Category Archives: Android Developers Blog

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Helping Families Find High-Quality Apps for Kids

Posted by Mindy Brooks, General Manager, Kids and FamilyApps play an increasingly important role in all of our lives and we’re proud that Google Play helps families find educational and delightful experiences for kids. Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without the continued ingenuity and commitment of our developer partners. From kid-friendly entertainment apps to educational games, you’ve helped make our platform a fantastic destination for high-quality content for families. Today, we’re sharing a few updates on how we’re building on this work to create a safe and positive experience on Play.

Expanding Play’s Teacher Approved Program

In 2020, we introduced the Teacher Approved program to highlight high-quality apps that are reviewed and rated by teachers and child development specialists. Through this program, all apps in the Play Store’s Kids tab are Teacher Approved, and families can now more easily discover quality apps and games.

As part of our continued investments in Teacher Approved, we’re excited to expand the program so that all apps that meet Play’s Families Policy will be eligible to be reviewed and shown on the Kids tab. We’re also streamlining the process for developers. Moving forward, the requirements for the Designed for Families program, which previously were a separate prerequisite from Teacher Approved eligibility, will be merged into the broader Families Policy. By combining our requirements into one policy and expanding eligibility for the Teacher Approved program, we look forward to providing families with even more Teacher Approved apps and to help you, our developer partners, reach more users.

If you’re new to the Teacher Approved program, you might wonder what we’re looking for. Beyond strict privacy and security requirements, great content for kids can take many forms, whether that’s sparking curiosity, helping kids learn, or just plain fun. Our team of teachers and experts across the world review and rate apps on factors like age-appropriateness, quality of experience, enrichment, and delight. For added transparency, we include information in the app listing about why the app was rated highly to help parents determine if the app is right for their child. Please visit Google Play Academy for more information about how to design high-quality apps for kids.

Building on our Ads Policies to Protect Children

When you're creating a great app experience for kids and families, it’s also important that any ads served to children are appropriate and compliant with our Families Policy. This includes using Families Self-Certified Ads SDKs to serve ads to children. We recently made changes to the Families Self-Certified Ads SDK Program to help better protect users and make life easier for Families developers. SDKs that participate in the program are now required to identify which versions of their SDKs are appropriate for use in Families apps and you can view the list of self-certified versions in our Help Center.

Next year, all Families developers will be required to use only those versions of a Families Self-Certified Ads SDK that the SDK has identified as appropriate for use in Families apps. We encourage you to begin preparing now before the policy takes full effect.


Building Transparency with New Data Safety Section Options

In the coming weeks, all apps which include children in their target audience will be able to showcase their compliance with Play’s Families Policy requirements with a special badge on the Data safety section. This is another great way that you can better help families find apps that meet their needs, while supporting Play’s commitment to provide users more transparency and control over their data. To display the badge, please visit the "Security practices" section of your Data safety form.

Screenshot of a cellphone screen showing the Data Safety form in Google Play with the 'Security practices'section highlighted

As always, we’re grateful for your partnership in helping to make Play a fantastic platform for delightful, high-quality content for kids and families. For more developer resources:

Preparing for the Android Privacy Sandbox Beta

Posted by Anthony Chavez, VP Product ManagementIn February we announced the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of bringing new, more private advertising solutions to mobile.

Over the course of 2022, we've published design proposals and released a number of Developer Previews. We appreciate all of the feedback we've received which has helped us refine and improve these proposals.

Beginning early next year we plan to rollout the initial Privacy Sandbox Beta to Android 13 mobile devices, so that developers can take the next steps in testing these new solutions. We'll start with a small percentage of devices and increase over time. Note that Developer Previews will continue to be released and this is where we’ll first deliver the latest features for early feedback before being released on production devices.

Today, we're sharing more details about the Privacy Sandbox Beta so that developers can get prepared.


Enroll to access the Privacy-Preserving APIs

Starting with the Beta release, as well as future Developer Previews, developers will need to complete an enrollment process in order to utilize the ads-related APIs (including Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting). The enrollment process will verify developer identity and gather developer-specific data needed by the APIs. You can learn more about how to enroll here.


