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Captain_Planet1
Participating Frequently
October 1, 2013
Question

Converting iOS app to Android - advice

  • October 1, 2013
  • 1 reply
  • 3342 views

Hi.

I've got a few apps released for iOS - the resolution is 320 x 480.  I'm thinking about converting these to Android.  However, I'm not sure what resolution to target to hit the most users?  I guess ideally I'd code them to adjust for different resolutions, but I'm a single developer and don't have time to do this for all my apps.  So I'm trying to pick the most popular.

I've read this: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html but it doesn't seem to clarify things for me. 

Also, would converting my iOS apps to Android just require some config changes (certificates, icons etc) or would it likely need some additional AS3 tweaks/additions?

Any advice appreciated.

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1 reply

Colin Holgate
Colin Holgate
Inspiring
October 1, 2013

What is the nature of your apps? If they are scenes that can have some extra content off the sides you can do all device screen sizes with the one FLA. Look at the iPhone and iPad screens of this app:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/thomas-friends-lift-haul-collection/id641291615?mt=8

Notice how on the iPad you see a little more sky and ground. If you can work that way, and either have extra content on the left and right, or above and below, you can set the stage scale mode to showAll, and the stage will fill the device screen, revealing that extra content on wider or taller screens.

If you can have extra content in all four directions you could use the scale mode noBorder. For that example you would have a 14:9 stage, and enough content to go as wide as 16:9, or as tall as 4:3.

I made these test pages to show how the stage looks, just resize your browser window to simulate different device sizes and ratios:

http://xfiles.funnygarbage.com/~colinholgate/rev/showall.html

http://xfiles.funnygarbage.com/~colinholgate/rev/noborder.html

The red lines represent the iPad ratio, the green lines are iPhone 3gs & iPhone 4, and the blue lines are iPhone 5.

C
Captain_Planet1Author
Participating Frequently
October 1, 2013

Hi Colin.

Errrm.  Hmmm.  Well I've got controls ('next' page button, 'previous' page button) and a page title caption/label which are all butted to the edges of the screen (right, left and top respectively).  And I guess I'd like them to stay that way.  So I'm not sure that lends itself to your method without adding logic to move the controls?

Is there a way to upscale my apps dynamically, maintaining the dimensions (portrait mode) and just having blank borders filling the appropriate gaps?

Colin Holgate
Colin Holgate
Inspiring
October 1, 2013

If you look in the screenshots for that app, there are elements that also butt up against the edges. You can place those using code, that works out the location based on the ratio of the screen. The rest of the stage could work like I was suggestion.

There are too many ratios out there to solve the problem without doing quite a bit of layout code, and not just for those few edge controls. So, let Flash handle most of the problem, and you just take care of the, literally, few edge cases.

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