Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited

Post by pjmlp » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #18

pjmlp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Post by gress » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 8:49 PM UTC

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…

Post by jonathansizz » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 8:56 PM UTC

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…

Post by guelo » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 9:14 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #24

guelo wrote: post #22

As far as OS version fragmentation, iOS 6 and Android 2.x are both running on approximately 20% of their respective ecosystems. But for some reason iOS developers are more ruthless in cutting off older devices. I recently convinced a very insistent company to drop Android 2.x support after I pointed out that they had already dropped iOS 6 support without giving it a second thought.

So, now you support one version on each platform?

Post by bane » Fri, Mar 28, 2014, 10:19 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #21

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

1. Magazines with tapes, floppies, CDs, DVDs 2. BASIC, Logo, Hypercard, ... 3. Fail to see the difference 4. POSIX only covers a tiny bit of OS portability and even POSIX leaves the little bit it covers with lots of vendor specific behaviors 5. You can install any Mac app on any Mac, any Amiga app on any Amiga, any PC app on any PC, ...