How to participate

The Privacy Sandbox Beta will be available for ad tech and app developers who wish to test the ads-related APIs as part of their solutions.

During the initial rollout stages, enrolled developers will also need to join the early testers program. This program will allow developers to test the APIs on a limited number of their own Android 13 devices for internal apps and requested published apps.

For the SDK Runtime, we’ll have a closed beta for developers to test Runtime-enabled SDK distribution to select apps. Because of the coordination required to test the SDK Runtime on production devices, we expect this beta to involve a limited number of partners who can dedicate resources to support this testing. If you’re interested in participating, please register your interest.

To utilize the Beta release, developers will need to compile their solutions with an API level 33 SDK extension update that is coming soon.


Advice For Advertisers & Publishers

We’ve heard from many advertisers and publishers about the role they can play in testing these new technologies. For companies that rely on third party solutions for ad serving or ad measurement, we recommend working with your providers to understand their testing roadmaps and how you can participate in early testing of Privacy Sandbox.

We want to thank everyone who has engaged on the Android Privacy Sandbox, and look forward to continued feedback as we enter this next phase of testing."

Preparing for the Android Privacy Sandbox Beta

Posted by Anthony Chavez, VP Product ManagementIn February we announced the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of bringing new, more private advertising solutions to mobile.

Over the course of 2022, we've published design proposals and released a number of Developer Previews. We appreciate all of the feedback we've received which has helped us refine and improve these proposals.

Beginning early next year we plan to rollout the initial Privacy Sandbox Beta to Android 13 mobile devices, so that developers can take the next steps in testing these new solutions. We'll start with a small percentage of devices and increase over time. Note that Developer Previews will continue to be released and this is where we’ll first deliver the latest features for early feedback before being released on production devices.

Today, we're sharing more details about the Privacy Sandbox Beta so that developers can get prepared.


Enroll to access the Privacy-Preserving APIs

Starting with the Beta release, as well as future Developer Previews, developers will need to complete an enrollment process in order to utilize the ads-related APIs (including Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting). The enrollment process will verify developer identity and gather developer-specific data needed by the APIs. You can learn more about how to enroll here.


How to participate

The Privacy Sandbox Beta will be available for ad tech and app developers who wish to test the ads-related APIs as part of their solutions.

During the initial rollout stages, enrolled developers will also need to join the early testers program. This program will allow developers to test the APIs on a limited number of their own Android 13 devices for internal apps and requested published apps.

For the SDK Runtime, we’ll have a closed beta for developers to test Runtime-enabled SDK distribution to select apps. Because of the coordination required to test the SDK Runtime on production devices, we expect this beta to involve a limited number of partners who can dedicate resources to support this testing. If you’re interested in participating, please register your interest.

To utilize the Beta release, developers will need to compile their solutions with an API level 33 SDK extension update that is coming soon.


Advice For Advertisers & Publishers

We’ve heard from many advertisers and publishers about the role they can play in testing these new technologies. For companies that rely on third party solutions for ad serving or ad measurement, we recommend working with your providers to understand their testing roadmaps and how you can participate in early testing of Privacy Sandbox.

We want to thank everyone who has engaged on the Android Privacy Sandbox, and look forward to continued feedback as we enter this next phase of testing."

Preparing for the Android Privacy Sandbox Beta

Posted by Anthony Chavez, VP Product ManagementIn February we announced the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of bringing new, more private advertising solutions to mobile.

Over the course of 2022, we've published design proposals and released a number of Developer Previews. We appreciate all of the feedback we've received which has helped us refine and improve these proposals.

Beginning early next year we plan to rollout the initial Privacy Sandbox Beta to Android 13 mobile devices, so that developers can take the next steps in testing these new solutions. We'll start with a small percentage of devices and increase over time. Note that Developer Previews will continue to be released and this is where we’ll first deliver the latest features for early feedback before being released on production devices.

