17 ms·

Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem

84 points by breischl 14y ago

fdr 14y ago
I still can't read "The Economist" on Ice Cream Sandwich. I noticed it silently went away the moment I upgraded. Anecdotal? Yes. But until it is more or less unheard of (especially for an application that "just" renders text and images), there is a fragmentation problem. "Ice Cream Sandwich" has been available for months.
- jcromartie 14y ago
  > "Ice Cream Sandwich" has been available for months. And only about 5% of phones have it. Devs have to prioritize. Obviously, power-users are going to be up-to-date, but the vast majority of customers are probably not affected. I would imagine the customers of The Economist on Android are less likely to fit the power-user profile than other apps.
  - fdr 14y ago
    > And only about 5% of phones have it. This is a statement of the fact that seems reasonable. > Devs have to prioritize. Obviously, power-users are going to be up-to-date, but the vast majority of customers are probably not affected. I would imagine the customers of The Economist on Android are less likely to fit the power-user profile than other apps. This is a justification I entirely agree with. It doesn't mean that there isn't a fragmentation problem that annoys customers. I understand why this is, there was never to be doubt about it. Just because it is understandable doesn't get to the heart of my disagreement with the headline: there is a fragmentation problem.
dshefchik 14y ago
"It can be tricky to take advantage of features in new Android versions (like ICS) while still supporting older versions (like 2.2)." ummm...what was your argument again?
- koeselitz 14y ago
  The argument seemed to be that this trickiness is minor. You disagree?
- aguynamedrich 14y ago
  Tricky, but not impossible. The same as you would have to learn the API's and general usage patterns of new features, you just have to learn how to use the compatibility package or third party libraries like ActionBarSherlock to take advantage of the most common new features. That said, I don't fully agree with the OP's argument. Fragmentation is a very real pain in a lot of subtle unexpected areas (mostly UI related).
- ChrisClark 14y ago
  He means that if you put a little bit of thought into it and follow the SDK guidelines you can support over 90% of the devices out there. And there are a few tools you can implement to have full backwards compatibility to 2.2, probably even 2.1. It's not that hard to do at all. I have a lot more trouble supporting IE in web development than I do all the Android versions.
- menny 14y ago
  I think that he means that it is tricky. He doesn't hide this fact, but it is a know fact, and programmers should be award of it and its possible solutions. Android dev provides some: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-have-your-cupcake-and-eat-it-too.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-have-y... And I found some more: http://blog.evendanan.net/2011/04/Backward-compatibility-in-Android-OR-How-I-made-a-2-2-Android-APK-run-under-1-5 http://blog.evendanan.net/2011/04/Backward-compatibility-in-...
nextstep 14y ago
So Android's fragmentation problem isn't that bad for developers if they're used to working on an even worse platform (web developing)? That's a terrible argument. There is always something worse. That doesn't mean Android is any less fragmented.
- rabidsnail 14y ago
  Android fragmentation is worse than web fragmentation. On the web one only has to test on 4 browsers x two operating systems, as opposed to dozens of phones x several os versions x several carriers.
  - ajross 14y ago
    You're slipping your terminology here and achieving some pretty clever spin: It's only four browsers if you don't care about Opera users. It's only two OSes if you don't care about Linux users. If that's your standard for support, then why not look solely at the successful Android devices, which takes you from "dozens" of handsets to maybe seven at most, which is less than the web world. And of course the 4/2 argument is bunk anyway. Web developers test ever major version of every browser (especially with IE) and every version of every OS. So for example it's {XP,Vista,7} cross {ChromeN,ChromeN-1,IE7,IE8,IE9,FirefoxN,FirefoxN-1} plus {Lion,Snow Leopard,Leopard} cross {Safari,ChromeN,ChromeN-1,FirefoxN,FirefoxN-1}, etc... You can't have your argument both ways, basically: either the small market platform variants matter or they don't. If they don't, Android support is easier than the web by a significant margin.
    - jcromartie 14y ago
      Most people can update their desktop browser for free at any time. Most (85%) of the Android users out there are stuck on something <= 2.3. And it depends on your audience. For instance, if you're Reddit (or are targeting the Reddit users) you're looking at 7% on IE, and 2% on Opera. You can practically ignore those browsers in that case.
      - 14y ago
runjake 14y ago
I'm not sure the "overblown" fragmentation problem is about the developer. I thought it was about the end user. Sure it's somewhat difficult to develop and test Android applications due to fragmentation, but I see the bigger problem being the end users with Android devices in their hands that can't run apps because their particular device or their new, but ancient build of Android isn't supported. What Color? is an example of this. It doesn't work on the Galaxy Nexus. Who knows why. The Netflix app was another example, for at least a while. And who knows if it will ever be supported, because only $x number of people own that device, which is one of hundreds available worldwide at any given time.
- ajross 14y ago
  This app?: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jarcikon.whatcolor&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jarcikon.whatc... Seems to work fine on my Galaxy Nexus, though I've never heard of it before and maybe support was recently added. And to be fair: this (a camera-integrated "what is this color?" tool for colorblind users) is a really obscure app! The Netflix example is AFAIK wrong; I don't think it was ever "unsupported" in ICS, but maybe I'm misremembering. Are there any real-world examples? I mean, sure: occasionally you see an app that has bugs on one handset or another, and sometimes those go unfixed. But to pretend that this is a serious problem for "end users" is vastly overstating the case.
  - gcp 14y ago
