Android app for phone and tablet: 1 or 2 apps?

Question

I have to develop an application for both Android phones as tablets. The application logic is the same, while the UI is completely different. I'm wondering how I should deal with this: make 1 big app for both, or an app for phone and an app for tablet (and then upload the 2 apk's as 1 app in the market).

When I make 1 application, I should check if it's phone or tablet in code to redirect to the appropriate activity. Also I should include compatibility code to make it compile for phones. If I would make 2 apps, I don't need that check and I also don't need to include the compatibility code, so the app would be a lot smaller. But in that case I'll have to copy/paste the application logic constantly from one project to the other one while development.

So that's why I'm wondering, what's the best practice in this case? I've been searching for information about this, but I only find articles about how to manage the different xml layouts, or articles with not so much information in it.

Answer 1

My Answer, one app. The iosched - Google I/O App for Android demo example from Google I/O explains everthing about how and what. Source Code available! Worth trying it!

Apk Download Link : http://www.mediafire.com/?wck52jweyz1

Answer 2

Certainly make one application.

You can create different layout files for phones and tablets. For tablets you should create extra layout file in res folder which is called layout-large (for tablets), for phone which provides default layout file, and at the same time for landscape mode you can create one more folder named as layout-large-landscape (tablets) for phones layout-landscape

and add some tags to support multiple screens:

1. <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="4" android:targetSdkVersion="9"/>
2. <supports-screens android:anyDensity="true" />