Today, we're sharing more details about the Privacy Sandbox Beta so that developers can get prepared.


Enroll to access the Privacy-Preserving APIs

Starting with the Beta release, as well as future Developer Previews, developers will need to complete an enrollment process in order to utilize the ads-related APIs (including Topics, FLEDGE, and Attribution Reporting). The enrollment process will verify developer identity and gather developer-specific data needed by the APIs. You can learn more about how to enroll here.


How to participate

The Privacy Sandbox Beta will be available for ad tech and app developers who wish to test the ads-related APIs as part of their solutions.

During the initial rollout stages, enrolled developers will also need to join the early testers program. This program will allow developers to test the APIs on a limited number of their own Android 13 devices for internal apps and requested published apps.

For the SDK Runtime, we’ll have a closed beta for developers to test Runtime-enabled SDK distribution to select apps. Because of the coordination required to test the SDK Runtime on production devices, we expect this beta to involve a limited number of partners who can dedicate resources to support this testing. If you’re interested in participating, please register your interest.

To utilize the Beta release, developers will need to compile their solutions with an API level 33 SDK extension update that is coming soon.


Advice For Advertisers & Publishers

We’ve heard from many advertisers and publishers about the role they can play in testing these new technologies. For companies that rely on third party solutions for ad serving or ad measurement, we recommend working with your providers to understand their testing roadmaps and how you can participate in early testing of Privacy Sandbox.

We want to thank everyone who has engaged on the Android Privacy Sandbox, and look forward to continued feedback as we enter this next phase of testing."

Platform Track at Android Developer Summit ’22

Posted by Dan Galpin (@dagalpin), Developer Relations EngineerToday marks the final track for Android Developer Summit: the Platform Track, focused on developer features and guidance around Android 13. With your help, we're making the platform more private and secure, more personal, and more capable than ever. Tune into the livestream and watch the full playlist on YouTube! And if you’ve got any burning questions, be sure to Tweet them using #AskAndroid; at the end of our livestream, we’ll be assembling the Android experts to help answer them live; tune in at 12:30PM to see if we answer your question live! Here are the top 3 takeaways from the Platform track, and be sure to watch the full Platform session playlist on YouTube:

#1 – Security and Privacy

The first step to take advantage of Android 13's new security and privacy features is to Migrate Your Apps to Android 13, making sure that your app not only works great but also takes advantage of some of the new stuff Android 13 has to offer. We also cover what's Next Up on the Privacy Sandbox, Everything about Storage on Android, Demystifying Attestation, and how to Foster User Trust by Adopting Privacy-respecting Permission Workflows.The Photo Picker is an example of an easy to use API that gives users a great photo and video selection experience while minimizing app permissions. The rich Photo Picker experience will be supported back to Android 11 using an SDK Extension, a technology that uses Google System Updates with Modular System Components to add functionality to an OS release.
Photo Picker Easy to integrate A great user experience for browsing and selecting photos and videos No runtime permissions Updated independently of the platform Cloud integration coming soon!

#2 – Personalization

When it comes to personalization, we teach Building for a Multilingual World, Building Modern Android App Widgets, Designing a High Quality App with the Latest Android Features, and Building Accessibility Support for Compose — all ways that help make sure that your apps support the way your users use their devices.

Themed app icons allow your app icon to harmonize with user-selected theme colors, while Widgets allow users to literally use your app as part of their customized experience.
Themed app icons App icons in supported launchers are tinted to inherit theme colors. Requires apps to have both an adaptive icon and a monochromatic app icon

#3 – Capabilities

We're extending the capabilities of the platform to support the latest media and communications standards and more, so we're walking you through Presenting a High-quality Media Experience for all Users, Improving Your Social Experience Quality with Android Camera, how to handle Capture, Playback, and Sharing 10BIT Video, supporting BLE Audio in your Voice Communications Applications, an Introduction to Ultrawide-band on Android, the latest in Android Graphics, how to start Syncing Data with Health Connect, and implementing Hardware Acceleration for ML on-device. We even shared how to Migrate to Play Billing Library 5 and what it does to make subscriptions more flexible on Google Play.

