4 ms·

Please stop the "fragmentation" Android argument. Its overplayed, sensationalist, and misleading when it comes to developing for android phones. With iPhone fi

by alttab 16y ago

Please stop the "fragmentation" Android argument. Its overplayed, sensationalist, and misleading when it comes to developing for android phones. With iPhone first gen, 3G, 3GS, 4G, and the iPad - theres enough screen resolution and memory differences to make the same argument.

davidedicillo 16y ago
that's uncorrect. Old applications will look the same (just using 4 pixels instead of 1), text and other standard elements will be rendered at the new resolution. If you make them at 640 x 980 they will just look better, but screen-ratio is the same, so no big deal. Also a one year cycle for new products is understandable and easy to deal with. Guess what, for the next year I know exactly on which devices I will work on. For Android every other day there is a new phone, with different specs, different UI layer and a lot of other differences.
- Tichy 16y ago
  I don't think it is an insurmountable obstacle. PCs had different screen resolutions for years, yet people still somehow managed to write web applications that looked good everywhere.
glhaynes 16y ago
The argument as laid out may in fact be misleading, but the issue of fragmentation is not just screen resolution and memory differences, either. It's at least also: - display aspect ratio (far more important than resolution - worst case scenario with a "different resolution but same ratio" situation is that some things look more fuzzy than they ought to) - OLED vs LCD (colors can look substantially different) - hardware keyboard or not - hardware buttons: which ones are available and where they are placed - other hardware control availability / location / responsiveness - trackballs, non-screen touchpanels, etc - sensor availability - sensor quality: touch screen resolution and stability of tracking vary considerably - how quickly OS upgrades are made available per device / vendor / carrier and how quickly they spread across the user population - CPU speed - GPU speed and capabilities - different base applications installed with differing capabilities and UI appearance / feel Some of these of course exist in iOS world too, though not a few of the most important ones and on many of the less important, there is much less variation. One last note on iPad: few apps should have the same UI on phone-sized devices as they have on tablet-sized devices; if one is to include this as a count against iOS fragmentation, one has to also keep in mind that iOS device displays only come in 2 (radically different) physical sizes / aspect ratios whereas Android is intended to run on devices scaling from smaller screens than iPhone to larger than the iPad and everything in between. Which leads me to a question: iOS has a system-wide attribute that specifies whether the type of device is a "phone" or a "tablet"; is there a similar concept in Android?
bitwize 16y ago
BP: "Please stop the 'ecological disaster' oil spill argument. It's overplayed, sensationalist, and misleading when it comes to the situation in the Gulf."

by alttab 16y ago

davidedicillo 16y ago

that's uncorrect. Old applications will look the same (just using 4 pixels instead of 1), text and other standard elements will be rendered at the new resolution. If you make them at 640 x 980 they will just look better, but screen-ratio is the same, so no big deal. Also a one year cycle for new products is understandable and easy to deal with. Guess what, for the next year I know exactly on which devices I will work on. For Android every other day there is a new phone, with different specs, different UI layer and a lot of other differences.

Tichy 16y ago
I don't think it is an insurmountable obstacle. PCs had different screen resolutions for years, yet people still somehow managed to write web applications that looked good everywhere.

glhaynes 16y ago

The argument as laid out may in fact be misleading, but the issue of fragmentation is not just screen resolution and memory differences, either. It's at least also: - display aspect ratio (far more important than resolution - worst case scenario with a "different resolution but same ratio" situation is that some things look more fuzzy than they ought to) - OLED vs LCD (colors can look substantially different) - hardware keyboard or not - hardware buttons: which ones are available and where they are placed - other hardware control availability / location / responsiveness - trackballs, non-screen touchpanels, etc - sensor availability - sensor quality: touch screen resolution and stability of tracking vary considerably - how quickly OS upgrades are made available per device / vendor / carrier and how quickly they spread across the user population - CPU speed - GPU speed and capabilities - different base applications installed with differing capabilities and UI appearance / feel Some of these of course exist in iOS world too, though not a few of the most important ones and on many of the less important, there is much less variation. One last note on iPad: few apps should have the same UI on phone-sized devices as they have on tablet-sized devices; if one is to include this as a count against iOS fragmentation, one has to also keep in mind that iOS device displays only come in 2 (radically different) physical sizes / aspect ratios whereas Android is intended to run on devices scaling from smaller screens than iPhone to larger than the iPad and everything in between. Which leads me to a question: iOS has a system-wide attribute that specifies whether the type of device is a "phone" or a "tablet"; is there a similar concept in Android?

bitwize 16y ago

BP: "Please stop the 'ecological disaster' oil spill argument. It's overplayed, sensationalist, and misleading when it comes to the situation in the Gulf."