Ars Dissects Android's Problems With Big Screens -- Including In Lollipop

When it comes to tablets, Google doesn't even follow its own design guidelines." That's the upshot of Ars Technica writer Andew Cunningham's detailed, illustrated look at how Android handles screens much larger than seven inches, going back to the first large Android tablets a few years ago, but including Android 5.0 (Lollipop) on the Nexus 10 and similar sized devices. Cunningham is unimpressed with the use of space for both practical and aesthetic reasons, and says that problems crop up areas that are purely under Google's control, like control panels and default apps, as well as (more understandably) in third party apps. The Nexus 10 took 10-inch tablets back to the "blown-up phone" version of the UI, where buttons and other UI stuff was all put in the center of the screen. This makes using a 10-inch tablet the same as using a 7-inch tablet or a phone, which is good for consistency, but in retrospect it was a big step backward for widescreen tablets. The old interface put everything at the edges of the screen where your thumbs could easily reach them. The new one often requires the pointer finger of one of your hands or some serious thumb-stretching. ... If anything, Lollipop takes another step backward here. You used to be able to swipe down on the left side of the screen to see your notifications and the right side of the screen to see the Quick Settings, and now those two menus have been unified and placed right in the center of the screen. The Nexus 10 is the most comfortable to use if it's lying flat on a table or stand and Lollipop does nothing to help you out there.

Comments

Re:Seems obvious

[Solandri]

Google is following Apple and Microsoft and moving away from widescreen tablets. Good riddance, I say; 4:3 or 3:2 is much better for showing a 'page' of information.

Most people who think this forget about margins and compare to the entire page size. 4:3 is actually the worst aspect ratio. The aspect ratio of a tablet only refers to the screen size. Your tablet already has bezels which act an awful lot like margins. Why do you want to waste valuable screen space on displaying blank margins?

A trade paperback is typically 6"x9". Margins are asymmetrical, typically .75" and .875" on the sides (larger margin for the center gutter), .75" and .5" for the top and bottom (larger margin for the page number). That leaves a printed area of 4.375" x 7.75", which is a 1.77 aspect ratio. Almost exactly 16:9 (1.78). If you go with smaller .5" and .75" margins on the sides, .5" and .5" margins on top and bottom, you get a 1.68 aspect ratio - between 16:10 and 16:9.

For a regular paperback that's 5"x8", these margins give a 2.0 and 1.87 aspect ratio respectively. For a pocket paperback (4.18"x6.88"), the aspect ratios are 2.2 and 2.0. So for something the size of a phablet or 7" tablet, 16:9 is pretty close to ideal.

"But what about 10" tablets?" The printed area of an A4-sized sheet of paper with 25 cm margins is 1.54:1. Right in between 3:2 and 16:10. A letter-sized sheet of paper with 1 inch margins is 1.38, right between 3:2 and 4:3. However, if you look at anything published on A4-sized or letter-sized paper, the text is nearly always arranged in two columns. So 4:3 and even 3:2 is really too wide for displaying scrollable text. That's why nearly all websites have switched to a format with menus on the left, a narrow column of text, and misc links on the right. The main reason a "page" is this wide is so you can include wider pictures which span both columns. This becomes unnecessary when you can zoom into the picture like on a tablet, or rotate it to landscape mode and have the picture automatically flip to fill the longer width of the screen.

(Also note that the printed area of A4 and letter size paper is actually between 11"-13". Tablets are only 10" because of cost and weight. Assuming the publishing industry knew what they were doing if after centuries of printing they standardized on A4 and letter sizes, 10" tablets are eventually going to be phased out for 11", 12", and even 13" models as technology improves and they become lighter and cheaper.)