    Chrome (doesn't work on pre-ICS). Grand Theft Auto 3 (and most games - don't work on particular devices due to graphics). Firefox Native (only supports ARMv6 devices in unofficial builds)
    - ajross 14y ago
      The Chrome bit misses the point entirely. Of course some software requires the latest version of the OS, if it didn't, there would have been no need to release the new version of the platform. You might as well talk about how terribly fragmented iOS is because Siri doesn't work on the iPhone 4. The GPU thing is legitimate. If you let the market differentiate on graphics performance then software vendors will choose to optimize their platform compatibility in ways that don't include everyone. That's "fragmentation", though I'm hard pressed to see how you avoid it without making everyone code to a single core SGX 540 like iOS does. And Firefox ships an app that doesn't support the native ABI of the platform (which, to be clear: has a slow ABI precisely to avoid fragmentation. iOS has the same backwards-compatible floating point issue, btw). Again, I don't see how preventing software vendors from making these decisions is helping anyone.
deleted 14y ago
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Terretta 14y ago
As he mentioned, it may be overblown unless you're in video. The streaming protocols don't get a lot of love (every 2.x.x version broke different bits of streaming in novel ways) and codecs don't work across devices either. (Also note other comments here about Color and Netflix apps.)
- gravitronic 14y ago
  It's not just video. It's any time you step out of the sandbox of "simple native UI app" that you start running into these differences.
  - gcp 14y ago
    I'm glad someone else said it. I don't know how to put this more polite, but if those are the only fragmentation issues he's had on Android, his applications are either fairly simple or they just don't have much users yet. I don't have an opinion on whether it's worse on iOS (prolly not) or Windows, but it sure is a pain.
    - joshstrange 14y ago
      Couldn't agree with this more. Once a bunch of people start using your Android app you will get buried under support issues. The company I wrote some apps for will email me all the time saying X device on Y.Z version of Android doesn't work... Most of the time it's just a dead end. Unless I get one of those phones in my hands to test it or if it is spitting out an error code that I know how to fix then there is no easy way to debug the problem. It's frustrating as a developer because I WANT to provide the best experience in my mobile apps but that is a very hard to do as the Android platform seems to be in a constant state of flux with countless new devices hitting stores all the time.
- chrisrhoden 14y ago
  It's mostly streaming audio and video. StageFright helped with this a bunch, but ultimately it's a non-issue if you control the sources.
mgkimsal 14y ago
We've spent 10+ years on the web trying to educate end users that things will not be pixel perfect across webtv, ie3/4/5/6/7/8/9, netscape 2/3/4, firefox1-12, opera, chrome, safari on linux, mac, windows, on 10"-30" screens. Slowly, over time, it seemed to work. "This rounded corner on ie7/winxp doesn't look exactly the same as the rounded corner on my iphone4!" isn't the type of complaint I hear from clients any more, but font renderings, aliasing, shape of rounded corners, etc are all things I've had to deal with in the past. We're now entering mobile devices/tablets, which will bring with it its own version of the same stuff. It was easier to tell someone "that's netscape, this is opera - they're different, and will look a little different*" than it will be to say "this is android, and that's android, but they don't work the same".
- pjmlp 14y ago
  > "This rounded corner on ie7/winxp doesn't look exactly the same as the rounded corner on my iphone4!" isn't the type of complaint I hear from clients any more, but font renderings, aliasing, shape of rounded corners, etc are all things I've had to deal with in the past. I hear this type of stuff all the time.
- gauravk92 14y ago
  Sure it's not an issue if you think you have to support android. When in reality you just have to support the iPhone, and it doesn't have these issues. Android support is helpful but not neccesary, like supporting IE alongside Firefox a few years ago. Sure people use IE more than any other browser (now Chrome, yes!), but that doesn't mean a lot of IE users are going to use your website in the first place. IMHO that applies to android today, iPhone users are way more likely to buy your service in the first place so you should focus on them. No need to leave android users hanging, but clearly the platform doesn't warrant anyone's sole focus so much as basic support.
  - thechut 14y ago
    It's tough to tell if you are talking specifically about web apps for browsers or the platforms themselves. But in either case your comment is short sighted. Android has over 50% of smartphone market share, and that's only going to increase. Android support and Android versions of apps should be standard for companies and startups going forward.
AntiRush 14y ago
Another area that can be quite tricky is games. Most (but not all) Android phones being produced today support OpenGL 2.0 - even so, there are lots of tricky differences. The obvious one is different screen sizes and resolutions. This can be a challenge, particularly for 2D games. You need either different versions of artwork, resolution independent artwork (through 9png, vector graphics, or something else), or to accept that your art is going to be stretched on most phones. Additionally, different combinations of GPU/screen size have vastly different performance characteristics. A phone with a 720p screen might very well have the same GPU as a phone with an 800x480 resolution screen. Guess which one performs better? This requires a lot of testing, as the stereotypical "low end phone" might actually perform better than the latest and greatest with a giant screen. Phones also differ, and sometimes greatly, based on the graphics chip/driver. HTC phones often don't preserve framebuffers in the way most other manufacturers do. There are many more: non-po2 textures, compressed texture support, different context preservation behavior based on phone and OS version. Games may not be the stereotypical application here, but they're a huge part of the market, and Android fragmentation has made developing performant, good looking games much more of a challenge than on iOS.
