form factors on an app, some things won’t necessarily work well.”

Google’s competitors aren’t blind to beauty of platform portability. iOS, of course, runs on the iPhone and its bigger brother, the iPad. Apple boasts that iPhone (and iPod) apps run in the iPad, either “in their original size, or you can expand them to fill the iPad screen.” But then, Apple has greater control over the dimensions of devices running iOS and can make sure apps scale accordingly. Even so, according to Heller, iPhone to iPad is a bigger jump than developers might realize.

Back to platform portability, though: HP has made it clear that the platform it picked up from Palm isn’t going to be bound simply to smartphones. Rather, it also will show up on tablets and printers, as well as enterprise-oriented, Web-connected hardware. The prospects of portability looks pretty good; the UI is based on HTML 5 and CSS 3, so it should automatically do flow layouts.

BlackBerry, meanwhile, may not even port between devices itself. RIM has hinted at plans to introduce a tablet with the unfortunately named BlackPad, but the device might run an OS based on technology from QNX Software.

This article, “Google says Android apps need not be device-specific,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.