Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
nickbradbury.com
Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
1–10 of 46 posts
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#2The 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 "What is it that people without the latest hardware / OS version can't do?" not "What number does your phone say under OS version?"
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#3The 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.
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#4I 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 when you mix in all the crazy shit some handset makers and carriers have done to 'improve' Android.
See, for instance, http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/02/android-qa-testing-quality-...
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#5I've found that the much more annoying and difficult to deal with fragmentation bugs are carrier specific. You will find things like Samsung has changed how you launch the default browser from your app or HTC doesn't follow the spec for getting an image from the camera. These are the kind of bugs that drive me crazy.
My current project runs a test suite (as well as some light adhoc testing) on 6-7 devices (across screen densities and carriers) and that seems to catch most of the issues without spending $20k on a device lab. (We use the excellent Spoon library by Square: http://square.github.io/spoon/)
Screen sizes are not an issue for anyone that's shipped a non-toy app. API levels are not so bad - though you will find yourself using the Support Libraries even in cases when they shouldn't be needed.
BTW: Android provides a weekly report of OS/screen sizes etc that access the Play Store: http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html Use this (not a random blog post) to make informed decisions for your clients on your minSdkVersion.
Now if you want to talk about a real headache for Android developers, let's talk about Fragments - not fragmentation :)
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#6I 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 works well only on the latest devices and have someone else copy it and make it available for all other platforms. This fear is enough to keep me from executing any ideas on the mobile platform.
I still focus on web applications and HTML5 because eventually everyone will be on a phone powerful enough to use it.
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#7The 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.
The overblown problems that the Apple-zealot bloggers are always bringing up are 100% user issues, not to do with developers.
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#8I 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 multiple megabytes, BIOS variations, and even CPU bugs in AMD or other non-Intel chips...and then tons of software that might be running on top of your app (drivers and such)? THAT was fragmentation.
Windows 95 and later (specifically after DirectX was introduced) reduced THOSE problems significantly, but new ones surfaced, anti-virus and firewall packages being the worst, though some video cards still have bugs that break things randomly.
You think having to support 2.3 qualifies as a problem? JUST having to support 2.3 is a dream compared to what we used to have to deal with. The compatibility libraries -- especially the latest versions -- do a great job of making apps work everywhere. And if you're using OpenGL, you have even fewer compatibility issues to worry about.
Get off my lawn. ;)
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#9I 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.
Re: Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited
#10I 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.