page.title=Developer Stories: The Opportunity of Android Tablets
meta.tags="google play, developer story, journal, tablets, pure"
pdage.metaDescription=Developers are investing in a full tablet experience for their apps and seeing those investments pay off big.
page.image=/images/distribute/rememberthemilk.png

@jd:body


<p>"More" and more, developers are investing in a full tablet experience
for their apps and are seeing those investments pay off big. The increased
screen area on tablets opens up a world of possibilities, allowing for more
engagement with the user &mdash; which can mean an increase in usage as well as
more monetization opportunities. And with the growing wave of Android tablets that
continue to hit the market, it’s an important piece of any developer’s mobile
offering. </p>

<p>Here are some stories from developers who are seeing real results as they
expand their offering to include Android tablets.</p>


<div style="margin-bottom:2em;" id="rememberthemilk"><!-- START STORY -->

<h3>Remember The Milk: Lifting installs with tablet design</h3>

  <img alt="" class="screenshot thumbnail" style="-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
            -moz-border-radius: 5px;
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            width: 78px;
            float: left;
            margin: 12px 20px 9px 20px;" src=
            "http://lh3.ggpht.com/xmnal18taauP2mjQFEhr1PhcItQ_W32IRuaD86IoL2U_4E-mfeKiliKtkISgOuA6Ln9n=w124">
          
  <div style="list-style: none;height:100%;
  float: right;
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    <h5>About the app</h5> 
    
    
    <ul>
      <li><a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rememberthemilk.MobileRTM">Remember The Milk</a></li>
      <li>A feature-packed to-do list app; never forget the milk (or anything else) again</li>
    </ul>

    <h5>Tablet Results</h5> 

    <ul>
      <li>83% jump in tablet installs following update </li>
      <li>Nexus 7 is most popular Android device for app </li>
      <li>Single APK for phones and tablets</li>
      </ul>
    
    <div style="padding:.5em 0 0 1em;">
      <a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rememberthemilk.MobileRTM">
        <img alt="Android app on Google Play"
         src="{@docRoot}images/brand/en_generic_rgb_wo_45.png" />
      </a>
      
    </div>
  </div>

  <div style="line-height:1.4em;">
    <p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:12px;">When the Android tablet guidelines
      came out in 2012, the team at Remember The Milk had already been thinking about
      a redesign for their <a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rememberthemilk.MobileRTM">feature-packed
      to-do list app</a>. Omar Kilani, Co-founder of Remember The Milk, explains how
      <a href="http://blog.rememberthemilk.com/2013/04/the-all-new-remember-the-milk-for-android-and-tablets-too/">updating</a>
      their app to meet the tablet guidelines lead to an 83% jump in tablet installs: </p>

    <p>“We took this as an opportunity to think about how we were going to approach
      Android tablets differently from a user experience perspective. The guidelines
      were a helpful resource, and with the extra screen real estate tablets afford,
      users have the opportunity to see all of their data in context and drill down
      on more items. All of this is accomplished using a single APK on Play, even though
      the phone and tablet versions each capture completely different use cases for us.”</p>

    <p>“In the month after updating, we saw our tablet installs on Google Play jump 83%,
      and the Nexus 7 is now the most popular Android device amongst our users. For us,
      designing for tablets was an investment that has really paid off.”</p>

    <p>The team also came out with a number of other goodies &mdash; including a new set of
      widgets and richer notifications, and more ways to provide an immersive experience
      for their users.</p>
  </div>

  <div style="clear:both;margin-top:30px;width:auto;">
  
    <img src="{@docRoot}images/distribute/rememberthemilk.png">

    <div style="width:600px;margin-top:0px;padding:0 90px;">
      <p class="image-caption"><span style="font-weight:500;">Tablet redesign led to lift
      in installs</span>: Following the redesign of the Android app, in part to meet the tablet
      design criteria, Remember The Milk saw an 83% increase in tablet installs.</p>
    </div>

  </div>

</div> <!-- END STORY -->


<div style="margin-bottom:2em;" id="mint"><!-- START STORY -->

<h3>Mint: More screen real estate = more engagement</h3>

  <img alt="" class="screenshot thumbnail" style="-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
            -moz-border-radius: 5px;
            border-radius: 5px height:78px;
            width: 78px;
            float: left;
            margin: 12px 20px 9px 20px;" src=
            "https://lh5.ggpht.com/0xAIZJ1uE05b4RHNHgBBTIH6nRdPTY660T104xY7O2GbHXwab6YVmpU5yYg8yacfBg=w124">
          
