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How old are you? Do you remember first hand how it was? The market for apps on phones was a disaster before the app store. Both for users and producers. 30% wa

How old are you? Do you remember first hand how it was? The market for apps on phones was a disaster before the app store. Both for users and producers. 30% was absurdly low compared to other options (again - on mobile, not web).

throw0101a 6y ago
> The market for apps on phones was a disaster before the app store. Both for users and producers. Because of the fragmentation of the phone market, specifically with-in even a single manufacturer's sphere. There was so much variation in screen size, CPU power, memory, keyboard layout even for (say) Nokia's own line of products that Nokia's own app store had to ask "which phone do you have?". It was a non-uniform mess because the phones available pre-iPhone were a a non-uniform mess. Apple's iOS App Store was able to have a simple design because the iPhone(s) available had a simple design, and developers could write to a known quantity. When Apple changed screen size/resolution/density they ensured that scaling from older non-updated apps occurred in a reasonable manner. To a certain extent this is still true with Android, as third-party manufacturers have spotty updates once hardware is released. Google used to have a public dashboard with the market share of each version, but now you have to go into the Android Studio to look at the minimum SDK cumulative market share: * https://www.xda-developers.com/android-version-distribution-statistics-android-studio/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-version-distribution-... Their current dashboard has some data on screen capabilities, OpenGL, and Vulkan: * https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards Meanwhile with iOS if you target iOS 12 you'll get 94% of that market: * https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ If you need to worry about hardware capabilities, iOS 14 supports the iPhone 6S (released 2015) so that can be used a minimum (at least for 'low-intensity' stuff, i.e., not-games).

throw0101a 6y ago

> The market for apps on phones was a disaster before the app store. Both for users and producers. Because of the fragmentation of the phone market, specifically with-in even a single manufacturer's sphere. There was so much variation in screen size, CPU power, memory, keyboard layout even for (say) Nokia's own line of products that Nokia's own app store had to ask "which phone do you have?". It was a non-uniform mess because the phones available pre-iPhone were a a non-uniform mess. Apple's iOS App Store was able to have a simple design because the iPhone(s) available had a simple design, and developers could write to a known quantity. When Apple changed screen size/resolution/density they ensured that scaling from older non-updated apps occurred in a reasonable manner. To a certain extent this is still true with Android, as third-party manufacturers have spotty updates once hardware is released. Google used to have a public dashboard with the market share of each version, but now you have to go into the Android Studio to look at the minimum SDK cumulative market share: * https://www.xda-developers.com/android-version-distribution-statistics-android-studio/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-version-distribution-... Their current dashboard has some data on screen capabilities, OpenGL, and Vulkan: * https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards Meanwhile with iOS if you target iOS 12 you'll get 94% of that market: * https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/ If you need to worry about hardware capabilities, iOS 14 supports the iPhone 6S (released 2015) so that can be used a minimum (at least for 'low-intensity' stuff, i.e., not-games).