To learn more about how you can secure your app, maximize user privacy, make your app part of a more personal Android, leverage new platform capabilities, and more, check out the full playlist.

Leading Health and Fitness Apps Roll Out Health Connect Integrations

Posted by Sara Hamilton, Developer RelationsEarlier this year, we introduced Health Connect as a way for app developers like you to have early access to a platform that securely shares health and fitness data across Android devices, with user consent. We collaborated with Samsung to build this platform which simplifies the connectivity between your apps while providing centralized privacy controls for users. We are now making the Health Connect (Beta) app available for download in Google Play to give users a central place to manage their privacy settings with granular controls to see which apps have access to data at any given time.

Today, 10+ health, fitness and wellness apps are rolling out integrations with the platform including early adopters of Health Connect like MyFitnessPal, Oura and Peloton.
Against a light blue background, an illustration of a person and their dog looking at a large screen with a 3x3 display of health app icons: Lifesum, Fitbit, MyFitnessPal, Dexcom, Samsung Health, Oura, Peloton, Flo,and WW.
Through the first wave of integrations, we have seen Health Connect provide many key benefits to developers.


Reduced fragmentation makes it easier to give users more holistic health insights

By enabling health and fitness apps to talk to each other, each app is able to provide a user with better, more holistic health insights.

In the past, developers had to establish multiple API connections to share data between different apps and each integration was costly to build and maintain. This limited developers’ data sharing capabilities and made it hard for users to unlock this data so that it could be utilized in different apps.

Now, with Health Connect, building an integration with a new app is as simple as reading in new data from Health Connect, rather than building a whole new integration.

For example, Android users will now be able to sync and get credit for their Peloton workouts in apps like Oura, MyFitnessPal, WeightWatchers and Lifesum. Now, through a single integration with Health Connect, Peloton Members will have the option to share their workout stats across the ecosystem of apps they use to support their overall wellness.

Phone screen showing App permissions for all apps that can access data stored in Health Connect

Standardized data schema ensures data consistency between apps

Health Connect provides a standardized data schema which supports 40+ data types across 6 categories. The schema is intuitive to use and covers a wide range of use cases, from exercises to sleep tracking to vital signs. It only requires just a few lines of code to read and write any of these data types in Health Connect. Health Connect even supports complex aggregations so that you can completely customize your queries to your app’s use case.

"With Health Connect APIs, our engineers were able to easily adapt their existing architecture in order to read and write user health data such as nutrition, hydration, exercise, and steps. With this integration, we're now able to consume data from any 3rd party application that also writes to Health Connect, expanding our users' choices while allowing them more flexibility to grant granular permissions about which data they want to share"
– Jason Peterson, Chief Technology Officer of MyFitnessPal


Centralize privacy controls for users, with less code

Previously, users had to navigate to multiple apps to manage data permissions. And, developers had to build out permissions management UIs themselves.

With Health Connect, users can easily manage permissions in a single place, with granular controls to see which apps are accessing data at any given time.

For developers, Health Connect provides the permissions management hub and granular permissions UIs out of the box, so you can set this up quickly.

Phone screen showing granular permissions for Run Tracker app to access in Health Connect
granular permissions screen that shows the different data types

For example, Signos was able to quickly set up permissions checks with Health Connect. “One aspect I was pleasantly surprised by was the user onboarding UX,” said Signos developer Jake Smith. “A simple, drop-in piece of code sets up the permissions so users can start reaping the benefits.”


We’re just getting started

Join the many developers who have already integrated with Health Connect and don’t miss out on the opportunity to develop richer insights for your users. Check out our documentation, helpful video tutorials, and code samples – and start building today!

Coming up next for Android Dev Summit ‘22: The Platform track, on November 14!