- ajross 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure OpenGL ES 2.0 (pedantry: not at all the same standard as OpenGL 2.0) was a platform requirement for everything from Eclair (Android 2.0 -- the Nexus One) forward. I'm sure that factory-new Android 1.x devices still exist in the market somewhere, but you'd be very hard pressed to find one. Note that the original iPhone and 3G didn't do GLES2 either, so the platforms got the support at roughly the same time. The bit about pixel-perfect art matters to some, I guess. PC game vendors have been doing resolution-independent games for decades now, so it's hardly a killer. But if you have to have it, then you're stuck with the iPhone (not even iOS, obviously, as you'd have to chuck iPad support). And the rest is just saying that "OpenGL is hard". Yes: if you want to code to precisely the extension support and bug-for-bug quirks of one GPU (presumably the PVR SGX 5xx in your case), then it's easier to support just that phone. Duh. But that seems like bad practice to me. What if Apple goes with Mali or Tegra3 for the iPhone 5?
  - 14y ago
joshstrange 14y ago
I'll agree that the web development scene is somewhat "fragmented" but I would argue that Android's fragmentation is not only worse but harder to adjust for. When coding a website and dealing with different browsers/capabilities/screen sizes I can test all of the different combinations on my laptop. The times when I need to test a site on windows I either get someone else to run QA on it at work or I fire up a remote solution such as http://browserstack.com http://browserstack.com. The bottom line is I CAN test all the combinations. Now switch to Android. I'm sorry but emulators are NO EXCUSE for the real thing. I have had code fail in an emulator and then work fine on the device. The emulators are VERY slow and trying to run them on my Macbook Air (4GB RAM) is next to impossible. iOS's Simulator is 100x better. (Emulator != Simulator) I'm sorry but I would rather write websites all day and have to test on 4 Browsers Across 2 OS's then write one more app for Android.
sjhcockrell 14y ago
The fragmentation is fairly significant, given that 85% of current Android devices are still running 2.2-2.3.x versions of the Android OS--both of which are now 2 years old.[1] Four months ago, we were experimenting with a combination of PhoneGap and mobile website versions of an app, and that was an unholy nightmare of bugs--not because of the version of Android, but because of the custom UI that phone manufacturers added on top of the stock OS. We got three different Android devices (running 2.2, 2.3, and 4.1), and debugging for presentation, rendering, and behavioral issues was pretty painful. Two bugs that I can recall off the top of my head are: * the "HTC Duplicate Input Bug", where the browser inserted a second <input> or <textarea> element on top of the original element in the DOM when you apply focus to a text input element and bring up the soft keyboard * issues with heavy caching and cookie management that resulted in failed logins (depending on the user's device) and unpredictable rollout of new versions of CSS and JS The problem with Android fragmentation is not necessarily that it's spread across the number of devices and versions; it's that the phone manufacturers have incentives to continue using legacy versions of the software (2.2-2.3x) because they have already invested time and resources into building their proprietary UI on top of them. [1]: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...
tsunamifury 14y ago
I design and support apps for iOS (Tablet and Phone), Android (Tablet and Phone), Blackberry (Tablet and Phone), Windows Phone 7.5, and various J2ME (Nokia s40 etc). Android is not the very worst one to support (that would be blackberry), but it is the worst within its own ecosystem. As a designer it infuriates me to no end to never know the Dimensions, PPI, or general experience of any given user. It makes any refined UI design nearly impossible. While I can't create great experiences on specific devices, for Android I have to make glorified web apps at best. If I were a Android customer, I would be irritated that my platform has significantly handicapped my apps.
- joelhaasnoot 14y ago
  I'm actually mostly annoyed at my phone manufacturer for not being on top of software most of the time. I finally got ICS for my Dutch Samsung Galaxy S2, but not after a bad update left me with a phone that turned off every hour and had to go to a service center. The service center in turn flashed my phone with a Luxembourg version of the software, which properly upgraded to ICS but I no longer have a "Dutch" phone or the very latest stability upgrade. The article mentions video - that's directly related to either 3rd party ROMs or phone manufacturers not paying for/getting licenses for MPEG and/or other standards. Google APIs is another - there's various additional requirements that manufacturers have to deal with to get those. There is an alternative BTW to Google's maps - Mapquest (http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/featured/android-maps-api http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/featured/android-...)
- daleharvey 14y ago
  as an android customer I am pretty glad I had the choice to buy the device I wanted to buy, instead of the one you wanted me to buy
  - hahainternet 14y ago
    I've commented on this before, but I am a soft keyboard hater. I have a hard keyboard on my phone and tablet, and won't buy a device without the option. I'm incredibly glad that Android doesn't go with the dogmatic 'our choice is the best choice' approach. It means I can use things as I want them, not as Google wants me to. I can't agree with you enough.
radley 14y ago
I think his argument is premature. His app is < 5k installs, he's only targeting phones, he's still using the option menu (i.e. using an old sdk), and his UI is simply an iPhone port. Just from a UI perspective I'm not sure he has addressed: ActionBarSherlock, black vs. white (or any?) Option Menu icons, portrait/landscape layouts (i.e. sideways keyboards), and multiple layout folders (3x just for tablets). He's confident now because the app is small & easy. When you get to ~100k installs you start to encounter the niche users and when you're missing something "critical" and unique to them you'll get a lot of 1-star drive-bys...
- guelo 14y ago
  Just exclude your app from those devices in the market.
  - radley 14y ago
    It usually takes the market a month or two to add new devices to the list. By that time you'll already be nailed by users of a popular new device with an odd screen. We went through that with the Galaxy Note. (Our solution was to express ship one via Amazon.)
