Spinner inner padding is larger on Android 6.0.1

Question

Intro:

With the new release of Android 6.0.1, seems like Android made some changes on the Spinner component because by default, the inner padding around the down carrot is a bit bigger.

I noticed this on an app where I haven't modified anything in the code, but simply updated the OS on the device and yet the spinners have different sizes.

Situation:

I have 2 spinners one next to the other in a RelativeLayout(mind the rest of the components, I added everything so you can see this part of the layout - removed the totally unnecessary properties or view ids)

<RelativeLayout
    android:id="@+id/header"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content">

    <LinearLayout
        android:id="@+id/container_for_buttons_on_the_right"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="48dp"
        android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true">

        <!-- Buttons here-->
    </LinearLayout>

    <android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatSpinner
        android:id="@+id/spinner_1"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="48dp"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_alignParentStart="true" />

    <ViewSwitcher
        android:id="@+id/spinner_switch"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="48dp"
        android:layout_toEndOf="@id/spinner_1"
        android:layout_toLeftOf="@id/container_for_buttons_on_the_right"
        android:layout_toRightOf="@id/spinner_1"
        android:layout_toStartOf="@id/container_for_buttons_on_the_right"
        android:inAnimation="@anim/fade_in"
        android:outAnimation="@anim/fade_out">

        <android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatSpinner
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="match_parent" />

        <ImageView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
        <!-- ImageView properties are incomplete but I need it there.-->
    </ViewSwitcher>
</RelativeLayout>

The layout used by the Spinner adapter for the getView() method is this:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="48dp"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:paddingLeft="8dp"
    android:paddingRight="8dp">

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:ellipsize="end"
        android:gravity="center_vertical"
        android:singleLine="true"
        tools:text="Test" />

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_weight="0"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:paddingLeft="4dp"
        android:singleLine="true"
        android:textColor="@color/text_primary"
        android:textSize="@dimen/text_size_body"
        tools:ignore="RtlHardcoded,RtlSymmetry"
        tools:text="7%" />
</LinearLayout>

Exemplified:

The screenshot is combined of 2 separate screenshots taken:

1. The one on the top is taken on a Nexus 5 device running on Android 6.0
2. The one below is also taken on a Nexus 5 device BUT running on Android 6.0.1

• EDIT 1

Using AppCompatSpinner from the support library does not change the behaviour. Support library version used is 23.1.1

Answer 1

With minimal effort I was able to fix this by building a custom background for the spinner.

Using AppCompatSpinner I had to create 2 xmls for the background, let's call this spinner_background.xml:

1. First one goes to the drawable folder and looks like this, spinner_background.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:opacity="transparent">
    <item
        android:width="24dp"
        android:height="24dp"
        android:drawable="@drawable/selector_background_borderless"
        android:gravity="end|center_vertical" />
    <item android:drawable="@drawable/bg_spinner_anchor" />
</layer-list>

Where selector_background_borderless is a plain selector like(I added the minimal items you need, you could explore it's ripple alternative for v21+. In fact I would recommend you to do so):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:drawable="#19000000" android:state_pressed="true" />
    <item android:drawable="@android:color/transparent" />
</selector>

And bg_spinner_anchor is a 9patch PNG for the caret. I used these assets: bg_spinner_anchor

2. The second one goes to the drawable-v23 folder to properly support ripple and looks like this, spinner_background.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:paddingEnd="16dp"
    android:paddingLeft="0dp"
    android:paddingMode="stack"
    android:paddingRight="0dp"
    android:paddingStart="0dp">
    <item
        android:width="24dp"
        android:height="24dp"
        android:drawable="@drawable/selector_background_borderless"
        android:gravity="end|center_vertical" />

    <item
        android:width="24dp"
        android:height="24dp"
        android:drawable="@drawable/ic_spinner_caret"
        android:gravity="end|center_vertical" />
</layer-list>

Where ic_spinner_caret is a vector used from the Android source code looking like this. You should add also add this to your drawable-v23 folder:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<vector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:width="24dp"
    android:height="24dp"
    android:viewportWidth="24.0"
    android:viewportHeight="24.0"
    android:tint="?attr/colorControlNormal">
    <path
        android:pathData="M7,10l5,5,5-5z"
        android:fillColor="#524e4a"/>
</vector>

Credits go to alanv from the Android UI toolkit for Guidance!