Build adaptive apps for Googlebook

Googlebooks are built on the Android technology stack and ChromeOS desktop foundations.

Googlebooks combine mobile convenience with desktop capabilities, featuring high-resolution touchscreens, dedicated keyboards, precision trackpads, all-day battery life, and OS-level Gemini integration.

With Googlebook, users can transition from quick interactions on their phones to extended, immersive sessions in a desktop environment.

Adapt your app

You don't need to build a separate app from the ground up to support Googlebook. Adaptive development enables Android apps to scale across large displays and laptop form factors from a single codebase.

If your app already implements adaptive layouts, window size classes, and multi-input support, you can build directly on that solid foundation.

Wireframe diagram comparing a single-column mobile screen with a two-pane desktop layout.
Figure 1. Adaptive layouts reorganizing mobile views into a multi-pane desktop experience.

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Get noticed on Google Play

Optimizing your app for Googlebook expands its visibility across the Android ecosystem:

  • Storefront discovery: Google Play highlights optimized titles with dedicated badging, enhanced search, and featured placements across curated store homepages.

  • Program incentives: Delivering desktop-optimized quality prepares your app for the Apps Experience Program, where you can enroll to access a program rate card designed to support business growth.

  • Device setup transfer: When users sign in to set up a Googlebook, their Android phone's settings, saved passwords, Wi-Fi networks, and messages sync with end-to-end encryption, and optimized apps are highlighted for transfer during onboarding.

Google Play storefront showing collections of apps and games with Optimized for desktop badges.
Figure 2. Apps optimized for desktop badging and dedicated collections on Google Play.

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Build on desktop fundamentals

On Googlebook, your app operates in a desktop environment alongside a desktop-class Chrome browser and system tools. Instead of stretching mobile interfaces across a wide screen, reorganize content into functional groupings for higher information density, precision input, and active multitasking.

Adopt a multi-pane architecture

Design your app UI to expand, reflow, or reveal additional detail as window boundaries change:

  • Coordinate adaptive scenes: With Navigation 3, implement ListDetailSceneStrategy and SupportingPaneSceneStrategy to coordinate side-by-side panes directly from your back stack when expanded window space is available.

  • Add persistent navigation: Use scene decorators to wrap screens with persistent desktop navigation rails.

  • Organize complex content: Pair scene strategies with layout primitives such as Grid and FlexBox, along with experimental mediaQuery and Styles APIs, to arrange content and adjust visual styles dynamically for desktop displays.

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Respond to dynamic window sizes and desktop ergonomics

In free-form desktop windowing, users can resize app windows dynamically at any time. Make your app adaptable to window size changes with:

  • Window size classes: Base your layout decisions on available window space using window size classes rather than physical display dimensions.

  • Typography and target sizing: Adjust your type scale for desktop viewing distances, set layout maximum widths to keep line lengths readable, define explicit click targets to prevent misclicks, and explore layout patterns in the desktop design gallery.

Diagram illustrating Compact, Medium, Expanded, Large, and Extra-large width window size class breakpoints.
Figure 3. Representations of width-based window size classes.

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Deliver differentiated experiences for Googlebook

Once your core layout is adaptive, enrich your app with features specific to Googlebook's hardware and desktop environment.

Support precision input and keyboard shortcuts

Jetpack Compose natively supports physical keyboard navigation and pointer selection. Optimize for Googlebook's backlit keyboards, haptic glass trackpads, and external mice with the following:

  • Contextual cursors: Integrate contextual cursors for text entry, pane resizing, and tool selection.

  • Pointer interactions: Implement right-click context menus and hover states for interactive elements.

  • Keyboard shortcuts: Make your app's keyboard shortcuts discoverable through the Keyboard Shortcuts Helper.

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Enable multi-instance workflows and drag and drop

On Googlebook, apps run in free-form windows where users work across multiple tasks simultaneously.

Android desktop task switcher showing multiple running app windows.
Figure 4. Task switcher displaying multiple open windows and app instances.

Extend the user experience with these features:

  • Multi-instance support: Enable users to launch independent windows of your app side by side to compare content or manage multiple documents.

  • Cross-window drag and drop: Pair multi-instance support with drag and drop so users can move text, images, and files between windows or drop items onto an empty workspace to start a task.

  • Customizable header bars: Style your app bars with custom backgrounds, search bars, or tabs inside the desktop caption header bar while respecting system window controls.

    Illustration of a user dragging an item from one free-form app window and dropping it into another window.
    Figure 5. Multi-window multitasking with cross-window drag and drop.

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Connect devices and tap into Gemini intelligence

Googlebook is the perfect companion for your Android phone with features like:

  • Cross-device handoff and continuity: Use Continue On so users can pick up tasks from their Android phone directly from the Googlebook taskbar.

    Pass state through HandoffActivityData to preserve context such as document position or active tabs, with optional web fallbacks.

  • Desktop widgets and built-in intelligence: Surface glanceable, actionable content with customizable widgets that complement Googlebook's desktop environment and built-in Gemini tools (such as Magic Pointer, Rambler, and Create My Widget).

Evaluate your implementation against the desktop app quality guidelines to verify that your app meets desktop usability standards.

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Accelerate your workflow with dedicated tooling

Testing and optimizing your app for Googlebook integrates directly into your development workflow:

  • Desktop emulator in Android Studio: Run a virtual desktop environment on your workstation to test free-form window resizing, verify multi-instance interactions, and debug mouse, trackpad, and keyboard input using Android Studio preview.

  • On-device Linux and agentic development: Googlebook includes an isolated Linux terminal environment powered by a Level 5 security-certified pKVM hypervisor, along with the Antigravity development platform and CLI tools so you can build, test, and deploy apps directly on the device.

  • AI-assisted layout modernization: Install the adaptive skill through the Android CLI to give AI coding agents context for refactoring mobile layouts into responsive Compose containers.

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