What am I doing wrong - Kindle fire layout

[legion48]

Every time I submit a B4A app to the Amazon app store, it get accepted initially but later on fails compatibility to the Kindle Fire- see below.

It's very frustrating as I'm finding the Amazon Kindle market much more lucrative that the Google app store with a few of my old App Inventor apps that have been accepted. I really would like to get my B4A apps acctepted there as well.


We have recently evaluated your app’s compatibility with Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet. This added test process is here to verify that every app available for download on Kindle Fire will provide our customers with a high-quality experience on their devices. Your existing submission of Feed the Baby has been found to be incompatible with Kindle Fire due to the following:

To be compatible with Kindle Fire, apps must be optimized to run on a 7” screen with width: 600px and height: 1024px (Abstracted LCD Density: 160). Please note that the device will reserve 20px of the height to display a soft key menu, yielding a height of 1004px when in fullscreen mode.

I can't understand what I'm doing wrong. It's always the same message about screen size but my layout is for 600x1024x1(160).

Is anyone else having the same problem????:BangHead:

 

[eps]

I was wondering if this is the problem..

"yielding a height of 1004px when in fullscreen mode."

I think you'd need to target the resolution for that... + the portrait mode.

I haven't really played around with it (Kindle Fire resolutions) so haven't bothered resubmitting.. I think that the best way to solve it is to pick up an actual device and load the Apps onto them and test...

 

[legion48]

......

I haven't really played around with it (Kindle Fire resolutions) so haven't bothered resubmitting.. I think that the best way to solve it is to pick up an actual device and load the Apps onto them and test...

I would love to buy one but they have not been released in the UK yet and I don't know if one from the US would work here?

 

[eps]

I think some of the stuff works here.. I don't think they'll release them here at all. I'm willing to take a punt on one on fleabay.

 

[Kevin]

I'm awaiting Kindle Fire approval for my app from Amazon right now (submitted a couple days ago). Hopefully mine will go through.

What you could try is creating a layout in B4A for 600x1004 scale 1 (portrait) and 1024x580 scale 1 (landscape). You may need to create two different AVDs, one for portrait and one for landscape, so that you can be sure of the correct height accounting for the soft keys.

Much of my app now uses % of activity.height, so hopefully I won't have an issue.

Good luck!

PS: You may want to ask about being escalated to someone else at Amazon. They told me my app didn't pass before and wouldn't tell me why. When I asked, they told me to buy a Fire. I let them know just how I felt about that and next thing I knew, I got an email saying someone else was going to take care of me from now on. A day later the other person sent me a screenshot showing what was wrong.

 

[canalrun]

I'm awaiting Kindle Fire approval for my app from Amazon right now (submitted a couple days ago). Hopefully mine will go through.

Hello,

I am having the same problem – awaiting for Kindle Fire approval because of a screen size problem.

I am interested in others' opinions about this problem with the Kindle Fire and how you handle the problem.

My apps all dynamically resize and reposition the views based on the Activity size; basically 100%x and 100%y. The Kindle Fire reports 600x1024 even though it reserves 20 pixels for itself. I think it should report 600x1004. Amazon seems to want developers to make special accommodations for the Fire.

I think they should fix the Fire rather than try to force 1,000,000 developers to make special accommodations for them.

Am I being unreasonable?

Thanks,
Barry.

 

[Kevin]

The Kindle Fire reports 600x1024 even though it reserves 20 pixels for itself. I think it should report 600x1004.

You mean the actual Kindle Fire reports its size 20pix larger than what is available? If that is true then they should be clearer on that in their FAQ. That also means that my app will most likely not look right!

The only screenshot the person from Amazon sent me showed that my EditText views were too short. I saw the error in my ways and corrected it for all layouts (I had unwittingly reduced their height). Come to think of it, his email mentioned "a few UX issues" but he only specifically mentioned and provided a screenshot for the EditTexts.

To be honest, and this is what I told the first person at Amazon, I have been a huge fan of Amazon for years and have always praised them to everyone I know, but I'm not impressed with the way they handle their Appstore and developers.

Are you absolutely sure about what size it reports? If so, does anyone know of a way to programmatically determine if the device is a Kindle Fire so that we can adjust for this?

 

[margret]

Kindle Fire

I had the same issue with them. They are not giving the right info on their display. It is 1024 x 600 but their minimized controls still take up another 20pixs. With this soft menu opened it takes up 70 pix. When the status bar at top is also displayed, it takes another 40 pix. Bottom line is you have 600 - 20 = 580 - 40 = 540 pix. I had to set mine to 1024 x 540. Hope this helps some. Their info is not clear at all and they have no AVD to use and the standard 2.3 Android AVD will do you no good because of the forked version with the soft menu.

