Google recently promised to start bringing more high-quality apps to Chromebooks. Apps that scale well and use mouse and keyboard or gamepad support are hard to find, and having them all in one place or at the top of the store allows Chrome OS users to find and more easily discover the content that suits them.
On the Android Developer Blog, Google is now adding a new promise to the mix in the form of three updates. It wants to help owners of large-screen devices find and use high-quality apps and games, and it’s no longer exclusive to Chromebooks. Since ChromeOS, Android tablets and foldables have surpassed 250 million active devices, there’s no longer any way to ignore the massive wave of users who are now making these larger screens part of their lifestyle.
First, it will update its Store layout and ranking logic when accessed from larger screens to display high-quality apps and games based on the Large App Quality Guidelines. recently released screen and core application quality guidelines. These documents help developers create great user experiences on larger screens, so there’s no longer an excuse for an app to get stuck in phone mode with black bars left and right if it is loaded on a Chromebook, for example. Obviously, it goes much further than that too, as the inputs commonly used on these other devices must also be respected, whereas phones use touch input.
Second, it will start alerting users on these larger-screen devices if they install “low-quality apps”, or those that don’t follow the aforementioned guidelines. You need to know what to expect when you install an app or game from the start, which will ensure that this long-awaited expectation is met.
Finally, Google will do better to separate ratings and reviews based on device type. Tablets and foldables, ChromeOS, Wear and Auto will all be filters you can select while giving or displaying a star rating or someone’s thoughts on their experience so you can kick off an install knowing exactly how it will work on your device.
Ultimately, this all means the company promises to serve a large user base that has been underutilized for far too long, and I’m extremely happy to see that. If you’re a developer, you’ll also get a breakdown of these stats on your Play Developer Console, and they’ll help you better understand your audience and give them what they want and need.
