difference between <supports-screens> and <compatible-screens> on Android

Question

I am now officially confused about the difference between the two manifest elements and

I thought that by ONLY using Google Play will filter out devices that do not belong to the list of supported screens. The app will not show in the search result on those devices.

I thought using is sufficient but it does not seem to work!

Do I need to include as well?

Can somebody explain to me the difference in natural language. I did not find Google's documentation that clear unfortunately :s

Cheers

Answer 1

supports-screens

However, if your application does not work well when resized to fit different screen sizes, you can use the attributes of the element to control whether your application should be distributed to smaller screens or have its UI scaled up ("zoomed") to fit larger screens using the system's screen compatibility mode.

compatible-screens
Any screen configuration that is not declared in this element is a screen with which the application is not compatible. Thus, external services (such as Google Play) should not provide the application to devices with such screens.

Source

So it seems supports-screens means your app's layout works well for particular screen and will be scaled in other screens

And compatible-screens means your app is compatible with only specific screens and devices. Devices with screen configurations other than those listed, won't be seen in the Play store.