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Android Handhelds Operating Systems

Who's Afraid of Android Fragmentation? 136

Nerval's Lobster writes: The dreaded term "fragmentation" has been applied to Android more times than anyone can count over the past half-decade. That's part of the reason why game developers often build for iOS before Android, even though Android offers a bigger potential customer base worldwide, and more types of gaming experiences. Fortunately, new sets of tools allow game developers to build for one platform and port their work (fairly) easily to another. "We've done simultaneously because it is such a simple case of swapping out the textures and also hooking up different APIs for scores and achievements," London-based indie developer Tom Vian told Dice. "I've heard that iOS is a better platform to launch on first, but there's no sense for us in waiting when we can spend half a day and get it up and running." So is fragmentation an overhyped roadblock, or is it a genuine problem for developers who work in mobile?
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Who's Afraid of Android Fragmentation?

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  • by nitehawk214 ( 222219 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @02:56PM (#49140301)

    "No disassemble Johnny Five!"

    • by geminidomino ( 614729 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:04PM (#49140427) Journal

      Johnny 5 was a sentient robot, not an android (not human-shaped).

      Dammit, now I have to find the HDD with that movie on it. I blame you.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ron_ivi ( 607351 )

      Who's Afraid of Android Fragmentation?

      I'm afraid of the ***lack*** of fragmentation in Android.

      I believe that Linux's success is directly tied to it's fragmentation.

      When a early Linux distro is hard to use (mailing lists), a much easer one comes out (Slackware). When a different Linux vendor goes insane (SCO Linux), other vendors can remane sane. When a different linux goes expensive (RHEL), affordable forks spring up (CentOS).

      Fragmentation is what keeps Linux safe both-from-and-for things like systemd. If systemd turns out great - f

      • by mlts ( 1038732 )

        The biggest issue that people have is app compatibility, and without apps, the entire ecosystem winds up marginalized, as it did with Maemo/Meego (which were excellent operating systems, but without popular support, just didn't continue on.)

        The good news is that we have tools to fix this, especially with containers, virtualization, and btrfs that offers online and offline deduplication.

        Virtualization is important. With this, one can have their apps for work in one VM which is up to corporate policies when

        • by rHBa ( 976986 )
          I'm far from an expert in theses matters but isn't hardware more likely to be an issue than what version of Android you're on? I mean I don't even run stock Android and I've never come across an app in the Google Play store that wouldn't run on CM.
          • The maker isn't a major issue indeed, contrary to what the fearmongers say. I also run CM and never have I had a problem.
            There is some backwards compatibility problems, many apps won't run on earlier android versions which is a problem for devices that aren't supported anymore and don't have good current custom ROMS either (though this is rare, most devices even if they no longer have manufacturer support has somebody, somewhere still making ROMS for them - this is how I can run KitKat on my first generatio

      • by Rob Y. ( 110975 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @06:07PM (#49142557)

        I'd mod you 'funny' if I didn't think you meant it. Android has hundreds of millions of users. Ubuntu probably has a few million (maybe tens of millions). Other distros, even fewer. If numbers mean anything, it should be obvious which of these accounts for "Linux's success"?

        Linux fragmentation is good in the sense that it's openness has allowed it to usher in whole new device categories (TiVo, Chromecast, Raspberry, home NAS boxes, etc). The one thing that Linux fragmentation has not helped is desktop adoption and especially 3rd party application development, which is still practically non-existent. And I use Linux as my primary desktop, so this isn't some uninformed rant.

      • Or, would you say... "I find your lack of fragmentation... disturbing."

      • How many Android phones have you had that didn't require you to either wait for your carrier to provide an update (and they never do), or give up and root the machine to install Cyanogenmod or whatever, or you just bought a new shiny phone to replace it? My HTC Aria is so hopelessly vendor-locked I doubt it's worth putting Cyanogen on it (the OTA upgrade from 2.1 to 2.3 never succeeded.) My newer Samsung did get upgraded to 4.4.2, but my Coby tablet running 4.0.4 isn't the version the manufacturer sells t

        • How many people kept on using 8086's once there was a 486? Kept on using DOS3.1 once DOS5 was available if they had an HD?

