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I have reviewed the content of some of the currently best Android apps (not to mention that I often check the content of apps I personally or professionally use) and I see that they DO NOT support small screens. I do not mean they they literary do not support them by excluding them in the Manifest file. It's just that the directory LDPI is almost empty (except launcher icon and maybe a few other icons) and that layout-small directory does not even exist.

So the question is, should we bother to support the small screens when nowadays Android devices start from MDPI/NORMAL to up?

sandalone
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The whole point of Android is to be compatible with different hardware characteristics so I would tend to say "yes" it's important to consider low res targets. Although, doing some research it's true that there are less and less ldpi devices. This article shows interesting results:

UPDATE: watch that article on Android developer website for more up to date figures: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html

Romain Piel
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  • One addendum: the release of the Galaxy Gear and expected release of competing wearables may change this trend in the direction of more small screen android devices. – Cameron Fredman Oct 30 '13 at 22:21
  • That won't change anything because smart watches can't have support for Google Play. See Dianne Hackborn's comment on this post: https://plus.google.com/+KevinBarry/posts/XEKbQUg7QG3 – Romain Piel Oct 31 '13 at 09:49
  • Is there a recent version of this chart available? – Mark Buikema Dec 02 '13 at 18:27
  • See the link in the answer http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html – Romain Piel Dec 02 '13 at 20:01
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That, of course, depends on how compatible you want your application to be. If you want it to support older, smaller screens, then yes; otherwise, no. This sounds more like a business decision than a technical one.

Jeremy Holovacs
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I think you may be confusing density and screen size, as you're using the terms interchangeably.

Just because you have a small screen size, does not mean it has to be low-density. There are screens that register themselves as "small" to android, that are considered HDPI, based off their resolution.

Also, if you have MDPI images, it'll work just fine on devices reporting as "small", as most of that is based off the design of your layout and how well it flows across multiple screen sizes.

As you can see on the Android screen grid, small <> ldpi. http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html#testing

In closing, just because you aren't including LDPI images doesn't mean you don't support small screens.

jlindenbaum
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This question, to me, comes down to time vs. reward. According to http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html, a little over 3% of the market base are still running pre-2.1 phones. If Ice Cream Sandwich does what its supposed to do, hopefully these conversations will go the way of the dodo.

At this point very few people have those kinds of devices, and therefor most don't support it. However, those who do support it have a much greater chance of being used by that small percent, simply because no one else is selling to them.

If it makes sense for you app, and you have the time and energy to put into making it compatible, why not? On the other hand you shouldn't try to shoehorn something in and cause it to become a worse product for it.

Also they have released the ability to have multiple APKs based on different requirements, so we can develop apps targeted to earlier phones, without interfering, or adding code and resources, to our higher targeted apps.

Ashterothi
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  • I know I talked about version number, and not screen size, but that's the chart I could find quickly, and the argument is the same. – Ashterothi Aug 15 '11 at 16:08