jrockway 14y ago
I disagree that fragmentation is not a problem. I work on the mobile build/test infrastructure at Google, and fragmentation does cause us a lot of extra work. We have to track down and maintain physical phones from each vendor, and then we have to dole out time allotments for tests to run on each phone. (And of course, each model of phone runs a different build of Android for each carrier...) This is annoying because ideally we'd run tests for every affecting change, but there aren't enough phones to do that. (We can and do run the emulator for every change, but the emulator is a very optimistic simulation.) iOS presents is own challenges; running emulator tests for every change is difficult because the build process is opaque and the emulator only runs on Macs, which we do not use in production. All in all, the tools that are available to mobile developers are extremely primitive compared to what server-side Java developers get, and wasting time fighting fragmentation isn't exactly helping.
- joelhaasnoot 14y ago
  Hmm in your post I read "I work on mobile build/test infrastructure at Google" and "tools that are available to mobile developers are extremely primitive". So what are you waiting for? Pitch your ideas to your (relatively internal) Android team...
  - jrockway 14y ago
    Yes, we do that :)
ecoffey 14y ago
Well it's also consumer perception. For Android I paid money for the phone itself, for a calling and data plan, and then for the apps (sometimes). So after putting down money and things not working right, yes that angers me. But for web apps? The browsers are free, the apps are (usually) free, and there is an expectation of approximate user experience on the web. On phones the standard is much higher. That's at least the way I feel about it (and will be switching to an iPhone away from Nexus S because of all those reasons; my OS X / iOS devices always feel more "real" than my android phone).
- fragsworth 14y ago
  > For Android I paid money for the phone itself, for a calling and data plan, and then for the apps (sometimes). Did you not pay for your computer itself, an Internet plan, and then for software (sometimes)? How is the Android experience any different?
  - ecoffey 14y ago
    In a strict sense I have a ton of different browser options on the same piece of hardware, so if one app doesn't work in Safari say, I can use Chrome or FF. Annoying? Yes, but not world shattering. In a sense you're correct, I've had to invest money to even get to the browser, but I think this difference is more emotional / psychology than anything else. In a sense the "browser" is a different part of the overall experience. I know that I've become accustomed to have different expectations of web apps, because they are web apps. I feel like when it comes to more native apps you have fewer excuses for something being wonky or broken.
aiscott 14y ago
While the fragmentation such as it is really sucks for developers, I do see an upside. It's a grand experiment with many competing designs, all striving to become the best and biggest (sounds like Osmos ;). iPhone iterates down a closeted path. Innovation for iphone depends solely on the creativity at Apple. And while that is nothing to sneeze at, if some really left-field neato must-have innovative feature occurs, I think it's going to be found on Android first.
- taligent 14y ago
  Except that you miss the point. PCs have been doing this for decades without having the OS fragmentation problems. Why ? Because Microsoft allows OEMs to customise the experience while still allowing them the ability to upgrade the core OS.
rdg 14y ago
The problem with Android fragmentation is the impossibility of most developers to reproduce device-specific bugs. Without physical access to one problematic device it could be very hard or even impossible to debug bugs. There's only so much you can do with the emulator. And most developers don't have access to more than very few devices. If you're not a company, it's hard to invest in all sorts of devices.
THEM 14y ago
Price of testing on multiple flavors of web browsers: An internet connection & a few virtual machines to run versions of IE/Firefox. Price of testing on multiple android devices: Thousands of dollars to purchase new phones without a contract.
nalybuites 14y ago
I think the fragmentation issue has bigger impacts in software consumption, rather than software production. The fragmentation is really more of a symptom than the problem. That problem is disparate hardware as a result of how device manufacturers compete with each other. Instead of adding any value with useful features (NOTE: the additional battery drain of 4G and lessened security of using NFC are not features), they decide to manufacture devices using cut-rate hardware. The hardware failure rate of Android powered devices is staggering when compared to iOS devices. This hurts the user and it hurts the platform. The user is left with a bad taste in their mouth, which they attribute to "Android's fragmentation problem". Now, I'm not the biggest Apple fan and I love the philosophy behind Android, but I find the crappy hardware a big enough of a pain to deal with that I would rather use a device that's part of a more controlled ecosystem.
mchristoff 14y ago
I make a living off of Android, and I don't think fragmentation is overblown. Sure, you can make the argument that the PC world has dealt with different screen sizes and hardware specs for a long time, but at least MS was the sole vendor of Windows. As Android developer you have to deal with myriad of manufacturer and community developed permutations of the OS - TouchWiz, Sense, Cyanogenmod, MIUI to name a few. If you make a widget app like us, you not only have to deal with HTC, Samsung, etc's launcher you have to deal with 3rd party launchers too - ADW, Apex, Launcher Pro, GO, etc. How about when HTC decides to break multitasking in favor of better battery life? http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/16/3024854/htc-one-x-multitasking-operating-sense http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/16/3024854/htc-one-x-multitas... Personally, I think it's a bit of a double edged sword. A lot of the issues that make Android hard to develop good apps for make it a fun platform, ie the ability to choose whatever launcher or rom you want. That said, you're kidding yourself if you think fragmentation is not a major issue.