          The early Android phones had very limited processing power, ROM and RAM - the equivalent of an 8086. Now we are getting phones with 4GB RAM (I remember mainframes with less than 1MB), then upgrading is not going to face the restrictions it did when there was only 86M of RAM.

          As for "waiting for you carrier to upgrade" - you must live in the USA or Australia. Carriers elsewhere DO upgra

      • We need more fragmentation. The mobile world would better if I could choose to run Ubuntu-Android, Fedora-Android, Samsung-Android or Google-Android on my phone.

        You almost can, Samsung's spin is not like what's on the Nexus and neither is like Cyanogenmod which isn't like most of the other many custom ROMS out there.
        I agree it would be better if swapping out ROMS were a LOT easier, rooting wasn't needed (because they came with it enabled) and more of the big Linux Distros were building ROMS that could run on Android devices, possibly some of them could even bypass the android interface and libraries and not run dalvik code but COULD run recompiled linux apps.

        That w

  • Follow the money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:02PM (#49140385)

    You are confusing market share with profit share.
    It's been shown in many studies that the vast majority of android users do not buy any apps and are mostly on low end devices that wouldn't be able to play the better games anyway.
    That's the real reason why devs have an iOS first approach.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by morgauxo ( 974071 )

      I buy Android apps. Although, I admit I usually download the free version first. If I like it I usually buy it. Otherwise I just uninstall it. I rarely buy anything that I don't get to try this way first. I do have apps that have no free versions. Most of them I would buy just to get rid of the ads if I had a choice!

      But... I wouldn't necessarily buy them at iOS prices. I do have an iPad too, on which I rarely install anything. My most used app on either platform is Anki, a flashcard program. It's free o

      • by Anonymous Coward

        That's great data you have there.

        I'm sure it contradicts the $10+B sent to iOS developers so far.

        • It wasn't meant to. It was meant to contradict the falacy that Android users never pay. I never meant to claim that there aren't a whole lot of stupid people out there spending money on stupid shit! iOS is the best scam in town!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      You are confusing market share with profit share.
      It's been shown in many studies that the vast majority of android users do not buy any apps and are mostly on low end devices that wouldn't be able to play the better games anyway.
      That's the real reason why devs have an iOS first approach.

      it's worse than that.

      The business models for developers is different. On iOS, sell your app - everywhere Apple officially sells their products, they have at least an app store and will take money to pay for the app. And Appl

      • by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @07:26PM (#49143123)

        On Android, most Android users don't pay for apps. Either because they can't (Google Wallet isn't universal)

        Next time, just write "I know nothing about Android" because it'll waste less of our time.

        You dont need Google Wallet to purchase apps on Google Play. You can do it with a normal credit card or the Google Play preload cards that are sitting next to the Itunes cards.

        Google wallet is a completely different product, whilst it can be used on Google Play, it is not required.

        So the Android business model is to sell ads and give the app away

        And this ends up being more profitable. Especially over the long term.

        • by Clsid ( 564627 )

          I figure you haven't been out much. Google Wallet or not, the fact is that the number of countries where you can pay through Google Play is limited. And let's not even talk about China where Google Play itself is blocked, so the way you purchase apps are through carrier's or manufacturer's app stores. Still, if I'm developing an app I would release both versions in either case, in the case of Android heavily targeting the app for the US market and ignoring the rest.

          • Funny you mention China, given that iOS has less than 20% of the market share there. Isn't 20% that magical evil number you quoted earlier? If I were targeting the Chinese it most definitely would not be iOS. And no the carrier and manufacturer's app stores are not the way you get apps in China. There are dedicated 3rd parties running app stores run by the likes of news companies and Tencent (the company behind the hugely successful QQ chat program). Also with 2 app stores you target some 90% of the Chinese

      • On Android, most Android users don't pay for apps. Either because they can't (Google Wallet isn't universal), or other reasons. And if Google Wallet doesn't support the country, Google only shows free apps.

