Here is my comment I posted: I hate to be so harsh but this reeks of FUD. Now part of me understands why, but I can’t pretend to agree with it. First of all,

Here is my comment I posted: I hate to be so harsh but this reeks of FUD. Now part of me understands why, but I can’t pretend to agree with it. First of all, the biggest glaring issue with your analysis is that with the inclusion of iOS 4 and the iPhone 4, iDevices will have a similar fragmentation problem (if you will) that developers will have to contend with. As it was mentioned in a comment by Greg Dunn, games and 3D apps are going to be one that really polarizes the App Store. But there are other things, like the iPhone 2G won’t be getting iOS 4 and subsequently adds a rift in what apps can work on it if they focus on iOS 4 features. This is even a problem for the iPhone 3G that is getting the upgrade to iOS 4 but wont have features like ‘multitasking’ which is again just another thing to account for in different versions. Now admittedly, there are less to deal with on the iDevices side, it is just as much of a problem, and probably more sore because there are more older iDevices than there are Android at this point. Then you have to count the iPad which throws a loop into it. Apple is handling the SDK stuff pretty well, but its going to be an issue just like it is for Android devices. The other issue with your article is that you ignore all the efforts Google has done and continues to do to make developers jobs easier when accounting for the multiple devices. Newer versions of the Android SDK have code in place to handle variations in screen resolution/size. You can easily make an app in the newest SDK for the oldest version of Android (1.5) and it will work, although a lot of features may be missing. Google is working hard to make sure this problem isn’t as much of a problem in the future, and as the time between major releases slows down, this will mean the amount of versions out there are less over time. Another thing to keep in mind, the amount of Android handsets is very little, especially the older <2.0 versions. Most if not all newer handsets have been upgraded to 2.1 or are getting 2.2. Even some older phones like the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G and the new MyTouch 3G Slide are getting 2.2. So the majority of phones out there, like the Evo 4G will be on the bleeding edge and keep up with the pack for years to come. So the pool of different Android versions overwhelmingly is filled with handsets of 2.1 or better. Ultimately, this is a non-issue, or at most, as much of an issue as it is for iOS developers.