Android App doesn't support popular devices in Google Play device catalog

Question

We have released an Android App, however the app only supports about 10,976 out of 12,560 total devices in the catalog.

Some of these are older devices lower than the minSdkVersion of 15. However, there are some newer and more popular unsupported devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S10, even though I have physically tested an S10 in the Android Studio debugger and the build ran correctly.

More notable examples of unsupported devices are all of the Google Pixel devices, Galaxy S8+, S9+, and S10+. Similar supported devices include the regular S8, S9 and S10e.

A few months ago, I increased the number of supported devices from 9,674 to almost by adding xxxhdpi and sw480dp layouts and support in the manifest. Below are my current manifest and gradle details:

<supports-screens
        android:smallScreens="true"
        android:normalScreens="true"
        android:largeScreens="true"
        android:xlargeScreens="true"
        android:resizeable="true"
        />

    <compatible-screens>

        <screen
            android:screenDensity="ldpi"
            android:screenSize="normal" />
        ... // also layouts mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi, xxhdpi
        <screen
            android:screenDensity="xxxhdpi"
            android:screenSize="normal" />
        <screen
            android:screenDensity="ldpi"
            android:screenSize="large" />
        ... // also layouts mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi, xxhdpi
        <screen
            android:screenDensity="xxxhdpi"
            android:screenSize="large" />

        <screen
            android:screenDensity="ldpi"
            android:screenSize="xlarge" />
        ... // also layouts mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi, xxhdpi
        <screen
            android:screenDensity="xxxhdpi"
            android:screenSize="xlarge" />
    </compatible-screens>

//Gradle

    compileSdkVersion 27
    defaultConfig {

        minSdkVersion 15

        targetSdkVersion 27

        ...}

I also have a ton of layout folders for different sizes, mainly:

layout

layout-large

layout-normal

layout-sw320dp-hpdi/xhdpi/xxhdpi/xxxhdpi (most phones seem to be in these 4 folders)

layout-sw480dp

layout-sw600dp

layout-sw720dp

I could add the folders for each individual density for the other sizes, but in Android Studio some of the phones that don't work are listed as being mapped to some of the layouts above. It seems like a lot of the layouts I already have aren't used so it seems inefficient to add more with not indication they are needed.

Is there anything else I am missing, for example changing the target sdk? Does anyone know what specific layouts the Pixel phones and Galaxy S+ phones would require and if I already should support them?

Answer 1

You should almost never need to use supports-screens or compatible-screens . In fact, the docs for compatible-screens say in big bold red letters:

Caution : Normally, you should not use this manifest element