81–90 of 94 posts
> You know how all Android developers complain about fragmentation? Yeah, this is what fragmentation looks like. This is some of the most insulting garbage out there. I'm an Android developer. I don't complain about fragmentation. Ever. Don't you dare lump me into a group of people you hear complaining loudly. I'm not one of them! I know it can be hard to get apps to work across all phones. The variety of available h…
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I completely agree. I was on a project to develop an extremely complex Android app and we survived just fine by testing on one tablet and one phone per developer (roughly 6 or 7 different devices total). The developer tools do an excellent job helping test for and deal with errors on the different in the Android ecosystem.
I agree too. On more data point here: we just ported our fairly complex app (a file manager) from Honeycomb back to Froyo. If we had access to that many devices, of course we would have tested it on all of them, but our experience has been that using a few devices and some emulator configurations you can do surprisingly well enough. Not a single complaint so far, although admittedly our user base only approaches abou…
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When they say "all Android developers" you can be pretty sure they mean "most Android developers". Working on several high profile apps here in Denmark I have felt the pain of not having enough real devices to test on. A bank just wont accept that you don't support one of the most common phone on the market because it has some problems with the camera. Another project ran into the BigInteger.modPow is not thread safe…
Isn't "not supporting one of the most common phones" a different order of magnitude from what they're discussing here? Hell yes that app should be supporting the Galaxy S2s and HTC Desires of this world, but the majority of those 400+ devices will probably be used by < 0.0001% of your users, particularly if the app is targeting a Western audience.
I'm not an android developer, but I am curious. Why is it that testing on dozens/hundreds of platforms is considered essential for cell phones, but not for PCs? Is android just that much worse at abstracting hardware than traditional OS'es?
Since when do developers for PC applications reach 100% compatibility with any hardware/OS combination out there without testing on dozens of platforms? (The guy in the article with the 400 devices is trying to achieve 100% compatibility) We use about 6-7 different devices in our Android team and cover 95% of our target audience with that. (its a VoIP/messaging app with millions of customers)
Oh BTW, Apkudo just launched their beta free program to test apps in android devices online..I would find a way to get an invite..
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Since when do developers for PC applications reach 100% compatibility with any hardware/OS combination out there without testing on dozens of platforms? (The guy in the article with the 400 devices is trying to achieve 100% compatibility) We use about 6-7 different devices in our Android team and cover 95% of our target audience with that. (its a VoIP/messaging app with millions of customers)
But you have to remember that the small percentage of people who have problems can post feedback that is visible straightaway to potential customers. There isn't such a negative feedback loop for PC applications. It's one of the reasons why it would be good if the Android market let you specify which hardware your app was good for.
1) Filter via your manifest file: Allow installation only on devices with certain screen sizes or hardware like GPS or Camera
(Description: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/market-filters.h... )
2) Filter via Developer Console: Exclude specific device models or countries