        True, visibility of priced apps outside the United States was a significant problem in the Android 1.x and possibly early 2.x days. But I thought Google had expanded the set of countries in which priced apps are available over the past half decade.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Basically it is a different market. Face it people that buy Apple do not really buy all that wisely, if they did, Apple would have a whole lot smaller profit margin. So they target that Apple market where people will pay more for the same thing because 'er' 'umm' it feeds their ego that they can spend more, they are 'hmmm' 'special' consumers ;D.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      There are far, far more Android users, so even if each one spends less that doesn't mean you will make less money in the long run. Also, if you are developing apps for developing nations, good luck selling many copies on iOS.

      Unfortunately we don't have stats broken down by country. I bet they would paint a very different picture though.

    • This. It's to the point where a lot of options for iOS arn't even available in android.

      Case in point: Scrabble. On iOS there is a free version with a metric crapton of ads, and a $10 paid for version with no ads.

      Android? They don't even *offer* the $10 one. Only the version that gives craptons of ads. Not only that, the Android version was fond of crashing and not updating properly when the persons turn was over. I was shocked. As I was using iOS and my spouse was using Android, I was trying to find

  • Last night I dreamed that Frances McDormand was shoving my phone down a chipper.

  • by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:03PM (#49140413)
    As more and more devices of varying features and sizes have been released by Apple, there's been more and more work developers have had to do to adopt the different sizes/features of those devices (I still see new releases on the app store that state a new feature of "Support for iPhone 5S size" or similar)

    It hasn't been until recently that Apple has given developers the tools to create views that don't need to know the specifics of the device it's running on, thereby avoiding silly checks like
    if(device == IPHONE) {....} else if(device == IPAD) {....}
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 )
      Yeah, iPhone is just as bad as Android in this situation (and in some ways worse, because Apple is perfectly happy to make APIs backwards incompatible).

      The only difference is that Apple has fewer phone models, whereas Android has many. That is basically all of it. Also, I think Android has gotten slightly better recently, but iPhone has gotten slightly worse recently.
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Riiiight. That's why I can get an update for the OS direct from Apple but I'm at the mercy of a carrier for Android? This is starting to sound like the old Linux conversations... "You don't need to wait for the distro to update as long as you're willing to go in and change 17 different config files and download some obscure packages from some repository that no one has ever head of."

        I've never had a single app not work on an iPhone because of OS version issues like I did with my Androids (even on "p

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          Actually Apple just pushed way harder on carriers making them approve their phone updates. Google's bargining power is weaker, along with Microsofts. Apple played it right when Steve Jobs made the deals.
        • That's why I can get an update for the OS direct from Apple but I'm at the mercy of a carrier for Android?

          I have an ASUS Nexus 7 (2012) tablet computer with Wi-Fi. My aunt has an iPad 2, also with Wi-Fi. Both get updates straight from the manufacturer. What "carrier" are you talking about? Do you mean an ISP?

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        As an iOS developer, I have to agree with your comment. It used to be a standard resolution up until the iPhone 4, at which point it was just double the resolution. Easy right? A simple check to see if you need to double the resolution or not, same aspect ratio, no problem. Then the 5 screwed up the aspect ratio entirely. Then the 6 and 6+ new resolution and aspect ratio. At this point you might as well have a dynamic UI for any ratio/resolution which does blur the line when it comes to the simplicity of iO

    • by Enry ( 630 )

      You're also seeing people get annoyed with the latest iOS release and hold off on upgrading or revert back.

      • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:33PM (#49140831)

        You're also seeing people get annoyed with the latest iOS release and hold off on upgrading or revert back.

        You can't revert back on iOS unless the old version is still being signed, which is generally a very short window. If people are getting annoyed that fast, they're not bothering to actually giving the new version much of a chance.

        • by Enry ( 630 )

          Can't you restore an old iTunes backup or is that no longer available? Maybe this was back in the days when my wife had an iPhone.

          • Not for most iOS devices that people are using today. It used to be you could back up the unique signature (SHSH) blobs from your device while your iOS version was still being signed, and that would let you downgrade later whenever you wanted - but I'm pretty sure the last device for which that was possible was the iPhone 4S with its A4 chip.

