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How Fragmented Is Android?

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Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#71

Post by scarface74 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #38
rarestblog wrote: post #15

Well, if you remove all iOS versions with https://i.imgur.com/0Ar0ta5.png My point being: there ARE other iOS versions in use. I have a backup working iPhone 4 turned on right now. It won't upgrade beyond iOS 5 (I think it's iOS 5). But somehow the author ignores all those 0.1% iOS versions, yet shows them for Android (with 4 decimals no less).

The other point is that most Apple store apps become uninstallable on anything older than three iOS versions.

If apps ever had a version that worked as of iOS 5, you can still download “the last compatible version”. I’ve downloaded older streaming apps recently on a first generation iPad running iOS 5.

Any iPhone released since 2013 - with the exception of the 5C can run the latest OS.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#72

Post by bluescrn »

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…

Try doing anything vaguely graphical (games being the obvious example) and you’ll realise that a large percentage of Android devices are potatoes

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#73

Post by muxator »

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…

Out of curiosity: did you ever tried using Yalp store for downloading the apk from the store? Would it be useful for you?

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#74

Post by scarface74 »

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…

OTOH, the article fails to mention that Apple refuses to let you support devices after EOL, and even some of the oldest Android devices in existence can run even the newest Android, as long as you're willing to upgrade the ROM yourself.

The 2012 iPhone 5 is the newest unsupported iPhone. Would you really want to support a phone that old and have to support both a 32 bit and a 64 bit version of your app?

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#75

Post by pjmlp »

izacus wrote: post #66
pjmlp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wallet is annoyed. And as I replied to another comment, that is only one example among many. I could write about Java 12 support, audio API, the constant changes in background processes, the multiple reboots on the UI framework, how NDK is handled and plenty others.

So how would you "fix" the issue? E.g. how would you add Vulcan on devices that do not have GPUs capable of Vulkan requirements and no proper drivers?

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.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#76

Post by robocat »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #60

I know this post is about Android versions but I recently launched a new service and have been watching user agents and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see no matter the Android version, it’s almost always running Chrome 73/Firefox 66. I have a user running Android 5.5.1, another on some version of 4! Yet they’re on modern browsers. This isn’t true for anyone on an old iOS. Those users are stuck with old browsers,…

FYI: Android 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 will soon get no more updates to Chrome[1]. Android 4.0 is stuck on an old version of Chrome.

For WebView, Android 4.4 is stuck on Chrome 30/33 and anything older still uses AOSP.

Samsung users often use the Samsung browser, which is often a very obsolete version that came with the phone.

1. https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-android-droppin...

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#77

Post by on_and_off »

eugeniub wrote: post #6

The fault of fragmentation lies at many levels, including distributors. The bookstore at my alma mater in the Midwest is normally great at promoting modern tech products, but they recently started pushing two models of a phone with KitKat at $100+ pricepoints. That's Android 4.4, which was deprecated in 2015. Who are these phones for? They're not even suitable for computer science students, because trying to learn An…

A google search on 100$ android phones returned a "best cheap android phones" list. The first entry is the Nokia 2 (never tried one but I heard good things).

For 85$ it ships with Oreo.

That's kind of amazing : for a relatively modest sum, you get a lot of technology.

It makes me wonder why anybody would recommend a costlier device shipping with 4.4

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#78

Post by robocat »

jmiskovic wrote: post #21

I'm not a professional app developer. A year ago I invested few months to develop an app I wanted to have. Today it has few thousand users. Fragmentation doesn't bother me. Yes, on some devices the app crashes, on others the sound lag is unbearable. I don't really care, as long as it works fine on most devices. Two things infuriate me, though. Enough to never again spend another minute developing for android. Every t…

> Every time I enter android studio, it wants to update

Xcode is always bumping versions too.

> The second thing is recent requirement to provide 64-bit version of each app.

iOS had this issue too.

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#79

Post by jmiskovic »

chipperyman573 wrote: post #45
jmiskovic wrote: post #21

I'm not a professional app developer. A year ago I invested few months to develop an app I wanted to have. Today it has few thousand users. Fragmentation doesn't bother me. Yes, on some devices the app crashes, on others the sound lag is unbearable. I don't really care, as long as it works fine on most devices. Two things infuriate me, though. Enough to never again spend another minute developing for android. Every t…

>Google sent me a mail that "All new apps and app updates are required to provide 64-bit versions of any 32-bit native code they provide". So I won't be able to update existing app to existing users ever again, for non-technical reasons. Isn't the reason entirely technical? 64-bit apps can use 64-bit only instruction sets, which are newer and usually faster, resulting in a performance improvement. BTW, apple did the…

Android was written for 32 bit. It couldn't run 64-bit before Lollipop. Currently there's about 2% of 64-bit Android devices (https://web.archive.org/web/20170808222202/http://hwstats.un...). I agree with performance argument, especially on battery-powered devices. But in this case there's nothing to be gained because LuaJIT is written for 32-bit CPU. Compiling for 64 bits won't do anything. Besides, hardly anything can squeeze more performance out of CPU than LuaJIT.

I'm complaining different issue, though. I researched the platform requirements before investing time into android development. I shared my work for free because Google doesn't allow developers in my country to charge money for their work. I kept updating the app following the user feedback. I will lose the product because of this. This feels like rug being swept under my feet :(

Re: How Fragmented Is Android?

#80

Post by pjmlp »

on_and_off wrote: post #62
Avamander wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fragmentation becomes an issue when you're either building services that run in the background or interact with hardware (BT, WiFi, WiFi-direct, Camera, GNSS, Gyro/Accel). I feel fragmentation hard with my app.

For the background WorkManager has done wonders. For hardware, I believe that 100%. I am talking about "regular" android apps that don't need deep access to the hardware. By deep I mean something harder than recording something (e.g. taking/picking a picture is delegated to the default system app, not the one you build) or displaying the current position with a mapping sdk. Bluetooth in particular I can believe. It i…

On ADB Podcast about Bluetooth, they referred that certain models would just crash if someone tries to talk with specific protocol versions.
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