IOS and Android

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Quirks, Things to know

  • Mobile device develop much more rapidly than desktop systems.
  • There is much more variation in the marketplace.
  • Parts of this presentation will no longer be valid in 6 months.
  • HTML5 standards are being gradually adopted.
  • You cannot assume all devices have all features.
  • To check if an OS has a particular feature, check http://www.caniuse.com

iOS

  • 75% of users are on iOS 7 (the latest) already
  • Less than 5% are older than iOS 6.
  • All devices made by Apple

Android

  • 45% of users are in Android 4.x
  • More than 50% are in Android 2.x
  • Android 2.x devices are still being manufactured
  • Two versions of the brower: Android Browser and Chrome.
  • Android browser is no longer being developed.
  • Chrome browser is much more advanced.
  • Chrome browser only runs on Android 4+
  • Devices are made by hundreds of manufacturers
  • Since Android is open source, there is no standard on how Android is configured.
  • Some manufacturers (Amazon, Samsung) put their own software on top of Android.
  • As a result, Android devices have more quirks than iOS.

Dealing with different screen sizes

  • Making apps which look good on all the devices they run on is hard.

Different screen sizes

  • Physical screen sizes on phone devices run from 3.5 inches to more than 5
  • The ratio of width to height is not always the same.
  • For example, the iPhone 4 is 320x480, while the iPhone 5 is 320x568.
  • Actually, since the iPhone 5 is a retina, it is 640x1136.
  • Positions on retina devices are based on the 320x578.
  • Text and images are drawn more precisely using the extra pixels.
  • Use SysInfo(2) and SysInfo(3) to get the current width and height.
  • It is usually correct.
  • No method has been found yet that gets the correct width and height for all devices!

Orientation

  • If you want to run your app in both portrait and landscape, you have to program this yourself.
  • Simply scaling the controls will not work in most cases.
  • You may even want to rethink the design for usability.

Tablets

  • You cannot simply scale all the controls up in size.
  • If you do, your app will look terrible.
  • Consider using the extra space for more usability.
  • For example, display two forms size by side.