    • by BitZtream ( 692029 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:47PM (#49141023)

      As more and more devices of varying features and sizes have been released by Apple

      Yea, its totally the same, there are a handful of different iOS device sizes ... compared to well over 100 that I'm aware of for android during the same period of time.

      It hasn't been until recently that Apple has given developers the tools to create views that don't need to know the specifics of the device it's running on, thereby avoiding silly checks like
      if(device == IPHONE) {....} else if(device == IPAD) {....}

      I've been a developer since the day you could sign up ... if you have checks like that for view size, you're doing it wrong. Apple has provided tools since day one to do so when it comes to size, like just using the proper NIB/XIB, hell the project wizard does it on project creation if you tell it your creating a universal app.

      • Try differentiating between an iPad mini and an iPad 2 on a website where you don't have that luxury. Everything, HTTP headers, screen values, viewport sizes, all that jazz you'd normally use gives you the same result. You have to resort to a silly CSS @media directive in order to find out which one the user has.

        • by Clsid ( 564627 )

          Silly media directives? In what planet can you build responsive web sites with those? Last time I checked Bootstrap, Foundation and PureCSS were still using those. I have no idea what you are complaining about. Besides the discussion was about app development, it's like complaining that I cannot use direct database access in HTML5 or something.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

        Apple actively encouraged developers to target specific resolutions, especially in the early days when the hardware was quite weak. In order for everything to look good they told developers to create graphics for the iPhone and later iPad's specific resolution.

        That's why when later models with better screens came out they preferred to exactly doubled the resolution when possible. All those apps written for the old resolution then at least scaled 2:1 and only looked as bad as they did on the old low resoluti

    • The new features and screen sizes do not prevent a previous released app from working. I released an iOS game years ago and it works perfectly on all new devices, even though they didn't even exist on the day of release.

  • So is fragmentation an overhyped roadblock, or is it a genuine problem for developers who work in mobile?

    Yes!

  • No (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spectrum- ( 158197 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [wdiehtimsg]> on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:06PM (#49140453)
    There'll be forks, there'll be distros that die out but ultimately choice is good. Out of all the traditional Linux distributions eventually a status quo develops of some core popular ones. Over time they fall out of favour and the critical mass slowly moves to another. In the medium term maybe some fresh eyes and fresh thinking will solve some of the current issues that plague users now. Will they have vested interests? May they take things down a path that turns out ba? At times, probably but there's a fork for that
    • Oops ba/bad - no sheep were harmed in this typo
    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      There'll be forks, there'll be distros that die out but ultimately choice is good. Out of all the traditional Linux distributions eventually a status quo develops of some core popular ones. Over time they fall out of favour and the critical mass slowly moves to another. In the medium term maybe some fresh eyes and fresh thinking will solve some of the current issues that plague users now. Will they have vested interests? May they take things down a path that turns out ba? At times, probably but there's a fork for that

      This.

      The only people afraid of Android "fragmentation" (those are sarcastic quotes) are the people who dont have an Android device and are desperately hoping for Android to fail for some reason, any reason.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    It's mostly FUD that the trade rags are copying from their corporate master. Like all good lies, there's a solid kernel of truth, but it's not nearly as bad as stated. Yup, my games don't run on poorly implemented cheap Chinese tablets. However, it's not a big problem for me.

  • by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:13PM (#49140565)

    One of the reason people developed for iOS first was the platform had users who on average had higher incomes and spent more money on apps [bgr.com]. So if you were trying to develop an application to sell it was more likely to show a return. Also there is more piracy [bgr.com] of apps on Android.

    • by nwf ( 25607 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:27PM (#49140755)

      Indeed. This article seems to be from the Wizard of Oz camp. Pay no attention to the serious problems, look here at this non-problem! The serious problems being rampant piracy and overall lack of software sales.

      I've developed for both and indeed iOS is getting more annoying to develop for. Android, well, it's basically the same as it's been. It looks nicer, but it appears to be designed (overall) by people on the theoretical side and not the practical side (activities and fragments come to mind.) Doing interesting UI stuff is too annoying. On the other hand, I've found that non-game apps work pretty well across devices, but not so much OS versions. Networking is still painfully slow compared to iOS.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:39PM (#49140913) Homepage

        Meanwhile, there is this PC platform that wiped out all of it's other bespoke competitors probably before you even touched your first computer. PCs are MUCH more diverse than Android phones. But if you started whining about "fragmentation" to PC developers they would look at you like you grew a second head.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Bullshit.

