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I was going to post this as a reply, but every thread here so far is talking about this. Saying that "Android is the larget smartphone platform" is not in cont

I was going to post this as a reply, but every thread here so far is talking about this. Saying that "Android is the larget smartphone platform" is not in contradiction with the statement that it's unfair to treat all Android devices equally. Nexus devices are superior to other devices in terms of consistency, speed of updates and reliability. Sense and Blur laden devices are less likely to be updated and are historically buggier. It makes sense to lump Android together to talk about a software platform because those are the statistics that matter to mobile developers. They want to know where the users are. When it comes to phone, saying "Android phones fail more often", is only one abstract level above saying "Smartphones fail more often than dumb phones.". While it's a true statement, it's not a complete statement. It seems to make sense to distinguish between manufacturers of Android phones when making these kinds of statements in my mind. Note, I have no problem with this sort of an aggregate report. There just seems to be a lot of "AHA" and "Gotcha", by talking about Android as a brand and pointing out that Android is considered an "aggregate" for platform size comparisons.

AlexandrB 15y ago
> It makes sense to lump Android together to talk about a software platform because those are the statistics that matter to mobile developers. They want to know where the users are. Not all Android phones are created equal - many have inferior hardware (which developers have to account for separately) and others are only capable of running ancient Android releases (which developers have to account for separately). I'm not sure a developer who is looking at bulk data for the Android platform is getting an accurate picture of the effort/payoff for developing an Android app.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Right, which is why there is also data available for what devices are on what versions and what percentages of users on what versions so that developers can choose a minimum level to target. This problem isn't unique to Android either, so I don't see how it changes what I siad.
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    Come on people, at least explain your rationale
  - AlexandrB 15y ago
    Yeah, but you're saying it makes sense for developers to consider Android to be one software platform when looking at marked numbers. I'm pointing out that this is just not true. It's much easier with iOS, for example, because unless you're targeting very old hardware you can assume everyone is running iOS 4 or 5 (or soon will be), and the screen size is universally the same across iPhones. If you consider Android a single platform, then the Apple platform should be iOS (including the iPad and iPod touch), but most comparisons of phone numbers don't take these into account at all (for good reason IMHO).

AlexandrB 15y ago

> It makes sense to lump Android together to talk about a software platform because those are the statistics that matter to mobile developers. They want to know where the users are. Not all Android phones are created equal - many have inferior hardware (which developers have to account for separately) and others are only capable of running ancient Android releases (which developers have to account for separately). I'm not sure a developer who is looking at bulk data for the Android platform is getting an accurate picture of the effort/payoff for developing an Android app.

drivebyacct2 15y ago
Right, which is why there is also data available for what devices are on what versions and what percentages of users on what versions so that developers can choose a minimum level to target. This problem isn't unique to Android either, so I don't see how it changes what I siad.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  Come on people, at least explain your rationale
- AlexandrB 15y ago
  Yeah, but you're saying it makes sense for developers to consider Android to be one software platform when looking at marked numbers. I'm pointing out that this is just not true. It's much easier with iOS, for example, because unless you're targeting very old hardware you can assume everyone is running iOS 4 or 5 (or soon will be), and the screen size is universally the same across iPhones. If you consider Android a single platform, then the Apple platform should be iOS (including the iPad and iPod touch), but most comparisons of phone numbers don't take these into account at all (for good reason IMHO).