The Galaxy S8 and LG G6 introduced a new gorgeous display with an all new 18:9 aspect ratio, and that has in fact worsen the app fragmentation issue with Android, and Google is beginning to urge developers to update their app to support the phone’s new display standards, as current apps that have been developed for the 16:9 aspect ratio would show black bars on such phones, it also becomes a problem even when watching videos on these devices as many of them are not formatted to fit the screen, this would affect the viewing experience as well as having unused screen estate.
Google’s call to developers have been in anticipation of such aspect ratios to be used on future Android powered smartphones, the Xiaomi Mi Mix is technically the first smartphone to use a uncommon aspect ratio at 17:9, but with LG and Samsung leading the trend of wider cinematic displays, we should be seeing devices from other phone manufacturers this year. Google has advised developers to increase the maximum supported aspect ratio and ‘application’ element to support at least 2:1 or higher aspect ratios, to find out more on how you can do this the company has written a post on the Google Developer Blog.
We expect developers to have ample time to fix this issue when the Galaxy S8 launches next month, however if you still see black bars on your phone’s display by then, you will know that your screen isn’t broken.
SOURCE: Google Developer Blog