Posted by Daniel Galpin (@dagalpin), Developer Relations Engineer On Monday, November 14, we kick off the final of three tracks for Android Dev Summit with the Platform track! This track includes almost 20 talks focused on developer features and guidance around Android 13, and how, together with your help, we're making the platform more private and secure, more personal, and more capable than ever. We dropped information on the livestream agenda, technical talks, and speakers — so start planning your schedule!
Platform Track @ Android Dev Summit November 14, 2022 at 9:00 AM PT Sessions All times in PT 9:50 AM 9:20 AM 9:35 AM 9:00 AM Migrate Your Apps to Android 13 Designing a High Quality App with the Latest Android Features Building for a Multilingual World Improving Your Social Experience Quality with Android Camera 10:10 AM HDR 10BIT: Capture, Playback, and Sharing 10BIT Video 10:15 AM Foster User Trust by Adopting Privacy-respecting Permission Workflows 10:28 AM 10:38 AM Presenting a High-quality Media Experience for all Users Next Up on the Privacy Sandbox 10:58 AM 11:13 AM Building Accessibility Support for Compose Hardware Acceleration for ML on-device 11:27 AM Android Graphics 11:44 AM Migrate to Play Billing Library 5 - More flexible subscriptions on Google Play Demystifying Attestation 11:59 AM 12:14 AM Supporting BLE Audio in Your Voice Communication Applications 12:24 PM Building Modern Android App Widgets 12:33 PM #AskAndroid 12:52 PM Everything About Storage on Android 1:05 PM Keep your App From Failing in a 64-bit Only World 1:13 PM Syncing Data with Health Connect 1:20 PM Introduction to Ultrawide-band on Android Broadcast live on d.android.com/dev-summit & YouTube

Here’s what to expect on November 14th:

Get ready for all things platform! We’re kicking the livestream off at 9:00 AM PT on November 14th on YouTube and developer.android.com, where you’ll be able to watch almost 20 sessions, with talks such as:

  • Migrate your Apps to Android 13
  • Foster User Trust by Adopting Privacy-respecting Permission Workflows
  • Building for a Multilingual World
  • Android Graphics
  • Improving Your Social Experience Quality with Android Camera

And at approximately 12:30 PM PST, we’ll be hosting a live Q&A – #AskAndroid - so you can get your burning platform questions answered live by the team who built Android. Post your questions to Twitter or comment in the YouTube livestream using #AskAndroid for a chance to have your questions answered on the livestream.

Check out our previous tracks: Modern Android Development and Form Factors.

The Platform track is our third and final track for Android Dev Summit ‘22. Missed the earlier moments? You can still catch up on all of the content: watch the keynote on YouTube and check out the keynote recap so you don’t miss a beat! Plus, get up to speed on all things Modern Android Development with a recap video, blog, and the full MAD playlist where you can find case studies and technical sessions, as well as the recap for Form Factors and the full Form Factors session playlist.

We’re so excited for all the great content yet to come from Android Dev Summit, and we’re looking forward to connecting with you!

Continuing our Commitment to User Choice Billing

Posted by Paul Feng, Vice President, Product ManagementBuilding on Android’s long history of continuously evolving to provide users and developers more flexibility and choice, we announced earlier this year that we would begin exploring expanded billing options on Google Play through our user choice billing pilot. At the heart of this pilot is our belief that the best way to offer alternative billing for in-app purchases is to put the choice in the hands of users.

Pilot participants can offer an additional billing system alongside Google Play’s billing system for their users in select countries. Our goal is to understand complexities involved in supporting user choice billing for developers and users in countries across the world  while maintaining a safe and positive user experience. This pilot allows us to test and iterate on different implementations, and gather insights from developers and users on their experience to determine how this pilot might evolve.
Illustration of a woman standing in front of a large phone with Google Play logo prominently featured. At her feet are stacks of coins. To the right of the phone are icons for music, video, a key, gems, and stars
Learn more about the user choice billing pilot here

Partner participation and excitement

When we announced the pilot, we noted that we were starting with Spotify as our very first partner. We’ve been working closely with the Spotify team and are excited to announce that this week they begin rolling out an initial test implementation of user choice billing to their users in select countries. We expect the experience will likely evolve over time as they continue to iterate and learn. Spotify has announced more detail on this rollout here.

