[GrinningFool]

My uninformed guess would say that a sampling of a significant number of apps showed that they rendered fine, and they deemed it worth the trade-off that some may not.

The logic probably went along the lines of: it's better for the user to have this feature that works with X% of what they already have installed than to force them to wait for the developers of each and every app to decide if/when they want to get around to updating.

[Navarr]

If I recall, it also displays a simple toast for apps that do not target the API, saying "App may not work with split screen"

This also lets the user know it's not the Apps fault. I feel it's a pretty good way to enhance the experience where possible and move apps forward even if they're old.

[Vexs]

Multi-windowed mode can be found hiding in the options (which can only be edited with root) in 6.0.1, and it works well enough right now with just a few graphical bugs on very few apps. I'm guessing you're right, and if it does break the app then all the user has to do is turn off multi-windowed mode.

[Ologn]

> a sampling of a significant number of apps showed that they rendered fine

The problem is they break the API all the time, and this leaves Google Play strewn with broken apps. This may break 1% of apps, the next release breaks another 1%, after 10 releases, 10% of the apps not updated are broken.

Here's an example, I go to Google Play and search for "ringtone maker" ( https://play.google.com/store/search?q=ringtone%20maker ). The #3 result for me (which can vary by location) is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anbu.ringt... . So I download the app, click the microphone, say something, hit stop and - "java.io.IOException: Unknown file format".

This is their 3rd result for ringtone maker, has over 5 million downloads and yet their record feature is broken. It used to work but Google changed the API. You can look at the app source code ( https://github.com/malizadehq/ringdroid ) to see where this app broke if you want. This is just one example which comes to mind, I can think of many.

They claim they don't break the API going forward but they do all the time.

[spacehunt]

It looks like the app tries to do its own audio file parsing and (wrongly) assumes .aac files are always MP4 containers [0] rather than as ADTS.

So perhaps not the best example of what you're trying to say.

[0] https://github.com/malizadehq/ringdroid/blob/master/src/com/...

[Oletros]

How is the split screen breaking the API when the app works like ever has worked in the main screen?

[Ologn]

> the app works like ever has worked in the main screen

If the app always works like it ever has worked in the main screen, why do they say:

> If your app does not declare a fixed orientation, you should launch your app on a device running Android 7.0 or higher and attempt to put the app in split-screen mode. Verify that the user experience is acceptable when the app is forcibly resized.

[Oletros]

To check if it is displayed fine in a split screen, nothing mire