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How to Design Android Apps for Googlebook Laptops

Android apps now run on a new laptop category. A simple checklist for layouts, pointers and keyboards.

Nishkarsh Gupta

8 min read22 hours ago

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Picture your app on a laptop. Not stretched out like a giant phone, but opened in a window that someone drags wider, snaps beside a browser and controls with a trackpad.

That is the new situation. Google calls Googlebook a new category of laptops built on Android technology, and Android apps run on them in a desktop style environment.

This guide turns Google’s developer advice into a design checklist: layouts, pointers, keyboards, windows and handoff. It is written for designers, with notes you can pass to developers.

The short answer: Design the app for resizable windows, not for one screen size.…