your APK does not seem to be designed for tablets? Really?

izam

I'm trying to get on to the 'Designed for tablets' list in the Google Play Store. I already published my APK using the size 720p.
But yet, the play store developer console keeps throwing this at me: You uploaded screenshots for 7-inch tablets, but your APK does not seem to be designed for 7-inch tablets.

and looking at the APK details this came up:

Supported Android devices 4229 devices
API levels 9+
Screen layouts 4 screen layouts
small
normal
large
xlarge

Am I missing a step in GS publishing to make sure that tablets are supported?

luislopezcom

Same problem here, only partly solved. There are some guidelines in Google Play you have to meet in order to get your apk approved as "designed for tablets":
http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/quality/tablet.html

Google Play analyzes the manifest.xml file in your apk and checks if it´s "tablet friendly":

a) if the minimum Android version and the target Android version are good for tablets (both must be above 11, better above 14)

I solved this by editing these lines in the manifest.xml to:

uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="14"
android:targetSdkVersion="14"

b) if it uses any "telephone only" features that tablets don´t have. I also went over this by eliminating the line

uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE"

which my app didn´t need

and adding

uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.telephony" android:required="false"


(*please note editing the manifest.xml on a Gamesalad apk requires some work: decompiling, editing, recompiling, signing and aligning with different console tools.)

but now Google Play keeps saying my app is not "designed for tablets". now the reason is "you apk must include design resources optimized for the most common tablet screen densities".

Anyone has a clue on how to go around this? Is it a manifest thing or should the apk really have all those resources? (which would cause my app to go over the 50 MB limit

My app is actually good for tablets, thoroughly tested on adhocs, and filling the screen on 7" and 10" with no letterboxing.

Thanks everyone

jigglybean

I think its a bug somewhere. Because the same apk file for me, works fine on Kindle Fires - all of them!

Ive actually installed ALL the sdk files to avoid any issues and this error always comes up on google. It clearly can't detect something within the GS coding.

luislopezcom

It looks like it´s Google´s policy right now - they catalog every app as "designed for telephones" or "designed for tablets" in order to encourage (=force) developers to make best use of tablets (as opposed as using the same binary for both) if they want to be listed at all in the app store for tablets.

Amazon doesn´t need to do that, as they don´t sell any phones.

Anyway, as GS does code for tablets, it would be nice to have an option "designed for tablets" in the GS Android publishing section.

Or at least some advice on which code we need in the manifest to get accepted, because right now we can´t.

UtopianGames

Just noticed this myself as I'm getting into Google and Amazon we need a fix for the tablet thing for sure.

Darren.

Wboko

Yet another issue with Android and GameSalad... ~X(

luke2125

Hi,

I'm having the same issue, just uploaded to Google Play, and I've tested a couple of times on my Nexus 7 and it works fine with letterbox. Is this something that will be fix in the upcoming release?

God Bless...

Sincerely,

Sunday

Figuromo

Fixed yet?

DigiChain

Any news on this issue??

I'm pretty sure we must be missing out on sales due to this as my games don't show in the Google Play store when viewing on my Android tablet (unless I switch 'Designed for Tablets' off within the store).

adent42

Thanks for putting so much detail in this thread. We do have a way to set API level in the publishing interface, but as of now, we don't have a way of changing the telephony specific entries. We'll work on a patch for sometime this week (I'm in the middle of doing a major patch for arcade, so it will have to wait until after that).

Thanks!

barleyesq

Was there ever an update for this? Or easy method to get around it?

jigglybean

This is no longer a problem. In most cases, google play THINKS your app isn't designed for tablets if your screenshots aren't the size they recommend for tablets. Stupid, I know.