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The Nook and the Fire are "Android" devices not Android™ devices. While related and important they are not the Android ecosystem most people talk about.
by abraham 14y ago
The Nook and the Fire are "Android" devices not Android™ devices. While related and important they are not the Android ecosystem most people talk about.
- adambyrtek 14y agoI would argue that this distinction is not that important from developers' point of view, as the same application can be made available on all "flavors" of Android.
- abraham 14y agoIt is important from a developers point of view because those devices don't get tested by Google for API/feature conformance and so potentially are more likely to have applications not run on them correctly.
- fpgeek 14y agoDo you seriously think Amazon and B&N aren't internally running the publicly available Compatibility Test Suite (see: http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html ) as part of their regular testing? Given the wide variety of applications shared amongst the three markets (plus the successful installation of Google services including the Play Store on both), I think there's zero evidence that, from a developer's perspective, the Nook Color/Tablet and Kindle Fire are materially different from any Google-blessed Gingerbread-based tablet with the same specs, except that the Google-specific libraries and services are not installed. I can understand compatibility worries about cheap, no-name non-Google-certified tablets, but that doesn't describe the Kindle Fire and Nook Color / Nook Tablet. The cheap, no-name tablets (and other devices) aren't a big part of the market outside the developing world. And the developing world is a whole different ball game for all sorts of reasons, not just Android device compatibility (e.g. the most significant competing platforms are Symbian and, arguably, SMS).