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How Fragmented Is Android?

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Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#151

Post by pjmlp »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #115
pjmlp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have made it compulsory on Android 7, and like Microsoft has done multiple times, specify what the hardware requirements for any device should be. And since Android 1, have made OS updates a requirement of the Android licence contract for Google services.

The first part of your solution conflicts with the second. You cannot both require new hardware for an OS version and require OS updates for old hardware.

It works for the PC market, as incredible as it may sound.

Those minimum requirements aren't set in stone, and OEMs seem to comply with them, strangely.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#152

Post by microtonal »

Const-me wrote: post #145
codedokode wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Debian support 32-bit systems? Also, using 64-bit has little value if you have less than 8 Gb of RAM.

> Doesn't Debian support 32-bit systems? Yes. But I think it’ll only a matter of time before they stop, too. > using 64-bit has little value if you have less than 8 Gb of RAM. Address space brings much value. No need to worry about address space fragmentation, also you can safely use memory mapping, even for large files. Extra registers also very nice performance-wise, both general purpose r8-r15 and vector xmm8-xmm1…

Yes. But I think it’ll only a matter of time before they stop, too.

It will probably take at least 5-10 years before all major distributions will stop and their support periods will be over.

Once we are there, there is still NetBSD and OpenBSD. Heck, NetBSD still supports VAX.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#153

Post by pjmlp »

bscphil wrote: post #117
MiddleEndian wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wintel is something that could be taken down a notch, but it seems everything outside of the x86 family is even worse. If I buy a Dell laptop or a Lenovo laptop, it will come with a bunch of useless junk installed that nobody in their right mind would ever want, like Lenovo's useless gigantic Wi-Fi icon in Windows (last observed by me in a T520). But not only can I uninstall all of that junk software, I am still runn…

That's a good point. Imagine Microsoft allowed third-party computer manufacturers to ship custom-built versions of Windows with modifications and third-party drivers that didn't have to be released in any publicly usable format. We'd have a real mess! To be clear, I don't think this is a failing of open source. The problem is that Google allowed phone manufacturers to release practically anything they wanted based on…

Welcome to PC-DOS, MS-DOS, DR-DOS, XX-DOS experience, with each OEM having their own BIOS idea.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#154

Post by keerthiko »

on_and_off wrote: post #4

I work on an Android app aimed at the North American market. Android O, P and Q are 88% of our Android devices. By far and large, fragmentation is something I _never_ have to think about. Jetpack libraries are here to handle it for us, as an abstraction layer between the OS and third party apps. I would have mentioned that e.g. camera apps are an exception : here hardware fragmentation can be a pain. I was half surpr…

If your app primarily requires:

- native UI elements (labels, text fields, images, listviews, etc)

- images in any standard format (png, jpeg, etc)

- network requests that doesn't fetch more than a few 100kb of data at a time

- simple touch interaction (single item tap/drag/swipe/slide)

- read/write to internal storage

- play audio

...then you're fine and fragmentation is most likely a non-issue. OTOH, if you require

- openGL or 3D graphics calls

- read/write to removable storage

- video streaming, HLS streaming, or even local video file playback

- downloads/network fetches of larger amounts of files/data

- multi-touch UX

- rear and/or front or any specific camera access

- actually any hardware sensor/broadcaster/receiver access (gyro, accel, flashlight, bluetooth)

- OS manipulation (custom keyboard, replace default telephony/texting, modify native modals such as share view, register with the OS as a share-target, etc)

...then enjoy lopping off a chunk of your userbase (which you may have to specify manually, although Google helps with this) or struggling to write lots of OS detection switch statements with custom logic for handling each of these things. Working on an app that does 4+ of the things from the latter list, Android fragmentation has been and will continue to be a problem, even if it isn't really at any given point.

If we just want apps which move blobs of text back and forth between views and across the network, then yes fragmentation is not an issue.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#155

Post by soohyung »

com2kid wrote: post #19

Something that doesn't get talked about as much is the differences between how manufacturers customize their OS. It has been talked about a fair bit on HN ( https://dontkillmyapp.com/ ), but it really is a huge problem. I can be listening to music on my phone and One+ will just kill Pandora, or Spotify. I have to manually "lock" music apps and workout apps in One+'s task switching UI to keep them from being randomly…

You should try disabling deep battery optimization in Settings -> Battery -> Battery optimization -> Advanced optimization. Unfortunately that feature is known to cause these kind of problems on OnePlus devices.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#156

Post by acct1771 »

microtonal wrote: post #152
Const-me wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't Debian support 32-bit systems? Yes. But I think it’ll only a matter of time before they stop, too. > using 64-bit has little value if you have less than 8 Gb of RAM. Address space brings much value. No need to worry about address space fragmentation, also you can safely use memory mapping, even for large files. Extra registers also very nice performance-wise, both general purpose r8-r15 and vector xmm8-xmm1…

Yes. But I think it’ll only a matter of time before they stop, too. It will probably take at least 5-10 years before all major distributions will stop and their support periods will be over. Once we are there, there is still NetBSD and OpenBSD. Heck, NetBSD still supports VAX.