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  float: right;
  border-top: 1px solid #9C0;
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    <h5>About the app</h5> 
    
    
    <ul>
 <li><a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mint">Mint.com Personal Finance</a> by Intuit Inc.</li>
      <li>Financial management app targeting 7- to 10-inch tablets and phones</li>
    </ul>

    <h5>Tablet Results</h5> 

    <ul>
      <li>Able to offer richer UI features</li>
      <li>Much higher user engagement</li>
      <li>Longer sessions &mdash; more Android tablet users have sessions longer than 5 minutes</li>
      </ul>
    
    <div style="padding:.5em 0 0 1em;">
<a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mint">
  <img alt="Android app on Google Play"
       src="{@docRoot}images/brand/en_generic_rgb_wo_45.png" />
</a>
      
    </div>
  </div>

  <div style="line-height:1.4em;">
    <p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:12px;">When Intuit was thinking about
expanding their Mint mobile offering to include a version optimized for Android
tablets, they knew that taking the layout that worked for phones and simply
showing an enlarged version wouldn’t take full advantage of the opportunities
that tablets afford.</p>
    
    <p>“We knew we had a lot more real estate, and we wanted to provide a more
immersive experience for our users” said Ken Sun, Intuit Group Product Manager
at Mint.</p>

<p>Intuit’s Mint app, which has a 4-star rating on Google Play, brings a number
of features to Android tablets that aren’t available for phones, including a
more visual presentation of personal financial data.</p>

<p>“Whereas our app for phones is used throughout the day for quick sessions,
we’ve seen a larger percentage of our tablet usage happen in the evening, for
much longer sessions,” said Sun. “People are doing a lot more than just checking
their spending. They’re looking at historical trends, re-categorizing
transactions, analyzing the data and setting financial goals for the future
&mdash; digging much deeper and being more thoughtful. One example is how much
users are interacting with their own budgets in the tablet app.  Customer budget
operations (view, edit, drill-down, etc.) are 7x higher on Android tablets than
they are on phones.”</p>

<p>Fifty percent more Android tablet users have Mint sessions of 5 minutes or
longer than they do on phones.  “We’ve found that phone usage is indicative of a
customer’s regular financial check-in, while tablet usage points towards more
analysis and interaction with that customer’s personal financial data.  This is
the sort of immersive engagement experience we were looking for; the tablet and
phone apps serve as great complements to each other."</p>
  </div>

  <div style="clear:both;margin-top:40px;width:auto;">
  
    <img src="{@docRoot}images/distribute/mint.png">

    <div style="width:600px;margin-top:0px;padding:0 90px;">
      <p class="image-caption"><span style="font-weight:500;">Making the most of tablet screens</span>: Mint used the extra screen area on tablets to offer quick access to additional tools and information.</p>
    </div>

  </div>

</div> <!-- END STORY -->


<div style="margin:3em auto"><!-- START STORY -->


<h3>TinyCo: Monetization opportunities abound on tablets</h3>

  <img alt="" class="screenshot thumbnail" style="-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
            -moz-border-radius: 5px;
            border-radius: 5px height:78px;
            width: 78px;
            float: left;
            margin: 12px 20px 30px 20px;" src=
            "https://lh6.ggpht.com/QTy7lOGRTS58NW4XEeym2sxpWKDmRNod_n3kBrHlqTRIyzIv2gkw8DfwiR4GIAdxiHw=w124">

          
  <div style="list-style: none;height:100%;
  float: right;
  border-top: 1px solid #9C0;
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    <h5>About the app</h5> 

    <ul>
                <li><a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinyco.village">Tiny Village</a> by TinyCo</li>
            <li>Game targeting 7- to 10-inch tablets and phones</li>
    </ul>

    <h5>Tablet Results</h5> 

    <ul>
      <li>35% higher average revenue per paying user (ARPPU)</li>
      <li>Consistent increase in user retention</li>
      <li>3x increase in downloads to Android tablets in the last 6 months</li>
    </ul>
    
    <div style="padding:.5em 0 0 1em;">
<a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinyco.village">
  <img alt="Android app on Google Play"
       src="{@docRoot}images/brand/en_generic_rgb_wo_45.png" />
</a>
      
    </div>
  </div>

  <div style="line-height:1.4em;">
    <p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:12px;">
    
