TWEAK APPS FOR GALAXY S8, 8+, GOOGLE TELLS DEVELOPERS

With the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, a new trend has emerged in the smartphone market. The new flagships sport an unusual aspect ratio of 18:5:9, screening more content on its Infinity display. The smartphones offer an increased screen size with almost non-existent bezels, and are highly compact as compared to other smartphones. This makes the device easy for users to navigate through the screen with one hand.

Because Samsung went on with a larger display size, Google has asked its application developers to optimise their existing, and future applications to match the new display size with aspect ratios of 18:9 or 18:5:9. This is important in order to avoid the unpleasant black/white bars at the top and bottom of the screen when an app is launched.

Google released a post on the company’s blog urging developers to “take full advantage of the larger display formats.” After the update, the applications would fully cover the wider and longer display, thus eliminating unsightly bar at the top. “We recommend that you design your app to support aspect ratios of 2.1 or higher,” reads the post on Android Developer’s blog.

App developers will now have to work on their existing apps that already feature on the Play Store. With less time on their hands, developers will have to work quickly and release updates as soon as possible since the Galaxy S8 will start shipping in the next 20 days.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ sports a Super AMOLED 5.8-inch (S9) and 6.2inch (S8+) respectively, with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 at the front and back. Both are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 for US markets and Exynos 8895 Octa for markets in Europe, Middle East, and Africa with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.