Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Need to Talk About Android

speirs.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 158 posts

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#61

Post by rogerbinns »

ricardobeat wrote: post #38
zrgiu_ wrote: post #4

Android 2.2+ is not that bad, feature-wise. And with the release of several compatibility packages, it's rather easy to make app that run on more than 90% of the available Android devices. APIs haven't changed that much from 2.2 to 4.0, for the design you can easily implement your own, and with the introduction of Fragments it's even easier to make apps that look good on both phones and tablets for Android than for i…

Android apps that look good on tablets? With 2.2?? Dream on.

Android supply a compatibility library that lets you use new functionality even on older Android platforms. You can read about and download it here:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/compatibility-library.html

If you want to use the ActionBar UI style then there is a library that will work on Android 1.6+ using the native one when available else an emulated one.

http://actionbarsherlock.com/

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#63

Post by ugh »

ktizo wrote: post #22

How does having consumer level devices deployed to a school help educate people at all, regardless of things like platform fragmentation?

I do not understand you. What should schools deploy other than consumer level devices? That’s what schools have been doing for years, they usually bought consumer level PCs. It’s just normal.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#64

Post by mattparcher »

vibrunazo wrote: post #40

> "I'm talking about fragmentation of the basic operating system as deployed in the field.[...] I'm talking about APIs. [...] Apple is deploying and the installed base is rapidly upgrading to much more powerful APIs on the devices in consumers' hands" The article says iOS newer APIs are better than Android older APIs, but he doesn't seem to back it up. I'm not very familar with iOS as I am with Android. So I would li…

I'm not qualified to compare Android APIs to those on iOS. I believe the author's main point in this regard is simply that old Android devices don't usually get any new Android features (and APIs, for improved apps), because the manufacturers/carriers don't update the old devices very often.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#65

Post by ugh »

shingen wrote: post #3

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough. 85% good enough, is more than enough to win a market if you have substantial other adv…

What are you responding to? Certainly not to the linked article. Can you read? You are completely off-topic.

This is about deployment in schools, nothing else.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#66

Post by thought_alarm »

shingen wrote: post #3

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough. 85% good enough, is more than enough to win a market if you have substantial other adv…

> Windows has always suffered fragmentation, and has rarely been better than 85% good enough. Circa 2002 they had '95, 98, ME, and XP spread across over half a billion units.

Let's ignore the heroic lengths Microsoft went to ensure compatibility between Windows versions.

You're wrong, anyway.

The cell phone industry is nothing like the PC industry. Whenever you find yourself using a PC analogy to explain some part of Android it means you're getting it completely wrong because it demonstrates an utter lack of understanding of how companies like RIM, Nokia, and Samsung have come to dominate the cell phone industry over the years.

Of course fragmentation is not a problem for the cell phone industry. Fragmentation is a crucial property of the cell phone industry. Samsung became the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world by providing a large, fragmented, outdated array of devices to the carriers.

How could Android fragmentation possibly be a problem for Samsung or the carriers?

The industry has never been about providing up-to-date software. The older your software, the faster you'll update your phone and sign a new 2-year contract.

However, fragmentation is a big problem for people like you and me, who think the smartphone industry should be more like the PC industry, and it's a problem for Google and anyone else who wants to compete with Apple on Apple's terms.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#67

Post by TeeWEE »

The OS versions fragmentation issue is always exagerated. Looking at the list it is tempting to come to the conclusion that android is fragmented: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/api-levels.html

However as a developer there are actually three big different category of versions:

  A) Android
It is very easy to develop for either A&B, or B&C. But developing for all of them is indeed harder.

However that is not really needed since you have a majority in B&C. With the compatibility packages you can create a full blown android 4.0 app that also works on Android 2.2.

And the cool point is: Your app will also work on Tablets! (Yes 1 app, for OS 2.2 2.3, 2.4 3, and 4.0 that works on different phone resolutions on phones and on tablets) IOS is inferior compared to this point.

So as a developer: It doesnt really matter!

As a user: I can understand that you want the latest version of your OS. Well basically: in Android you have choice. Choice a manufacturer that gives steady updates.

At a certain point old phones will not be upgraded anymore. But the same is true for any platform, including IOS. (iOS5 doesnt run on 1st gen IPhones)

My last point:

  Android is a much broader platform than IOS.
  Android runs on TV's, range of tablets,
  range of phones, and even in your car (New Audi A3).
  And supports a range of hardware characteristics
  (single core, quad cores, big screens, small screens, hardware keys etc)
This comes with some kind of "fragmentation" as people call it. But its better to see it as diversity.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#68

Post by shalinmangar »

thought_alarm wrote: post #21

You are not Samsung's customer. Phone manufactures sell phones to carriers, not consumers. Success in the phone industry depends entirely how well you meet the demands of the carriers. RIM knows it (or knew it), Nokia knows it, Samsung knows it. Android is merely a platform that allows Samsung to tailor their devices to the carrier's requirements, in a way they couldn't do when they were selling Windows Mobile device…

I must point out that your comment does not apply to a large number of markets. Consumers in India, for example, decide on a handset independent of which carrier's service they use.

Samsung's devices compare very favorably to similarly priced devices. iPhones are very expensive compared to Samsung's devices in India and in my observation (warning: anecdotal evidence), most iPhone owners that I know have sourced their devices from the US (usually via the used device markets) to get around the price problem. There's no wonder that Samsung continues to thrive and Apple continues to languish in the Indian market.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#69

Post by runako »

edderly wrote: post #32
herge wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are we supposed to believe that the same phone manufacturers will not have the same problems with fragmentation with 4.0, 4.1, 4.x in the future?

The only relationship between the version of the OS and fragmentation is that a new OS rev usually introduces an additional API level. So if you write an app to API level 15 (4.0 IIRC) that will be available and work on subsequent revs.

I think you're missing the point. Putting it another way: When the 4.1 APIs are released, how long do you need to wait to add 4.1 as a dependency for the core cool new feature in your app? Obviously you can use the 4.0 APIs that are still there, but you have to admit that your ability to push new features to your whole user base is impeded by the rag-tag update schedule.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#70

Post by nodata »

ajross wrote: post #35
bunderbunder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Microsoft was pushing updates and security patches to all those XP machines. Still are, over 10 years after initial release. Whereas Android users are lucky if they're still getting updates and security patches after 10 months.

Handset vendors and carriers push security patches routinely (though not commonly, the sandbox architecture makes it a lot less needed than on a desktop OS). It's OS upgrades that are slow. Holes get closed.

Can you flesh out your statement a bit?

You distinguish between security updates and OS updates. I'm not aware of any difference, an update is an update. I've never seen an OTA update that wasn't a point release. How are these deployed differently?

Post reply on HN