84 points by breischl 14y ago

fdr 14y ago

I still can't read "The Economist" on Ice Cream Sandwich. I noticed it silently went away the moment I upgraded. Anecdotal? Yes. But until it is more or less unheard of (especially for an application that "just" renders text and images), there is a fragmentation problem. "Ice Cream Sandwich" has been available for months.

jcromartie 14y ago
> "Ice Cream Sandwich" has been available for months. And only about 5% of phones have it. Devs have to prioritize. Obviously, power-users are going to be up-to-date, but the vast majority of customers are probably not affected. I would imagine the customers of The Economist on Android are less likely to fit the power-user profile than other apps.
- fdr 14y ago
  > And only about 5% of phones have it. This is a statement of the fact that seems reasonable. > Devs have to prioritize. Obviously, power-users are going to be up-to-date, but the vast majority of customers are probably not affected. I would imagine the customers of The Economist on Android are less likely to fit the power-user profile than other apps. This is a justification I entirely agree with. It doesn't mean that there isn't a fragmentation problem that annoys customers. I understand why this is, there was never to be doubt about it. Just because it is understandable doesn't get to the heart of my disagreement with the headline: there is a fragmentation problem.

dshefchik 14y ago

"It can be tricky to take advantage of features in new Android versions (like ICS) while still supporting older versions (like 2.2)." ummm...what was your argument again?

koeselitz 14y ago
The argument seemed to be that this trickiness is minor. You disagree?
aguynamedrich 14y ago
Tricky, but not impossible. The same as you would have to learn the API's and general usage patterns of new features, you just have to learn how to use the compatibility package or third party libraries like ActionBarSherlock to take advantage of the most common new features. That said, I don't fully agree with the OP's argument. Fragmentation is a very real pain in a lot of subtle unexpected areas (mostly UI related).
ChrisClark 14y ago
He means that if you put a little bit of thought into it and follow the SDK guidelines you can support over 90% of the devices out there. And there are a few tools you can implement to have full backwards compatibility to 2.2, probably even 2.1. It's not that hard to do at all. I have a lot more trouble supporting IE in web development than I do all the Android versions.
menny 14y ago
I think that he means that it is tricky. He doesn't hide this fact, but it is a know fact, and programmers should be award of it and its possible solutions. Android dev provides some: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-have-your-cupcake-and-eat-it-too.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-have-y... And I found some more: http://blog.evendanan.net/2011/04/Backward-compatibility-in-Android-OR-How-I-made-a-2-2-Android-APK-run-under-1-5 http://blog.evendanan.net/2011/04/Backward-compatibility-in-...

nextstep 14y ago

So Android's fragmentation problem isn't that bad for developers if they're used to working on an even worse platform (web developing)? That's a terrible argument. There is always something worse. That doesn't mean Android is any less fragmented.

rabidsnail 14y ago
Android fragmentation is worse than web fragmentation. On the web one only has to test on 4 browsers x two operating systems, as opposed to dozens of phones x several os versions x several carriers.
- ajross 14y ago
  You're slipping your terminology here and achieving some pretty clever spin: It's only four browsers if you don't care about Opera users. It's only two OSes if you don't care about Linux users. If that's your standard for support, then why not look solely at the successful Android devices, which takes you from "dozens" of handsets to maybe seven at most, which is less than the web world. And of course the 4/2 argument is bunk anyway. Web developers test ever major version of every browser (especially with IE) and every version of every OS. So for example it's {XP,Vista,7} cross {ChromeN,ChromeN-1,IE7,IE8,IE9,FirefoxN,FirefoxN-1} plus {Lion,Snow Leopard,Leopard} cross {Safari,ChromeN,ChromeN-1,FirefoxN,FirefoxN-1}, etc... You can't have your argument both ways, basically: either the small market platform variants matter or they don't. If they don't, Android support is easier than the web by a significant margin.
  - jcromartie 14y ago
    Most people can update their desktop browser for free at any time. Most (85%) of the Android users out there are stuck on something <= 2.3. And it depends on your audience. For instance, if you're Reddit (or are targeting the Reddit users) you're looking at 7% on IE, and 2% on Opera. You can practically ignore those browsers in that case.
    - 14y ago

runjake 14y ago

I'm not sure the "overblown" fragmentation problem is about the developer. I thought it was about the end user. Sure it's somewhat difficult to develop and test Android applications due to fragmentation, but I see the bigger problem being the end users with Android devices in their hands that can't run apps because their particular device or their new, but ancient build of Android isn't supported. What Color? is an example of this. It doesn't work on the Galaxy Nexus. Who knows why. The Netflix app was another example, for at least a while. And who knows if it will ever be supported, because only $x number of people own that device, which is one of hundreds available worldwide at any given time.