At what stage does it become an endorsement to use insecure architecture?

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#157

Post by Const-me »

microtonal wrote: post #152
Const-me wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't Debian support 32-bit systems? Yes. But I think it’ll only a matter of time before they stop, too. > using 64-bit has little value if you have less than 8 Gb of RAM. Address space brings much value. No need to worry about address space fragmentation, also you can safely use memory mapping, even for large files. Extra registers also very nice performance-wise, both general purpose r8-r15 and vector xmm8-xmm1…

Yes. But I think it’ll only a matter of time before they stop, too. It will probably take at least 5-10 years before all major distributions will stop and their support periods will be over. Once we are there, there is still NetBSD and OpenBSD. Heck, NetBSD still supports VAX.

> Heck, NetBSD still supports VAX.

I wonder about the level of VAX support. Do they just have old code lying in the repository, do they build it, or do the devs actually have a working VAX machine and they test new builds?

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#158

Post by Fradow »

blihp wrote: post #44
on_and_off wrote: post #4

I work on an Android app aimed at the North American market. Android O, P and Q are 88% of our Android devices. By far and large, fragmentation is something I _never_ have to think about. Jetpack libraries are here to handle it for us, as an abstraction layer between the OS and third party apps. I would have mentioned that e.g. camera apps are an exception : here hardware fragmentation can be a pain. I was half surpr…

It sounds like you're rolling with whatever Google's latest 'solution' to fragmentation is, so of course it's not going to be an issue: Google is dropping old devices for you so they never even appear in your console stats.[1] This is a perfectly valid business decision to take on your end, but it doesn't mean that the problem doesn't still exist... only that you aren't having to deal with it. I've got several still…

> I've got several still functional 4.x-5.x devices [...] that can't even use the market anymore

4.4.x and 5.x can certainly use the Play Store. I use both of those versions regularly, and they still works well (in fact, I keep 4.4.x support, and do not plan on stopping soon).

In Europe, a few manufacturers still sell 5.x devices. In particular, my manufacturer of choice only recently decided to finally upgrade the small tablet / low cost option to give us the chance of having an OS that's not 5 years old on purchase /sarcasm.

May I mention that contrary to iPads, older devices allow to side-load older app versions (that you can easily find online). I recently re-used a 4.0.2 device and installed VLC and Firefox on it (all it will ever need). And for 4.2+, you can just use F-Droid, most apps are going to be compatible.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#159

Post by DiabloD3 »

dmitrygr wrote: post #59
DiabloD3 wrote: post #10

The article concludes, as far as I can tell, it isn't fragmented, it just has a bunch of recent enough versions on similar enough devices to run most apps. Apps don't care what version of Android you run, they care what API support you have, and apps can detect API support at runtime and adapt. OTOH, the article fails to mention that Apple refuses to let you support devices after EOL, and even some of the oldest Andr…

Your one plus has a terrible camera in low light. That is why people pay for pixel. Don't know why they do for Samsung or apple though.

Nope. 6T's low light performance is on par with the Pixel 3's, and Apple's gen equivalent of the Xs doesn't seem to perform as well, and the S9 also had slightly worse night performance.

The only way people can beat the 6T and Pixel 3's camera is with the newer phones: the 7 Pro, S10, Honor 20, Mi 9, the Pixel 4 (when it finally comes out) all use the same sensor: the Sony IMX586.

You may be just simply stating you don't like the 6T's camera app... it does low light differently. Not worse, but different, and in my opinion, more accurately. People have put a copy of Google Camera on their 6Ts and enabled the Pixel 3 low light mode (it's entirely in software and not a function of the hardware; change a prop, and any phone gets the Pixel 3 enhancements), and the 6T either performed essentially identically, or slightly better.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#160

Post by izuchukwu »

on_and_off wrote: post #58
blihp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're rolling with whatever Google's latest 'solution' to fragmentation is, so of course it's not going to be an issue: Google is dropping old devices for you so they never even appear in your console stats.[1] This is a perfectly valid business decision to take on your end, but it doesn't mean that the problem doesn't still exist... only that you aren't having to deal with it. I've got several still…

>It sounds like you're rolling with whatever Google's latest 'solution' to fragmentation > You say that O/P/Q are 88% of your devices but they only represent 38.7% of devices accessing the market NO !! That's the issue with these articles. They just read the android dashboard and pretend that: - it applies everywhere - many different devices = difficulty for the devs or users The dashboard reports the global figures.…

I believe in the comment you’re replying to, “the market” is actually referring to the Android Market, the original name of the Google Play Store, rather than the economic market of serviceable users.
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