Given the 7-inch screen of the Galaxy Tab, Samsung representatives have acknowledged that some apps may not scale properly on the Android tablet running Android 2.2 Froyo. For its part, Google has publicly stated that Android 2.2 was not designed for tablets, and the latest confirmation from Samsung’s camp may be yet another confirmation. Samsung says that those apps that do not scale will display in WVGA resolution, noting that only a few of third-party apps would be affected and that Samsung apps and Google’s native apps work perfectly fine. The company declined to state how many apps, or what percentage, would not work.
The case with Samsung is not unique. On Apple’s iPad, apps that weren’t written for the larger iPad display can scale but does not take up the full display space. This problem is similar on the Galaxy Tab where certain third-party apps will not make full utilization of the tablet’s 1024 X 600 resolution and would only use the 800 X 400 resolution. The problem doesn’t seem to affect video playing, Web browsing, or pre-loaded applications.
According to Samsung:
“It has not been exactly determined how many of the Android Market apps will be fully scalable/non-scalable. What Samsung is focusing on is bringing all of its own proprietary services and apps such as Social Hub, calendar, e-mail, etc., as fully scalable, along with Google mobile services like Google Maps, Gmail, etc. What we do know now is that many of the Android Market apps will be scalable, but it is just too early to put an exact number of percentage.”
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