Margret

 

[Erel]

Margret, was your app accepted to Amazon market?

 

[legion48]

I had the same issue with them. They are not giving the right info on their display. It is 1024 x 600 but their minimized controls still take up another 20pixs. With this soft menu opened it takes up 70 pix. When the status bar at top is also displayed, it takes another 40 pix. Bottom line is you have 600 - 20 = 580 - 40 = 540 pix. I had to set mine to 1024 x 540. Hope this helps some. Their info is not clear at all and they have no AVD to use and the standard 2.3 Android AVD will do you no good because of the forked version with the soft menu.

Margret

So portrait should be 600x9064x1

and landscape 1024x540x1

is that correct Marget?

 

[margret]

Amazon APPs

So portrait should be 600x9064x1

and landscape 1024x540x1

is that correct Marget?

I have not written any apps in portrait mode but yes I would think 600 x 964 x 1. The apps I have done have been locked landscape mode.

@ Erel, Yes they did accept it.

Margret

 

[legion48]

Thanks Marget, I'll resubmit with those values and post here when I get accepted or rejected.

 

[margret]

Screen Info for Kindle Fire

Hello,

Here is a screen shot that was sent to me from the Kindle testing team. I loaded it in PhotoShop and added some offset lines, ten pixels high each to determine the room I had to work with because they could not tell me. Maybe this will help once you view it.

Thanks,

Margret

 

[eps]

Hello,

Here is a screen shot that was sent to me from the Kindle testing team. I loaded it in PhotoShop and added some offset lines, ten pixels high each to determine the room I had to work with because they could not tell me. Maybe this will help once you view it.

Thanks,

Margret

If I could "thank" this post I would!! That helps greatly!! Will now adjust my layouts and re-submit.

:icon_clap:

 

[margret]

More Info

One other thing. In my APP the bottom softmenu stays open all the time, which for me was 40 + 70 = 110 pixs I had to remove from my view. They said the softmenu should minimize on it's own but in my APP it does not. I think if you have any Activity.AddMenuItem(items) in your APP the softmenu will stay open. So your 600 becomes 490 pixs to work with.

Thanks,

Margret

 

[timo]

Hello,

[omissis]...

I think they should fix the Fire rather than try to force 1,000,000 developers to make special accommodations for them.

Am I being unreasonable?

Thanks,
Barry.

No, you are not

 

[eps]

It all depends... Is Kindle Fire a contender? If it is, then yes, we have to bend to their will. If it falls flat, then no.. Only time will really tell and of course the Apps and the device go hand in hand.

I did notice though that my App has had around 62 downloads, in total from Amazon. vs. 9.5k on the official market and 1.5k from Slideme.org So at the moment Amazon isn't really a contender for me.. But I do believe that Amazon can deliver. Kindle was almost the #1 present in my circle of family and friends over Christmas this year and they just seemed to be coming out of the woodwork from all angles. Admittedly we haven't got any Kindle products ourselves though, yet!

 

[Kevin]

Thanks for all the info Margret! One thing I still am not sure on though: Somebody mentioned that the device itself reports a larger activity height than there really is because it is not accounting for its own soft keys.

If this is true, then I guess I don't understand how the OS will choose the correct layout or do any automatic adjusting on it if it doesn't know the actual height of the activity. Unless it will just use the one you made specifically for it because it is simply the closest match.

But still, that doesn't help us who use dynamic layouts in code based on height if in fact the Fire is telling the app that it has up to 110 more pixels than it actually does.

I received an email from Amazon saying my apps were approved but they faked me out. After reading closely it said that testing for the Fire is done separately. So who knows. It does sound like this is turning out to be a bit of a disaster for developers and Amazon as well if many/most of the apps do not even look right on their device without special treatment. I had a customer email me a couple days ago asking why my app isn't available on the Fire. I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying what I really wanted to say about Amazon, so I just told him there were some minor compatibility issues and hopefully it would be available soon.

Still not too impressed with the way Amazon handles their Android stuff.

 

[agraham]

Still not too impressed with the way Amazon handles their Android stuff.

It's not really Android but their own fork of it so incompatibilities may get even worse over time. I think Amazon made a mistake with the Fire by not using a more standard version of Android but I guess for their intended market it may not matter that much - it is only intended as a low cost colour screen reader and not a full-blown Android tablet.

 

[legion48]

It's not really Android but their own fork of it so incompatibilities may get even worse over time. I think Amazon made a mistake with the Fire by not using a more standard version of Android but I guess for their intended market it may not matter that much - it is only intended as a low cost colour screen reader and not a full-blown Android tablet.

I think the Fire is Amazons "iPhone" for Android, what with their own app store and the way Kindle apps have a seperate, more stringent approval process over other andriod devices.