We’re also excited that Bumble has joined to partner with us in our user choice billing pilot. We’re working with their teams and we anticipate their users will begin seeing this choice in-app in select countries in the coming months.

Enable user choice billing in over 35 countries

Additionally, with strong interest from developers around the world, in September we opened participation in the pilot to to all developers of non-gaming apps. We provided more detail about the eligibility, requirements—including interim UX guidelines—and announced that user choice billing will initially be available to users in Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, and the European Economic Area.

Today we are excited to announce that based on the positive response and initial feedback from developers and users, we are expanding the pilot to users in the United States, Brazil, and South Africa.
Greyscaled world map highlighting existing pilot countries in green (Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, European Economic Area) and recently added pilot countries in blue (Brazil, South Africa, United States)
Participating developers can enable user choice billing in over 35 countries

While this is still early days in the pilot, we’re encouraged by this initial response and momentum, and look forward to sharing more in the coming months as we continue to build and iterate with our partners and roll out user choice billing to more users. To learn more about the pilot eligibility, requirements, and how to get started visit our Help Center.

Form Factors at Android Developer Summit ‘22

Posted by Alex Vanyo, Developer Relations EngineerThe Android Developer Summit is live with the second stop on our world tour - and we are thrilled to give you the latest updates on Android form factors! Discover the latest tools, APIs and guidance that make it easier to build apps that look great on large screens, wearables, and TVs. Here are the three things you need to know about form factors at ADS, and check out the full YouTube playlist here:

#1: Android developers are finding BIG success when optimizing their apps for large screens

The large screen category is growing, with over 270 million active large screen Android devices and an expanding portfolio of tablets, desktops, and foldables to choose from. That’s why there has never been a better time to be sure your app looks great across all screen sizes and postures. To learn practical tips for optimizing your app for large screens, check out the Do’s and Don’ts: Mindset for optimizing apps for larger screens session. Throughout the session, the Android team highlights design guidance, app quality, and additional tips for large screens on everything from reachability to canonical layouts. New Android Studio tools like emulators and reference devices make it easier to build and test.In-depth guides help you improve your app by optimizing layouts, avoiding camera issues, and enhancing support for peripherals like mouse, keyboard and stylus.

Large screens enable users to see more, do more, and experience more. With large screen sizes, there are ever-expanding opportunities to excite and delight your users with differentiated app experiences. That’s why we launched our new large screens gallery page during the Android Dev Summit kickoff, with general design tips and verticalized use cases, and implementation ideas.

#2: It’s easier than ever to develop for Wear OS

Compose for Wear OS is stable, bringing the modern UI toolkit to the wrist and making it simpler than ever to build exceptional Wear OS apps. This toolkit is designed to help you get your app up and running faster than before; Outdooractive adopted Compose for Wear OS and enhanced their wearable experience with 30% fewer development hours. Equally important as development time is the user experience you are able to provide. Todoist rebuilt their app using Compose for Wear OS, saw their growth rate on Google Play increase by 50%, and heard positive feedback internally and on their social media channels. To begin developing with Compose for Wear OS, get started on our curated learning pathway for a step-by-step learning journey. Where you can find documentation including a quick start guide and get hands on experience with the Compose for Wear OS codelab!

Outdooractive cut development time by an estimated 30% with Compose for Wear OS
The Android Developer Summit technical sessions dive deep into the content you need to build Wear OS apps, with guidance on app architecture, testing, handling rotary input and verticalized sessions for media and fitness. We have seen the impact that Health Services has had on developing health and fitness apps for the wrist, and how powerful this can be when extended with Health Connect on mobile. Using Google APIs and tools, Strava improved their user engagement and retention - with 30% more active days from Wear OS users on Strava than users without a wearable device. For more information on how to start building apps for Wear OS check out the developer site.

