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Default Android emulator skin is too high-resolution #3125
Description
Describe the bug
As reported at beeware/toga#2251, the emulator skin is apparently not "entirely cosmetic" as the Briefcase source code says, because it can change the device resolution and change the result of some tests.
How to reproduce the bug
- Delete the emulator files at
~/.android/avd/beePhone-31.* - Run
briefcase run androidin any project, and let it recreate the emulator with default settings
Screenshots
Here's the current auto-created emulator:
Everything is disproportionately small, the top left corner is badly cropped, and the lack of a title bar makes it difficult to move the window around.
Here it is with no skin, as used in CI:
This looks better to me in every way, so I suggest we just get rid of the skin entirely.
Environment details
- Operating system and version: macOS
- Software versions:
- Briefcase: main branch
Activity
freakboy3742 commentedon Nov 3, 2026
I'll agree that if that cosmetics are getting in the way of actual operation of the simulator, we should remove that feature. We had to disable the use of the skin in CI a few months back because of download rate limits, so there's some precedent for this.
However, there is some value in having the skin - having a window that "looks like a phone" is a lot more compelling as a visual demo. A first-time mobile developer gets to see a "real phone" on their screen, and screenshots for presentation purposes look more compelling.
In this case, it seems like the fix to ensure that the default skin matches the default device - from what I can tell, if we modify
DEFAULT_DEVICE_TYPEtopixel_7_pro(or return DEFAULT_DEVICE_SKIN topixel_silver), that fixes the resolution problem.Longer term, if/when we get around to providing options for different emulator devices, we can provide pairs of device/skin names that are known good pairs, including the "small_phone"/"medium_phone" devices that have no skin; and we could include a "disable android skins" option as part of #2279 (or add an option once user configuration is available).