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Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

nickbradbury.com

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Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#11

Post by nopayne »

barumrho wrote: post #3
skrowl wrote: post #2

The people who point out "90% of Apple iPhone users are on the latest OS version! Android sucks because not everyone is on the latest OS!" don't realize (or care) that Apple just bundles up a bunch of userland components and calls it an OS update. Nearly everything but the kernel is auto-updated to the latest version on all Android devices, even if they're several OS versions behind. The discussion should be around "…

Nearly everything but the kernel is auto-updated to the latest version on all Android devices, even if they're several OS versions behind. This benefits users, but not developers. Developers still need to code and test against old API levels.

This is only partially true. Google has started distributing some APIs automatic updates as well via Google Play Services.

http://developer.android.com/google/play-services/index.html

These features are made available on older releases of Android.

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#12

Post by pjmlp »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #10

I think a subtle problem with the android fragmentation is that it is not going to get any better. As time goes on there will be more devices running more android versions. While Google's cheap handset initiative embodied in Nexus 5 will ameliorate problem a bit by giving people incentive to upgrade, it is not nearly enough. I would like to see Google do more to address growing complexity of fragmentation.

We manage fragmentation between computer systems since the dawn of computing.

I really don't get why some people make a huge fuss about it on Android.

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#13

Post by rjd »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #8
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

I still maintain that fragmentation is less of an issue than is commonly believed...I think the biggest problem is that unless your app is relatively new, you probably have to continue supporting Android 2.3. Making sure your app works on that ugly, buggy OS is a massive pain. I gripe about having to support an OS that Apple shipped in Q3 2012. Semi-mandatory Android 2.3 support is a fragmentation problem, especially…

>Semi-mandatory Android 2.3 support is a fragmentation problem Only for spoiled iOS developers. I used to develop for Windows, starting in pre-1995. Want to talk about fragmentation? With dozens of video cards, each with their own custom APIs for doing anything that standard VGA couldn't handle, dozens of sound cards with varying levels of support for the de facto standard(s), memory configurations from 128k through…

From my point of view its management handling thats my issue. When I say week to update iOS, 3 days on the html version, 3 weeks for android, I get a massive push back... "android in one week".. "OK an extra few days for testing, but we need these out now"

Then I start to get really annoyed at the level of shit of I have to support for Android and the backwards and forwards on testing and just seriously wish the company didn't support it all.

Actually TBH, I only took up looking after the mobile suite as a learning thing. And what I learnt is I'd rather be doing other forms of software (almost exclusively due to time pressures and android). The experience has been less rewarding that other forms of development I've done.

I'd never work on Android products again without a proper team (project manager, QA etc...) so someone else could fight the battle of more development time every iteration instead of me.

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#14

Post by TrainedMonkey »

pjmlp wrote: post #12
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #10

I think a subtle problem with the android fragmentation is that it is not going to get any better. As time goes on there will be more devices running more android versions. While Google's cheap handset initiative embodied in Nexus 5 will ameliorate problem a bit by giving people incentive to upgrade, it is not nearly enough. I would like to see Google do more to address growing complexity of fragmentation.

We manage fragmentation between computer systems since the dawn of computing. I really don't get why some people make a huge fuss about it on Android.

I do not dispute that. I agree that it is a manageable situation. What I was pointing out is sheer scale of it. Given enough effort it is certainly possible to make any app to work on all android platforms. However, there are millions of apps in the play store and it is not possible to make them all to work on every device. I just think Google should be actively working to make that task easier on developers. For example getting cloud emulators or even physical devices available to developers for testing their apps against with automated framework.

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#15

Post by pjmlp »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #14
pjmlp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We manage fragmentation between computer systems since the dawn of computing. I really don't get why some people make a huge fuss about it on Android.

I do not dispute that. I agree that it is a manageable situation. What I was pointing out is sheer scale of it. Given enough effort it is certainly possible to make any app to work on all android platforms. However, there are millions of apps in the play store and it is not possible to make them all to work on every device. I just think Google should be actively working to make that task easier on developers. For exa…

How is that any different to make it work on the hardware configurations of all PCs ?