<p>Over a year ago, app developer TinyCo, makers of a suite of games such as
Tiny Monsters, decided to prioritize launching across multiple platforms
effectively. They chose Android as one of their primary launch platforms because
of its large installed base and global reach. They also knew that the growing
base of Android tablet users represented a huge opportunity.</p>
    
    <p>Tiny Village was their first title to take advantage of the strategy, and
it proved to be a winning one &mdash; especially in terms of Android
tablets.</p>
    
    <p> “With continued optimization of the gameplay experience and a genuine
commitment to our Android offering through our Griffin engine, all of our
metrics started to rise,” said Rajeev Nagpal, Head of Product at TinyCo. In
fact, they’ve seen Android tablet downloads more than triple in the last six
months.</p>

    <p>One of the first things they noticed about usage of Tiny Village on
tablets was an increase in average revenue per paying user (ARPPU)&mdash;about 35%
higher than on smaller-screen devices such as phones. Additionally, average
revenue per user ARPU is now about 35% higher as well. “The game is just much
more immersive on tablet.”</p>

    <p>In addition to an increase in monetization metrics, they’ve also seen a
consistent increase in retention over other platforms. “These are really
important metrics for games &mdash; if you can get users to both stay around
longer and spend more while they’re there, you have a recipe for success.”</p>
  </div>

  <div style="clear:both;margin-top:40px;width:auto;">
  
    <img src="{@docRoot}images/distribute/tinyvillage.png">

    <div style="width:600px;margin-top:0px;padding:0 90px;">
      <p class="image-caption"><span style="font-weight:500;">More monetization
on tablets</span>: On Android tablets TinyCo has seen higher ARPPU and user
retention than on phones.</p>
    </div>

  </div>

</div> <!-- END STORY -->


<div style="margin-bottom:2em;"><!-- START STORY -->

<h3>Instapaper: Riding the growing wave of Android tablets</h3>


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            -moz-border-radius: 5px;
            border-radius: 5px height:78px;
            width: 78px;
            float: left;
            margin: 12px 20px 9px 20px;" src=
            "https://lh3.ggpht.com/30KKcrIFO8V_wRfhnHaI9l0CLH_orIVFE7Xywtr9TBxAf0hi2BaZkKyBOs63Yfavpg=w124">

          
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    <h5>About the app</h5> 
    <ul>
                <li><a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instapaper.android">Instapaper</a> by Mobelux</li>
      <li>Content-browsing utility that targets 7- to 10-inch tablets and phones</li>
    </ul>

    <h5>Tablet Results</h5> 

    <ul>
      <li>Tablets are now 50% of the app's installed base.</li>
    </ul>
    
    <div style="padding:.5em 0 0 1em;">
<a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.instapaper.android">
  <img alt="Android app on Google Play"
       src="{@docRoot}images/brand/en_generic_rgb_wo_45.png" />
</a>
      
    </div>
  </div>

  <div style="line-height:1.4em;">
    <p style="margin-top:0;margin-bottom:12px;">Instapaper for Android is an app
for saving web content to read later. Developer Mobelux decided that creating a
great UI for Android tablet users would be an essential part of their initial launch
plan.</p>
    
    <p>The app launched at the beginning of the summer of 2012, just in time to
take advantage of a new tide of Android tablets, including the <span
style="white-space:nowrap;">Nexus 7</span> tablet. The app has since seen huge
popularity among tablet users, in particular, on Nexus 7. On the day that
pre-orders of Nexus 7 began arriving, Mobelux saw a 600% jump in downloads of
its app on Google Play.</p>

    <p>“We saw a promising new set of Android tablets about to hit the market
and wanted to position ourselves to be ready for them” said Jeff Rock of
Mobelux. “It was a market that others were hesitant to explore, but the decision
to prioritize tablets has paid off very well for us.”</p>

    <p>Since that initial 600% jump in downloads, Instapaper for Android has
continued to see a successful run on Android tablets. In fact, Android tablets
now represent about 50% of their installed base. “With more and more Android
tablets coming online, we’re excited to see how our investment in Android
tablets continues to pay off.”</p>
  </div>

  <div style="clear:both;margin-top:40px;width:auto;">
  
    <img src="{@docRoot}images/distribute/instapaper.png">

    <div style="width:600px;margin-top:0px;padding:0 90px;">
      <p class="image-caption"><span style="font-weight:500;">Popular with
tablet users</span>: A great tablet UI and browsing convenience make Instapaper
popular with Android tablet users.</p>
    </div>

  </div>

</div> <!-- END STORY -->