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This is great, but the phone market can't seem to keep up with these new versions. I was just at a wireless store last night and their one in-store device woul

by dpcan 16y ago

This is great, but the phone market can't seem to keep up with these new versions. I was just at a wireless store last night and their one in-store device would only run 1.6. Their sold out device was only 2.1 The next device was still 2.1, "hopefully" 2.2 I asked if I could update, they said it wasn't possible and they didn't know for sure when it would be. As a developer, what am I supposed to do here? Develop for 2.2 and 3.0 and just wait it out? Nope. I still have to make my games compatible with 1.6 if I want to reach the majority of the market.

Kylekramer 16y ago
Not really. Targeting 2.1+ gets you 87% of the market [1], a clear majority. Beyond that, does every Android thread have to talk about this? It is a well covered topic, everyone knows the deal. Android has a problem with updates. It isn't ideal, but things are what they are. We all know this. How about we focus on what this post is about, a 3.0 preview. 1. http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  Plus the smartphone market (and Android's share of the same) are growing briskly so it makes sense to forge ahead, for both developers and Google. I don't know if Google planned for this, or they just got lucky but even with all the moaning and groaning about it they've got over 50% on 2.2 in 6 months.
cryptoz 16y ago
The percentage of users that have a Windows computer running only Windows XP is much higher than the percentage of users with an Android phone running 1.6. Like, much much higher. I think Google is doing a fantastic job keeping users up to date, much better than most OS vendors out there.
- rimantas 16y ago
  How many of those with XP are using it because they want to, not because they cannot upgrade compared to those with older versions of Android?
  - zmmmmm 16y ago
    I imagine that quite a lot of the people on XP cannot upgrade. Quite a lot are probably using it because their hardware is just not supported on new versions of Windows. The Vista change in driver model basically meant a huge amount of old hardware became useless. Another bunch of them are using it because they don't want to pay for a new version of Windows, which is prohibitively expensive to buy "off the shelf". So they "cannot" afford to. And another fraction cannot upgrade because their computer is just too slow or doesn't have the RAM to run newer versions. And another fraction have older software that isn't compatible or is not supported on newer versions of Windows (the reason most corporate and business customers are probably stuck there). So actually I think quite a lot of Windows users are "stuck" on older versions, and in many ways they are worse off than Android users because there is not thriving community of Windows ROM developers making free upgrades.
  - Andys 16y ago
    How many just don't care that they're running XP?
abstractbill 16y ago
The free new handset I got from Sprint in exchange for renewing my contract came with 2.2, and they had tons of them in stock.

by dpcan 16y ago

Kylekramer 16y ago

Not really. Targeting 2.1+ gets you 87% of the market [1], a clear majority. Beyond that, does every Android thread have to talk about this? It is a well covered topic, everyone knows the deal. Android has a problem with updates. It isn't ideal, but things are what they are. We all know this. How about we focus on what this post is about, a 3.0 preview. 1. http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...

ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Plus the smartphone market (and Android's share of the same) are growing briskly so it makes sense to forge ahead, for both developers and Google. I don't know if Google planned for this, or they just got lucky but even with all the moaning and groaning about it they've got over 50% on 2.2 in 6 months.

cryptoz 16y ago

The percentage of users that have a Windows computer running only Windows XP is much higher than the percentage of users with an Android phone running 1.6. Like, much much higher. I think Google is doing a fantastic job keeping users up to date, much better than most OS vendors out there.

rimantas 16y ago
How many of those with XP are using it because they want to, not because they cannot upgrade compared to those with older versions of Android?
- zmmmmm 16y ago
  I imagine that quite a lot of the people on XP cannot upgrade. Quite a lot are probably using it because their hardware is just not supported on new versions of Windows. The Vista change in driver model basically meant a huge amount of old hardware became useless. Another bunch of them are using it because they don't want to pay for a new version of Windows, which is prohibitively expensive to buy "off the shelf". So they "cannot" afford to. And another fraction cannot upgrade because their computer is just too slow or doesn't have the RAM to run newer versions. And another fraction have older software that isn't compatible or is not supported on newer versions of Windows (the reason most corporate and business customers are probably stuck there). So actually I think quite a lot of Windows users are "stuck" on older versions, and in many ways they are worse off than Android users because there is not thriving community of Windows ROM developers making free upgrades.
- Andys 16y ago
  How many just don't care that they're running XP?

abstractbill 16y ago

The free new handset I got from Sprint in exchange for renewing my contract came with 2.2, and they had tons of them in stock.