Google has unveiled an incremental release of the Android platform featuring optimizations for a wider range of tablets and a compatibility enhancement for fixed-size applications.
Android 3.2, which starting becoming available on Motorola Xoom devices last week, offers refinements to ensure a greater user experience on more tablets, said Xavier Ducrohet, Android SDK lead. A new compatibility display mode in version 3.2 gives users a way to view fixed-size applications on larger devices. “The mode provides a pixel-scaled alternative to the standard UI stretching, for apps that are not designed to run on larger screen sizes,” Ducrohet said in a post on the Android Developers blog.
Version 3.2 also offers an extended screen support API. “For developers who want more precise control over their UI across the range of Android-powered devices, the platform’s screen support API is extended with new resource qualifiers and manifest attributes, to also allow targeting screens by their dimensions,” Ducrohet said.
Also, on devices supporting a removable SD card, users can load media files directly from the SD card to applications. Improving accommodations for screen size had been discussed by Google last week; the 3.2 release brings this upgrade to fruition.