          The last thing the PC is, is fragmented.

          PCs have standard hardware interfaces for things like, you know, booting an OS. Accessing your framebuffer. System busses.
          Android devices have none of this. Every device, every ARM SoC is roll-your-own and almost never documented. (Just ask the cyanogen devs what they think about fragmentation. Protip: Wear earplugs)

          Windows (and lets be frank, we're talking about microsoft OSs here) has literally millions of lines of code devoted just to paving over the rest

          • Bullshit.

            The last thing the PC is, is fragmented.

            PCs have standard hardware interfaces for things like, you know, booting an OS. Accessing your framebuffer. System busses.
            Android devices have none of this. Every device, every ARM SoC is roll-your-own and almost never documented. (Just ask the cyanogen devs what they think about fragmentation. Protip: Wear earplugs)

            I call *your* bullshit. For an app developer (or a game developer) all of this is hidden under the Android APIs. If Android really was this much of a problem for developers then nothing would get done, rather than the real-life situation where Android is no slower to develop on than iPhone.

            You're right from a OS perspective, but that is not the problem of app developers.

        • Meanwhile, there is this PC platform that wiped out all of it's other bespoke competitors probably before you even touched your first computer.

          An open platform running a bespoke OS stack. It also helped that the original PC clone makers were just that, cloning down to the schematic level the IBM PC.

          Android smartphones are bespoke hardware, the average Samsung or Nokia smartphone might as well be Kaypro or a Commodore PET. iPhones are relatively generic by comparison.

          In the end this isn't really a technolog

        • We had interrupts, and "IRQ conflicts" and so on and so forth.

        • Meanwhile, there is this PC platform that wiped out all of it's other bespoke competitors probably before you even touched your first computer. PCs are MUCH more diverse than Android phones. But if you started whining about "fragmentation" to PC developers they would look at you like you grew a second head.

          Hoorah. It's absurd, the only people who worry about fragmentation are the analysts than have never seen software development before the iPhone existed. Actual developers have been dealing with this 'problem' for decades.

      • Networking is still painfully slow compared to iOS.

        I'm not sure I understand this point, in my experience, the network on Android is as fast as the network on iOS. What am I missing?

    • by danbob999 ( 2490674 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @04:07PM (#49141307)

      One of the reason people developed for iOS first was the platform had users who on average had higher incomes and spent more money on apps [bgr.com]. So if you were trying to develop an application to sell it was more likely to show a return. Also there is more piracy [bgr.com] of apps on Android.

      It depends how you get your return. This of course does not apply to free applications. And most are free.
      Most non-gamers do not pay for software on their PC either. Except Windows and Office, most used software is free. Web Browser, media player, text editor, file archiver, chat/video client, PDF reader, even most developer tools (IDE, compilers, version control).
      I don't understand why people are expected to buy more software on their phone then on their PC.

      • by CODiNE ( 27417 )

        I don't understand why people are expected to buy more software on their phone then on their PC

        But they DO! For a majority of PC users software is scary, many worry about installing *anything* as it could "break" their computer. They lack the savvy to recognize fake vendors and malware apps. Also plain software incompatibility is a huge problem for them to understand. Even if they do buy something, many cant even find where their downloads go.

        Now compare this to a smartphone App Store. Your CC goes to on

        • I have a different explanation. Smartphone software is not mature enough. Free alternatives didn't completely wiped out the market yet. But it will happen. It's only a matter of time. Just like no-one buys WinZIP anymore on their PC (and we do not even tolerate the infamous "I agree"), no one is going to pay for that shitty app once there will be a better free alternative.
          And there is an "app store" on Windows 8. It didn't take off. The reason is that people are doing just fine with their current software
      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        I don't understand why people are expected to buy more software on their phone then on their PC.

        Because this is pretty much the only thing the anti-android crowd can complain about.

