81–90 of 91 posts
There seems to be a tendency to use 'fragmentation' to imply something vaguely negative - a kind of problematic deviation from the norm. I Prefer to think of it as diversity .
There seems to be a tendency to use 'fragmentation' to imply something vaguely negative - a kind of problematic deviation from the norm. I Prefer to think of it as diversity .
I think it depends on your perspective on things. As a consumer I love the diversity of the Android landscape. As a developer I dislike the fragmentation of the Android landscape.
There seems to be a tendency to use 'fragmentation' to imply something vaguely negative - a kind of problematic deviation from the norm. I Prefer to think of it as diversity .
Having lots of different screen sizes is never "fragmentation". Having different versions of Android? Maybe.
This person doesn't understand WTF fragmentation is.
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One of the annoyances I've had with Android, from a new consumer's point of view, is that it's presented as this monolithic OS that's the same across every phone. But once you do the research, you find that it's really not. Except for the Nexus line, there really isn't a "Google Android" experience. When you buy an Android device, you're really buying HTC's, Samsung's, Amazon's or Motorola's Android. Every device has…
"No, the alternative is for Google to exert control over the device manufacturers and state that if they're going to be using the Android OS, they need to support and update their devices to the latest version for at least 2 years after the phones are released." You think that would cause the manufacturers to change their behavior in order to stay certified as Android compatible? I think that would lead the major man…
I'm tired of seeing "Android" cited as a single OS in all kinds of statistics, when in fact it's a pile of proprietarily hacked OSes with a common heritage.
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Spoken like someone who isn't an Android developer. Take your analogy to the next step. Someone opens an online store that sells binary-only copies of applications targeted to just "Linux".. you would call them crazy, no? That's what the Google Market is. Or the Amazon Market, samsung apps, nook store, ... I wrote a blog post to help you understand the pragmatic issues faced by an Android developer trying to write de…
Right, the problem is with the Google Market, Amazon Market, et. al. It's not with Android as a platform (or operating system). The problem is that Google copied the "App Store" idea for software distribution that Apple created for their iPhone. Instead, they should have gone with the same idea that Linux distros use: The product vendor is responsible for distributing the software for the product. That would look com…
So what can Google do to reduce the problem? Release only one major version of Android every year? Every 3 years like Windows? Release a private "beta" version for most manufacturers (not just one like now) so that they all have devices with the new OS on the official launch day? Develop better abstraction layers for hardware? Force manufacturers to use only a few resolutions like 480x320, 800x480 and 1280x720 (retin…
It seems to me that the best way to think of Android is to compare it to the world of Linux distros. (I believe Dan Benjamin of 5by5 pointed this out on one of his podcasts.) Yes, there's Linux, but there's no one Linux. There's Android, but there's no one Android. So while Android is technically an operating system, it's really an open platform on which to build mobile devices on top of. So the Android device I buy…
Obviously there are some huge differences, but it still feels very familiar to me. I don't think it'll play out the same though, given the quality and popularity of the Apple product this time around.
As much as I do appreciate Apple products, I'm glad they lost the PC revolution. I can't believe we'd have been better off building software for that closed system.
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You're mixing things up, so I'd suggest going back to do more research. Honeycomb was tablet-only, it was never released for handsets. That's like complaining that only 7% (or whatever) of iOS users can run iPad apps, it's meaningless. ICS uptake, however, has been ploddingly slow. It's finally breaking through now as the vendors clear out their holiday inventory and start pushing new models.
Yeah, I'm not up to speed on Android. But, so, that only accounts for 3% of the users. It still means only %5 are on ICS, and the rest are basically on 2.3. So the process for developing a new iOS app today is: 1. Download latest SDK 2. Develop for iOS 5.1 For Android, it seems to necessarily be: 1. Download latest SDK 2. Develop for Android 2.3