<compatible-screens> in Android

Question

Good day, I am trying to restrict screen sizes to only handsets (i.e. not tablets) in google play. After I found this article I added this to my manifest file:

<compatible-screens>
    <!-- all small size screens -->
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="ldpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="mdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="hdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="xhdpi" />
    <!-- all normal size screens -->
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="ldpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="mdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="hdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="xhdpi" />
</compatible-screens>

But it appears that now users with 5.5++ inch phones cant install my app. Next I also found this article and picture in it:

My first question - is it possible to restrict screen size by specific inch value, or I can use only tags like small, normal, large and xlarge?

At some point I decided to increase support inch size to 7 by updating manifest like this:

<compatible-screens>
    <!-- all small size screens -->
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="ldpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="mdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="hdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="xhdpi" />
    <!-- all normal size screens -->
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="ldpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="mdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="hdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="xhdpi" />
    <!-- all large size screens -->
    <screen android:screenSize="large" android:screenDensity="ldpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="large" android:screenDensity="mdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="large" android:screenDensity="hdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="large" android:screenDensity="xhdpi" />
</compatible-screens>

But users with 5.5 inch phones and even with 5.2 inch still cant install app.

So my second question - what I am doing wrong or don't understand?

I honestly read all similar questions on stackoverflow and articles in android documentation and didn't find proper answer. Thx.

Answer 1

It looks like you are attempting to restrict screen sizes to only handsets, and not tablets. It is difficult to discern from your question, but either way I think I can clear up the confusion.

When you declare <compatible-screens> in your manifest you must declare every screen configuration that you would like your app to be compatible with:

You must declare each one of these; any combination of size and density that you do not specify is considered a screen configuration with which your application is not compatible.

I suspect the 5.5+ inch phones you mention have a higher density than xhdpi; such as xxhdpi or xxxhdpi. These densities are omitted from the documentation (either because the documentation is outdated or otherwise incomplete) but are still relevant; they are documented on the <compatible-screens> page.

Therefore if you want your app to be compatible with higher density devices, you must include those densities in your <compatible-screens> element. But an easier method would be to use the <supports-screens> element instead. As per the documentation, the <supports-screens> element does not take density into account:

Note: Although you can also use the <compatible-screens> element for the reverse scenario (when your application is not compatible with smaller screens), it's easier if you instead use the <supports-screens> as discussed in the next section, because it doesn't require you to specify each screen density your application supports.

With this you can just specify the following in your manifest:

<supports-screens android:smallScreens="true"
                  android:normalScreens="true"
                  android:largeScreens="false"
                  android:xlargeScreens="false"
                  android:largestWidthLimitDp="840"/>

The largestWidthLimitDp attribute should not be necessary, but 840dp seems like a good limit for handsets based on the Material Design documentation for density breakpoints.

Otherwise, you can still use the <compatible-screens> tag if you would like more fine-tuned control over which devices your app is compatible with:

<compatible-screens>
    <!-- all small size screens -->
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="ldpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="mdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="hdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="xhdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="xxhdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="small" android:screenDensity="xxxhdpi" />
    <!-- all normal size screens -->
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="ldpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="mdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="hdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="xhdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="xxhdpi" />
    <screen android:screenSize="normal" android:screenDensity="xxxhdpi" />
</compatible-screens>