        Its becoming harder and harder for them to hide how butthurt they are behind legitimate excuses because the legitimate excuses are disappearing rapidly. Whenever you see an article on the horrors of Android Fragmentation/Piracy/Profitability and so on you know it's going to be bullshit by someone who's upset that Android has become the dominant platform.

        These renewed attacks are conveniently timed with Google's relea

        • Everyone from banks to supermarkets to coffee shops want an application that they give to customers for free as it brings in business.

          No, you don't understand. If you don't want to pay for a Coffee shop app it's because you are a cheap bastard. And if there is a free alternative and you use it, you are still a cheap bastard. It proves that no one should be developing for your platform (even if they didn't even intent to sell their app).

          • Umm... what? So nobody should develop for Android because people with Android phones are cheap bastards? This kind of subjective, offensive, blanket generalisation is exactly what draws accusations of butthurt amongst the iOS crowd.

            I propose an alternative: coffee shops should focus on selling good coffee, and they will get my money by selling me coffee. These brand-specific apps are PR; they provide advertising, spread awareness and recognition through word of mouth, encourage customer loyalty, so on and s

    • I totally agree. My company (a Fortune 100 company) makes $2 via Android for every $98 off of iOS. We have more Android users, but they spend much less.
    • There's no reason to believe that there is actually significantly more piracy of apps on Android. This is one story from a single developer using customer service complaints as an estimate. I have yet to see any real data that has investigated the relative piracy rates in detail.

      I'm sure that there is some additional piracy on Android, because the ecosystem itself is far more attractive to hobbyists that would like to hack their devices. But there's no reason whatsoever to believe that this one developer

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      Your first link also shows that 90% of iOS apps are free. Clearly most developers think the right price for their apps is $0.

      You are also missing the fact that while on average Android user spend less, there are a lot more of them. The ones in developing countries probably drag the numbers down a lot. It would be interesting to see stats for just Europe, say. Also, those developing nations are only going to spend more and more over time, which is why Apple is desperately trying to break into China.

  • by allquixotic ( 1659805 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:14PM (#49140571)

    Software fragmentation at a high level hasn't been all that scary of a specter for Android yet. Hook into a few core APIs that pretty much work everywhere, and off you go. There haven't been any successful whole-system Android forks that have been able to challenge mainline Android with any semblance of significance in market share.

    The problem is in the details of the hardware, and to a lesser degree, software implementations. Screen resolutions; GPU capabilities; the difference in performance between the slowest and fastest (non-obsolete) device on the market; highly variable amounts of storage, VRAM, network bandwidth; limited vs unlimited data plans; the amount of other crap (that may interference) that the user or manufacturer has already installed on their phone; etc. etc.

    A lot of devs are starting to whitelist their apps for specific phones, or at least for specific SoC make/model/generations. Your OpenGL fragment shader may run fine on a Qualcomm Snapdragon platform with an Adreno GPU, but crash the app or the whole system on ARM Mali. Your game may get 30-60 FPS reliably on a modern Tegra GPU, but deliver a slideshow on a Droid Mini from late 2013.

    And that brings me to my second point: the hardware advances too quickly. A lot of people expect their smartphone to last them 4 years, maybe longer. But if you look at how far phone specs have come since 2010, it's pretty ridiculous. Most 2014 Android games and even non-trivial business apps won't even *launch* on a phone with specs 1/10th as capable as the state of the art.

    These problems are hard enough to solve on their own. Most devs don't even have time to think about supporting other core systems with forks or replacements of the core Android APIs.

    • I think this is where a third platform may have a place logically if perhaps not cocommercially. There's a growing demand for people who want their device to 'just work'. In a way that needs the singular vision of a dictatorship style of leader to ensure it happens without more bloat and without evermore power hungry hardware to achieve much the same goals As I look back from my current Android at some of the old Symbian Nokia phones. Did they have massive issues towards the end? Yes but they were a lot m
  • For iOS, most apps require the latest version to run, and Apple actively pushes developers to do this. When I check the requirements for the Android apps I use, most require Android 2.3 or higher, some 4.0 or higher and some very specific ones require 4.4, but that's SDFix, to fix usage of SD cards that was broken in 4.4. So for most Android apps nearly every phone is supported, given sufficient storage. Maybe some games will become slow, but other apps usually don't care much.

