Smartphone development companies are in a continuous race to bring something innovative to the market. This led to the launch of foldable smartphones in recent time and right since the beginning, these grabbed the pulse of the millennial. Popular brands Mobile Apps like Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, Motorola, etc., are heavily investing in the production of foldable smartphones. The global foldable device shipments are expected to reach 50.1 million units by 2022.
What is Foldable Smartphone: An Overview
The screens of foldable smartphones can be folded into a double-size full-screen display. Such devices aim at providing an immersive experience to the users by offering more space for browsing the internet, reading content, watching videos, or playing games. The device can be folded back, which enhances convenience for transportation.
As you can understand, the professionals of any mobile app development company need to take the extensive demand for foldable smartphones into account and bring a change in the way they develop apps. We will explore all about it in the following sections. Let’s dive in then.
Tips to Develop Mobile Apps for Foldable Smartphones
Mind Different States of the Phone
The major difference between a foldable phone and a traditional phone is that you can use the former in two ways – folded and unfolded.
Naturally, it will impact the functionality of the app. You should consider which features to reflect on which screen. The unfolded screen will give the users a more enriching experience, so you may allow them to access some extra features while interacting with the app on the unfolded screen. This will create a distinct user experience while accessing an app in the folded and unfolded screen.
Make the App Resizable
One of the significant features of foldable smartphones is that their screens are larger than the smartphones available in the market. Also, several foldable smartphones are equipped with a multi-window mode (we will talk more about multi-window later in the blog).
Therefore, the developers must ensure that the app is easily accessible on distinct screen sizes.
The best way to do this is by using the code: “resizeableActivity=true”. This code helps the system to assume that the app supports resizeable screens and multi-window modes.
If the app is set with resizeableActivity=false, it informs the system that the app doesn’t support multi-window. The system may still resize the app automatically, but the compatibility will be implemented by applying the same configuration to each component of the app. This may lead to a crash, and the device may demand to restart the app rather than changing the configuration.
Aspect Ratio Adjustment
The aspect ratio is the proportion of the width and height of the display screen. For instance, 1:1 means that the width and height are the same. Depending on the brand, the aspect ratio of a foldable smartphone can vary.
It is essential to test an app for diverse screen ratios. This step will ensure that the app is compatible with most devices. You can use minAspectRatio and maxAspectRatio to check the lowest and highest ratios that the app can handle.
To be compatible with as many devices as possible, test the app for various aspect ratios, including 1:1, 16:10, 4:3, 5:3, 16:9, 3:2, and 21:9.
App Continuity
While accessing an app on a foldable device, an app can transit from one screen to another instantly. It can also switch between a portrait and landscape mode. To produce a superb user experience, it’s crucial to ensure that the current task should continue seamlessly after the transition. The app should resume at the same state. This is called multi-resume.
Suppose a user was playing a game in portrait mode. Suddenly he/she unfolds the device and starts to play in the landscape mode, which has a completely different aspect ratio. The game should resume just where the user stopped in the folded screen and offer a glitch-free experience.
Since the system triggers a configuration change during each transition, such apps should save the UI state and support the configuration changes seamlessly.
Multi-Window
Operating multiple windows at once is one of the benefits of foldable smartphones. In some of the traditional phones, two apps could run side by side. The large screen of a foldable device and its advanced technology allows three or more apps to run on the screen simultaneously.
With the multi-window feature getting more commonplace, consider supporting the drag-and-drop feature in your app. To verify your app’s performance in the multi-window mode, here’s what to do:
- Switch from your app to another app and check if the app behaves properly. For instance, if your app plays a video, verify that the video can still play when the user is interacting with another app.
- In split-screen mode, move the dividing bar in order to make the app larger and smaller. Make sure that the app doesn’t crash, the resize operation doesn’t take a long time, and the essential features are visible & accessible.
Uncompromised Quality
Make sure that the functionality of the apps offers an optimal user experience. Pay attention to the ratio and resolution to ensure that the app is compatible with most of the foldable devices. Since the foldable smartphone is a relatively new thing in the digital realm, developing an app that perfectly suits its demand can be challenging, at least during the initial time.
If you don’t want to take a risk, it’s better to engage professional mobile app development services. Adopting the best practices, the experts can craft a user engaging application that is compatible with as many devices as possible.
Closing Thoughts
Developing an Mobile Apps for a foldable smartphone may seem to be daunting, but it’s time to acknowledge the latest changes in the technological realm and keep up with them. We hope that the above-mentioned tips will be useful for you. Implement these and thank us later!
