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I think they did a great job at reducing fragmentation by pulling out most of the OS into upgradable components. All applications are upgradable, even Play Ser

I think they did a great job at reducing fragmentation by pulling out most of the OS into upgradable components. All applications are upgradable, even Play Services are upgradable, and developers get the support library to get all the new things to all devices. So I believe they did a great job at reducing fragmentation in the sense that it no longer really matters what version you have, you still get all the newest stuff. Just look at every iOS version announcement: 3/4 of the new features are in the apps: iMessages, maps, home screen...

mariusmg 9y ago
> by pulling out most of the OS into upgradable components. That's not true (the most of the OS part). They untangled their own stuff (Play Store, Google services and so on) and can update those as they see fit. The OS stuff is still monolithic. Most of serious security issues still require full OS updates. Also supporting a new major version of Android runtime still require a full OS update.
- tomkarlo 9y ago
  Most security issues are handled by security updates, which don't require a letter update. They're issued as patches, so OEMs can issue them for an older device without updating it to a new release. https://www.android.com/security-center/monthly-security-updates/ https://www.android.com/security-center/monthly-security-upd...
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    They can, but most don't.
    - tomkarlo 9y ago
      Most of the major OEMs do. The security update rate for upper tier phones runs about 75% within 3 months these days. Anyway, I was responding to the comment "Most of serious security issues still require full OS updates." This is demonstrably inaccurate since the security patches do not require a full OS update.