Googlebooks Arrive, Prompting Laptop Apps To Demand More Elbow Room
Premium Android laptops have entered the market, where one local keyboard is already negotiating for weekends and a larger cup holder.
LOWER WOBBLEY, The arrival of Googlebooks, premium laptops running an adapted version of Android, has confused several applications that had previously lived quite happily inside phones. Google and partner manufacturers including Acer, HP and Lenovo describe the devices as Android with more screen. The apps have now learned that a window is not simply a tall rectangle with opinions.
The keyboard made matters worse. At the Lower Wobbley Office of Screen Enlargement, director Mavis Quindle said the apps did not know what to do with it. “They keep asking whether the letters are decorative,” she said, beside a printer that had been certified as a laptop by mistake. Officials told the apps to use the keys. They formed a subcommittee.
That subcommittee now has accommodation demands. Calling itself the Association of Applications Who Were Fine Before, it wants every app to have a private corner, a sensible chair and one small plant. Its chairman, a weather app called Drizzle, said mobile software had been “stretched across the screen like a family-sized lasagne” and was experiencing “horizontal feelings.”
“The apps keep asking whether the letters are decorative.”
The furniture issue has spread. Several icons have begun travelling in pairs for safety, though nobody has identified a danger. A calculator refused to open until someone promised it would not be mistaken for a spreadsheet. A messaging app has formally asked to appear at phone size, saying it spent years building a compact personal brand.
Then the trackpad filed paperwork. An anonymous official at the Municipal Department of Small Gestures said it had lodged a grievance over people tapping it with “the emotional intensity of someone trying to wake a very flat fish.” A hearing is set for next Thursday, provided the cursor can be found.
Some software has adjusted perfectly well. Ledgerly, a fictional office suite, told reporters it liked the extra room and had installed a hallway, a mezzanine and a tiny emergency exit. It is seeking planning permission for a conservatory. Ledgerly has no windows and consists entirely of buttons.
The extra space, apparently, has limits. Analysts at the Institute for Things That Used To Fit In Pockets said the Googlebook era would continue until every phone app adapted to the larger display or became a sentient filing cabinet. A filing cabinet immediately disputed the forecast, saying it preferred to remain “a filing cabinet with boundaries.”