ajross 14y ago
This app?: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jarcikon.whatcolor&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jarcikon.whatc... Seems to work fine on my Galaxy Nexus, though I've never heard of it before and maybe support was recently added. And to be fair: this (a camera-integrated "what is this color?" tool for colorblind users) is a really obscure app! The Netflix example is AFAIK wrong; I don't think it was ever "unsupported" in ICS, but maybe I'm misremembering. Are there any real-world examples? I mean, sure: occasionally you see an app that has bugs on one handset or another, and sometimes those go unfixed. But to pretend that this is a serious problem for "end users" is vastly overstating the case.
- gcp 14y ago
  Chrome (doesn't work on pre-ICS). Grand Theft Auto 3 (and most games - don't work on particular devices due to graphics). Firefox Native (only supports ARMv6 devices in unofficial builds)
  - ajross 14y ago
    The Chrome bit misses the point entirely. Of course some software requires the latest version of the OS, if it didn't, there would have been no need to release the new version of the platform. You might as well talk about how terribly fragmented iOS is because Siri doesn't work on the iPhone 4. The GPU thing is legitimate. If you let the market differentiate on graphics performance then software vendors will choose to optimize their platform compatibility in ways that don't include everyone. That's "fragmentation", though I'm hard pressed to see how you avoid it without making everyone code to a single core SGX 540 like iOS does. And Firefox ships an app that doesn't support the native ABI of the platform (which, to be clear: has a slow ABI precisely to avoid fragmentation. iOS has the same backwards-compatible floating point issue, btw). Again, I don't see how preventing software vendors from making these decisions is helping anyone.

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Terretta 14y ago

As he mentioned, it may be overblown unless you're in video. The streaming protocols don't get a lot of love (every 2.x.x version broke different bits of streaming in novel ways) and codecs don't work across devices either. (Also note other comments here about Color and Netflix apps.)

gravitronic 14y ago
It's not just video. It's any time you step out of the sandbox of "simple native UI app" that you start running into these differences.
- gcp 14y ago
  I'm glad someone else said it. I don't know how to put this more polite, but if those are the only fragmentation issues he's had on Android, his applications are either fairly simple or they just don't have much users yet. I don't have an opinion on whether it's worse on iOS (prolly not) or Windows, but it sure is a pain.
  - joshstrange 14y ago
    Couldn't agree with this more. Once a bunch of people start using your Android app you will get buried under support issues. The company I wrote some apps for will email me all the time saying X device on Y.Z version of Android doesn't work... Most of the time it's just a dead end. Unless I get one of those phones in my hands to test it or if it is spitting out an error code that I know how to fix then there is no easy way to debug the problem. It's frustrating as a developer because I WANT to provide the best experience in my mobile apps but that is a very hard to do as the Android platform seems to be in a constant state of flux with countless new devices hitting stores all the time.
chrisrhoden 14y ago
It's mostly streaming audio and video. StageFright helped with this a bunch, but ultimately it's a non-issue if you control the sources.

mgkimsal 14y ago

We've spent 10+ years on the web trying to educate end users that things will not be pixel perfect across webtv, ie3/4/5/6/7/8/9, netscape 2/3/4, firefox1-12, opera, chrome, safari on linux, mac, windows, on 10"-30" screens. Slowly, over time, it seemed to work. "This rounded corner on ie7/winxp doesn't look exactly the same as the rounded corner on my iphone4!" isn't the type of complaint I hear from clients any more, but font renderings, aliasing, shape of rounded corners, etc are all things I've had to deal with in the past. We're now entering mobile devices/tablets, which will bring with it its own version of the same stuff. It was easier to tell someone "that's netscape, this is opera - they're different, and will look a little different*" than it will be to say "this is android, and that's android, but they don't work the same".

pjmlp 14y ago
> "This rounded corner on ie7/winxp doesn't look exactly the same as the rounded corner on my iphone4!" isn't the type of complaint I hear from clients any more, but font renderings, aliasing, shape of rounded corners, etc are all things I've had to deal with in the past. I hear this type of stuff all the time.
gauravk92 14y ago
Sure it's not an issue if you think you have to support android. When in reality you just have to support the iPhone, and it doesn't have these issues. Android support is helpful but not neccesary, like supporting IE alongside Firefox a few years ago. Sure people use IE more than any other browser (now Chrome, yes!), but that doesn't mean a lot of IE users are going to use your website in the first place. IMHO that applies to android today, iPhone users are way more likely to buy your service in the first place so you should focus on them. No need to leave android users hanging, but clearly the platform doesn't warrant anyone's sole focus so much as basic support.
- thechut 14y ago
  It's tough to tell if you are talking specifically about web apps for browsers or the platforms themselves. But in either case your comment is short sighted. Android has over 50% of smartphone market share, and that's only going to increase. Android support and Android versions of apps should be standard for companies and startups going forward.

AntiRush 14y ago

Another area that can be quite tricky is games. Most (but not all) Android phones being produced today support OpenGL 2.0 - even so, there are lots of tricky differences. The obvious one is different screen sizes and resolutions. This can be a challenge, particularly for 2D games. You need either different versions of artwork, resolution independent artwork (through 9png, vector graphics, or something else), or to accept that your art is going to be stretched on most phones. Additionally, different combinations of GPU/screen size have vastly different performance characteristics. A phone with a 720p screen might very well have the same GPU as a phone with an 800x480 resolution screen. Guess which one performs better? This requires a lot of testing, as the stereotypical "low end phone" might actually perform better than the latest and greatest with a giant screen. Phones also differ, and sometimes greatly, based on the graphics chip/driver. HTC phones often don't preserve framebuffers in the way most other manufacturers do. There are many more: non-po2 textures, compressed texture support, different context preservation behavior based on phone and OS version. Games may not be the stereotypical application here, but they're a huge part of the market, and Android fragmentation has made developing performant, good looking games much more of a challenge than on iOS.

