This chapter is about building apps that will be running on a wide variety of devices: phones, phablets, tablets, and TVs. We will connect to YouTube to get some data and videos to display.
Size and context actually do matter. We could of course scale up everything but that does not really make it a better app. Tablets offer more space than phones, and when it comes to user interaction, TV differs from a smart phone. How do we make the layout scale and look smooth on each device? How do we find the right approach for each type of device?
In this chapter, you will learn from the following recipes:
- Size and context
- Phone, phablet, and tablet layouts
- Media playback
- TV and media centre
Devices such as phones, phablets, tablets, and TVs come with screens of all sizes and shapes. How can we benefit from a larger screen or how can we provide smart navigation for smaller screens and maintain the same functionality and code within one app? That is what this first recipe is about.
What about the various kinds of devices? With the introduction of wearable devices, we saw that the user behavior for these types of devices is quite different. The same thing applies to TVs. As always, let's do first things first. Let's examine an app that runs on both a phone and tablet.