#3: Find tips and tricks for developing a great Android TV app

Finally, for Android TV we have collected tips for building amazing living room user experiences, including some new platform features in Android 12 and 13. TV is an important part of the Android ecosystem; ⅓ of US households watch 25+ hours of content each week. Plus, there are now over 110 million monthly active AndroidTV OS devices. There is a ton to learn about how you can tap into this audience in our Improving the TV User Experience technical session including an update on Compose, seeing how App Bundles relate to TV, and guidance and best practices around energy savings and user preferences.

Those were the top three announcements about Form Factors at Android Developer Summit. Want to learn more? Check out the full form factors playlist on YouTube!

What’s next for Android Dev Summit’ 22? The Platform track, on November 14

This was the second stop on the Android Dev Summit ‘22 tour. Last month, we kicked things off with the keynote as well as our first track on Modern Android Development. After today’s second track on Form Factors, there’s more to come in our third and final track on the Platform, which will be broadcast live on YouTube next week on November 14. We can’t wait to see you again next week!

“Reach” Your Users on Large Screens

Posted by Diana Wong, Product Manager, Android Large screen devices like foldables and tablets mean your users have more screen to interact with. But they also can make it more difficult for those users to reach certain parts of their screen. Reachability, or what parts of the screen users can comfortably reach without stretching or adjusting their grip, is an important factor in user experience and accessibility and can help you decide where to place your app’s UI elements.

UI Elements on Large Screens

Large screens, such as tablets and foldables, are not always held and engaged with the same way as a smaller device like a phone. In the image below, you can see an example of how easily users can reach each area of a tablet with a width greater than nine inches.



The green area is easy for the majority of users to reach, the yellow and orange areas are only reachable for some users, and the red area is most difficult for users to reach. Within the red area, a user may need to adjust their grip or stretch to reach UI elements. It is important to consider how reachable each of your UI elements are to provide your users with the most optimal experiences.






Reachability isn’t “one size fits all”

Reachability can be impacted by a number of factors. First, device size can change what areas are reachable; larger devices mean it will be more difficult for users to reach the center of the screen. Another factor impacting reachability is the task a user is executing as users may hold their device in different ways for tasks like taking a photo versus using the keyboard. Hand size, measured from base of the wrist to the tip of the middle finger, can also affect how much of the device a user can reach. For example, take a look at the hand size data below. For tablets with a diagonal size greater than nine inches, users with hands larger than the US average can reach significantly more of the screen than users with hands smaller than average.
Hand size data showing differences in reachability between users with large hands and users with small hands
Additionally, how users hold their device changes depending on device orientation. As shown in the images below, devices used in portrait mode versus landscape impact the areas a user can comfortably reach.
Hand size data showing differences in reachability between users who hold their devices in landscape mode versus those who hold their devices in portrait mode

Finally, mostly due to screen size, foldable devices show some slightly different reachability patterns. Because they often have smaller screens than tablets, it is easier to reach the center of the device. However, the general pattern holds when it comes to reachability. When unfolded, the average user cannot reach the top 25% of the screen on a foldable device.

The DOs and DON’Ts of Large Screen Reachability

Reachability may vary by user, but there are some guidelines that can help your users’ large screen app experience. We have found that placing UI elements in the corners can be less than optimal. UI elements that are too close to the edges are going to be more likely to interact with user grip.Additionally, our reachability data shows that elements too close to the corners or edges of the device can be more difficult to reach, especially when a user is holding the device with both hands.

Now that you’ve learned all about reachability and the factors that impact it, here’s what you need to remember when building or updated an app for large screens:

DO: Limit interactions on the top 25% of the screen

The upper quarter of the screen can be hard to reach without changing one's grip.

DONT: Place critical and frequently used elements close to the screen's bottom edge and corners

Placing essential interactive elements too close to the bottom edge of the screen makes it more difficult for some users, particularly those with larger hands, to reach.

You can learn more about designing your app for large screens in our new gallery page or by checking out the Material Design guidance for large screens and foldables.