ajross 14y ago
I'm pretty sure OpenGL ES 2.0 (pedantry: not at all the same standard as OpenGL 2.0) was a platform requirement for everything from Eclair (Android 2.0 -- the Nexus One) forward. I'm sure that factory-new Android 1.x devices still exist in the market somewhere, but you'd be very hard pressed to find one. Note that the original iPhone and 3G didn't do GLES2 either, so the platforms got the support at roughly the same time. The bit about pixel-perfect art matters to some, I guess. PC game vendors have been doing resolution-independent games for decades now, so it's hardly a killer. But if you have to have it, then you're stuck with the iPhone (not even iOS, obviously, as you'd have to chuck iPad support). And the rest is just saying that "OpenGL is hard". Yes: if you want to code to precisely the extension support and bug-for-bug quirks of one GPU (presumably the PVR SGX 5xx in your case), then it's easier to support just that phone. Duh. But that seems like bad practice to me. What if Apple goes with Mali or Tegra3 for the iPhone 5?
- 14y ago

joshstrange 14y ago

I'll agree that the web development scene is somewhat "fragmented" but I would argue that Android's fragmentation is not only worse but harder to adjust for. When coding a website and dealing with different browsers/capabilities/screen sizes I can test all of the different combinations on my laptop. The times when I need to test a site on windows I either get someone else to run QA on it at work or I fire up a remote solution such as http://browserstack.com http://browserstack.com. The bottom line is I CAN test all the combinations. Now switch to Android. I'm sorry but emulators are NO EXCUSE for the real thing. I have had code fail in an emulator and then work fine on the device. The emulators are VERY slow and trying to run them on my Macbook Air (4GB RAM) is next to impossible. iOS's Simulator is 100x better. (Emulator != Simulator) I'm sorry but I would rather write websites all day and have to test on 4 Browsers Across 2 OS's then write one more app for Android.

sjhcockrell 14y ago

The fragmentation is fairly significant, given that 85% of current Android devices are still running 2.2-2.3.x versions of the Android OS--both of which are now 2 years old.[1] Four months ago, we were experimenting with a combination of PhoneGap and mobile website versions of an app, and that was an unholy nightmare of bugs--not because of the version of Android, but because of the custom UI that phone manufacturers added on top of the stock OS. We got three different Android devices (running 2.2, 2.3, and 4.1), and debugging for presentation, rendering, and behavioral issues was pretty painful. Two bugs that I can recall off the top of my head are: * the "HTC Duplicate Input Bug", where the browser inserted a second <input> or <textarea> element on top of the original element in the DOM when you apply focus to a text input element and bring up the soft keyboard * issues with heavy caching and cookie management that resulted in failed logins (depending on the user's device) and unpredictable rollout of new versions of CSS and JS The problem with Android fragmentation is not necessarily that it's spread across the number of devices and versions; it's that the phone manufacturers have incentives to continue using legacy versions of the software (2.2-2.3x) because they have already invested time and resources into building their proprietary UI on top of them. [1]: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...

tsunamifury 14y ago

I design and support apps for iOS (Tablet and Phone), Android (Tablet and Phone), Blackberry (Tablet and Phone), Windows Phone 7.5, and various J2ME (Nokia s40 etc). Android is not the very worst one to support (that would be blackberry), but it is the worst within its own ecosystem. As a designer it infuriates me to no end to never know the Dimensions, PPI, or general experience of any given user. It makes any refined UI design nearly impossible. While I can't create great experiences on specific devices, for Android I have to make glorified web apps at best. If I were a Android customer, I would be irritated that my platform has significantly handicapped my apps.

joelhaasnoot 14y ago
I'm actually mostly annoyed at my phone manufacturer for not being on top of software most of the time. I finally got ICS for my Dutch Samsung Galaxy S2, but not after a bad update left me with a phone that turned off every hour and had to go to a service center. The service center in turn flashed my phone with a Luxembourg version of the software, which properly upgraded to ICS but I no longer have a "Dutch" phone or the very latest stability upgrade. The article mentions video - that's directly related to either 3rd party ROMs or phone manufacturers not paying for/getting licenses for MPEG and/or other standards. Google APIs is another - there's various additional requirements that manufacturers have to deal with to get those. There is an alternative BTW to Google's maps - Mapquest (http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/featured/android-maps-api http://developer.mapquest.com/web/products/featured/android-...)
daleharvey 14y ago
as an android customer I am pretty glad I had the choice to buy the device I wanted to buy, instead of the one you wanted me to buy
- hahainternet 14y ago
  I've commented on this before, but I am a soft keyboard hater. I have a hard keyboard on my phone and tablet, and won't buy a device without the option. I'm incredibly glad that Android doesn't go with the dogmatic 'our choice is the best choice' approach. It means I can use things as I want them, not as Google wants me to. I can't agree with you enough.

radley 14y ago

I think his argument is premature. His app is < 5k installs, he's only targeting phones, he's still using the option menu (i.e. using an old sdk), and his UI is simply an iPhone port. Just from a UI perspective I'm not sure he has addressed: ActionBarSherlock, black vs. white (or any?) Option Menu icons, portrait/landscape layouts (i.e. sideways keyboards), and multiple layout folders (3x just for tablets). He's confident now because the app is small & easy. When you get to ~100k installs you start to encounter the niche users and when you're missing something "critical" and unique to them you'll get a lot of 1-star drive-bys...