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#16

Post by aaronbrethorst »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #8
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

I still maintain that fragmentation is less of an issue than is commonly believed...I think the biggest problem is that unless your app is relatively new, you probably have to continue supporting Android 2.3. Making sure your app works on that ugly, buggy OS is a massive pain. I gripe about having to support an OS that Apple shipped in Q3 2012. Semi-mandatory Android 2.3 support is a fragmentation problem, especially…

>Semi-mandatory Android 2.3 support is a fragmentation problem Only for spoiled iOS developers. I used to develop for Windows, starting in pre-1995. Want to talk about fragmentation? With dozens of video cards, each with their own custom APIs for doing anything that standard VGA couldn't handle, dozens of sound cards with varying levels of support for the de facto standard(s), memory configurations from 128k through…

With a TAM measuring in the hundreds of millions of devices for each platform, I'd much rather work with the one that requires less self-flagellation. But, to each their own :)

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#17

Post by notastartup »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #9
notastartup wrote: post #6

I still haven't popped my mobile development cherry because of how fragmented the development experience is on a few levels. One, the pain of having to develop twice for iOS and Android and Blackberry (if someone requests it). Two, the pain that comes with fragmentation in each specific platform with Android being the worst. Because the app store is a race to the bottom, I don't want to create an Android app that wor…

Cross-platform development of games is trivial (C/C++ and OpenGL work on all of them). Cross-platform development with PhoneGap or similar is also trivial, and isn't hard to make work on (almost) all devices.

I have been looking at Intel XDK, I think it hits my pain points.

PhoneGap I'm not so sure about because people seem to be walking away from it and writing native applications instead because they were frustrated by performance. Now, I'm sure there's success story.

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#18

Post by TrainedMonkey »

pjmlp wrote: post #15
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not dispute that. I agree that it is a manageable situation. What I was pointing out is sheer scale of it. Given enough effort it is certainly possible to make any app to work on all android platforms. However, there are millions of apps in the play store and it is not possible to make them all to work on every device. I just think Google should be actively working to make that task easier on developers. For exa…

How is that any different to make it work on the hardware configurations of all PCs ?

I agree that in general situations are quite similar, however there are few differences:

1. PC never had a singular point of access to nearly all available applications. Play store makes it easy to download/install or distribute a new application making it instantly available to large amount of people.

2. It is fairly easy following a tutorial to create a new mobile app. This combined with 1 makes it easy even for relatively inexperienced people to make apps that reach wide audience.

3. Rigidity of mobile environment. On PC if something goes wrong you have a chance to figure it out and correct a problem. This is much harder on mobile, often times only thing you could do is complain to the developer.

4. No POSIX. On PC if you need an app to work across a wide array of software and hardware configurations POSIX got your back. Granted, this is a weaker point because it would work only on a limited set of operating systems that are POSIX compatible.

5. You can install almost any app from play store on nearly any android device. You can't install mac os app on windows.

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#19

Post by ladzoppelin »

skrowl wrote: post #2

The people who point out "90% of Apple iPhone users are on the latest OS version! Android sucks because not everyone is on the latest OS!" don't realize (or care) that Apple just bundles up a bunch of userland components and calls it an OS update. Nearly everything but the kernel is auto-updated to the latest version on all Android devices, even if they're several OS versions behind. The discussion should be around "…

Wait some bugs are security issues and cant be patched unless a full upgrade is performed so no the discussion is how do we keep people protected when they cannot upgrade the phone. I apologize if I am missing something but it my understanding Android relies on the carriers to push the updates, correct?

Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

#20

Post by FigBug »

pjmlp wrote: post #15
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not dispute that. I agree that it is a manageable situation. What I was pointing out is sheer scale of it. Given enough effort it is certainly possible to make any app to work on all android platforms. However, there are millions of apps in the play store and it is not possible to make them all to work on every device. I just think Google should be actively working to make that task easier on developers. For exa…

How is that any different to make it work on the hardware configurations of all PCs ?

It's not. Except Windows has 95% of the market and the Mac had 5% of the market. So even though it's easier and cheaper to support a Mac app, the market is so much smaller it's still not really worth it.

Compare to mobile where iOS market place was leading, it didn't make a lot of sense to spend more effort on the smaller market.

Now the Android market is about equal, you are still spending more effort to make the same money.

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