    • Except Bluetooth Low energy.

      For some reason despite having support in the Kernel, it took them ages to support it on Android. 4.3 or newer only unless you want to also use some phone endor's own libraries for pre 4.3. That's a pretty bad indictment when several vendors had to make their own, incompatible libraries for hardware because Android dropped the ball.

      Oh and the 4.x series has some really nasty bugs too and they're only fixed in 5.x. the recommended solution is to turn bluetooth off and on again and

      • by johanw ( 1001493 )

        That has nothing to do with apps.

        • Yes because waiting so long that vendors develop incompatible libraries and then shipping incredibly buggy system libraries then not fixing them for a whole major version has no effect on whether the apps reliably support the feature, because apps are *magic* and don't need system libraries.

          BLE on android is a total clusterfuck and as a result app compatibility across versions is bad.

  • I run cyanogenmod on a fairly obscure phone, that I bought with the sole intention of running CM and other custom roms, after cross checking feature lists and compatibility.

    I install all kinda apps with no real problems.

  • by iampiti ( 1059688 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @03:45PM (#49141007)
    ...Variety of devices, Running different versions of the OS.
    The first one IMHO is a strong point for Android since there's so many different devices you're likely to find what you want (cheap, expensive, large, small, metal build, removable battery...). In this respect Windows Phone also has an interesting number of devices (although infenitely less than Android) and iOS is horrible in this respect: You basically have this year's or last year's model, neither of which is exactly cheap.
    The second one is definitely bad: Several versions of the OS having significant marketshare means extra work for developers, and fewer apps for users (since some require a version newer than you have). Windows Phone and iOS are much better than Android in this.
    • The second one is definitely bad: Several versions of the OS having significant marketshare means extra work for developers, and fewer apps for users (since some require a version newer than you have). Windows Phone and iOS are much better than Android in this.

      Yeah... don't worry about it. As a dev, this isn't ideal because you can't use the latest toys across all devices, but in normal use it just means you work to a somewhat-less-than-latest API and don't worry about it. The backwards/forwards compatibility is good.

  • The real fragmentation is not within Android. It's across different operating systems. Therefore if Apple wanted to reduce fragmentation they would switch to Android. Do I want Apple to switch to Android? No. But this just show how silly the whole "fragmentation" argument is. Fragmentation is choice.
  • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

    I'm going to take a wild guess and state the reason it took three months before my GOOGLE BRANDED DEVICE (Nexus 7 2013) got Lollipop after it went GA is issues with fragmentation. It seems like nearly every device had severe and differing issues with the original builds and the update kept getting pulled and pushed back. It works pretty well now, except wifi is unstable and it has a memory leak that forces a reboot every couple of days.

    When iOS 8 went GA I got it the next day on my iPad Air. No seri

  • I'm not afraid, I just do my best to deal with it.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I've heard stories about "the fragmented linux landscape"(tm). And yet I've seen programs specifically targeting some other system, and I have no problem getting it going on whatever version of Linux I'm running. And when I was in university they had Sun boxen for labs (it was the target system), and I would write software on my home computer running Linux, and then change 2 lines (locations of library paths), and recompile and the software --advanced networking software-- would run without fail on the Su

  • by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @04:24PM (#49141501)
    While there's little doubt that fragmentation does complicate development a bit, it should never have been perceived as some insurmountable issue. In this respect, the wide variation of Android hardware can be compared to the wide variety of hardware that runs Windows. Fragmentation is much worse on PCs and yet that hasn't hindered developers from releasing countless apps and games over the past several decades.
  • According to Android Developers Dashboards [android.com] more than 92% of the present activated devices run some version of android past 4.0.3 (ICS), with the grand majority being Jelly Bean and Kit Kat devices. Thus if you develop for ICS or Jelly Bean you'll target most of the devices accessible by the Play Store.

    I think what tends to be the greatest hurdles in compatibility right now are devices with either low ram, or low internal memory (since Kit Kat in several devices does not allow apps to get "moved to sd card"

Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis. It makes sense, when you don't think about it.

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