guelo 14y ago
Just exclude your app from those devices in the market.
- radley 14y ago
  It usually takes the market a month or two to add new devices to the list. By that time you'll already be nailed by users of a popular new device with an odd screen. We went through that with the Galaxy Note. (Our solution was to express ship one via Amazon.)

jrockway 14y ago

I disagree that fragmentation is not a problem. I work on the mobile build/test infrastructure at Google, and fragmentation does cause us a lot of extra work. We have to track down and maintain physical phones from each vendor, and then we have to dole out time allotments for tests to run on each phone. (And of course, each model of phone runs a different build of Android for each carrier...) This is annoying because ideally we'd run tests for every affecting change, but there aren't enough phones to do that. (We can and do run the emulator for every change, but the emulator is a very optimistic simulation.) iOS presents is own challenges; running emulator tests for every change is difficult because the build process is opaque and the emulator only runs on Macs, which we do not use in production. All in all, the tools that are available to mobile developers are extremely primitive compared to what server-side Java developers get, and wasting time fighting fragmentation isn't exactly helping.

joelhaasnoot 14y ago
Hmm in your post I read "I work on mobile build/test infrastructure at Google" and "tools that are available to mobile developers are extremely primitive". So what are you waiting for? Pitch your ideas to your (relatively internal) Android team...
- jrockway 14y ago
  Yes, we do that :)

ecoffey 14y ago

Well it's also consumer perception. For Android I paid money for the phone itself, for a calling and data plan, and then for the apps (sometimes). So after putting down money and things not working right, yes that angers me. But for web apps? The browsers are free, the apps are (usually) free, and there is an expectation of approximate user experience on the web. On phones the standard is much higher. That's at least the way I feel about it (and will be switching to an iPhone away from Nexus S because of all those reasons; my OS X / iOS devices always feel more "real" than my android phone).

fragsworth 14y ago
> For Android I paid money for the phone itself, for a calling and data plan, and then for the apps (sometimes). Did you not pay for your computer itself, an Internet plan, and then for software (sometimes)? How is the Android experience any different?
- ecoffey 14y ago
  In a strict sense I have a ton of different browser options on the same piece of hardware, so if one app doesn't work in Safari say, I can use Chrome or FF. Annoying? Yes, but not world shattering. In a sense you're correct, I've had to invest money to even get to the browser, but I think this difference is more emotional / psychology than anything else. In a sense the "browser" is a different part of the overall experience. I know that I've become accustomed to have different expectations of web apps, because they are web apps. I feel like when it comes to more native apps you have fewer excuses for something being wonky or broken.

aiscott 14y ago

While the fragmentation such as it is really sucks for developers, I do see an upside. It's a grand experiment with many competing designs, all striving to become the best and biggest (sounds like Osmos ;). iPhone iterates down a closeted path. Innovation for iphone depends solely on the creativity at Apple. And while that is nothing to sneeze at, if some really left-field neato must-have innovative feature occurs, I think it's going to be found on Android first.

taligent 14y ago
Except that you miss the point. PCs have been doing this for decades without having the OS fragmentation problems. Why ? Because Microsoft allows OEMs to customise the experience while still allowing them the ability to upgrade the core OS.

rdg 14y ago

The problem with Android fragmentation is the impossibility of most developers to reproduce device-specific bugs. Without physical access to one problematic device it could be very hard or even impossible to debug bugs. There's only so much you can do with the emulator. And most developers don't have access to more than very few devices. If you're not a company, it's hard to invest in all sorts of devices.

THEM 14y ago

Price of testing on multiple flavors of web browsers: An internet connection & a few virtual machines to run versions of IE/Firefox. Price of testing on multiple android devices: Thousands of dollars to purchase new phones without a contract.

nalybuites 14y ago

I think the fragmentation issue has bigger impacts in software consumption, rather than software production. The fragmentation is really more of a symptom than the problem. That problem is disparate hardware as a result of how device manufacturers compete with each other. Instead of adding any value with useful features (NOTE: the additional battery drain of 4G and lessened security of using NFC are not features), they decide to manufacture devices using cut-rate hardware. The hardware failure rate of Android powered devices is staggering when compared to iOS devices. This hurts the user and it hurts the platform. The user is left with a bad taste in their mouth, which they attribute to "Android's fragmentation problem". Now, I'm not the biggest Apple fan and I love the philosophy behind Android, but I find the crappy hardware a big enough of a pain to deal with that I would rather use a device that's part of a more controlled ecosystem.

mchristoff 14y ago

I make a living off of Android, and I don't think fragmentation is overblown. Sure, you can make the argument that the PC world has dealt with different screen sizes and hardware specs for a long time, but at least MS was the sole vendor of Windows. As Android developer you have to deal with myriad of manufacturer and community developed permutations of the OS - TouchWiz, Sense, Cyanogenmod, MIUI to name a few. If you make a widget app like us, you not only have to deal with HTC, Samsung, etc's launcher you have to deal with 3rd party launchers too - ADW, Apex, Launcher Pro, GO, etc. How about when HTC decides to break multitasking in favor of better battery life? http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/16/3024854/htc-one-x-multitasking-operating-sense http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/16/3024854/htc-one-x-multitas... Personally, I think it's a bit of a double edged sword. A lot of the issues that make Android hard to develop good apps for make it a fun platform, ie the ability to choose whatever launcher or rom you want. That said, you're kidding yourself if you think fragmentation is not a major issue.