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It's not even comparable. Android has many more levels of fragmentation than iOS ever will and Google knows that they screwed up. You have display resolution *

by alayne 13y ago

It's not even comparable. Android has many more levels of fragmentation than iOS ever will and Google knows that they screwed up. You have display resolution * display density * OS version * carrier OS modifications * device hardware (hard keyboard/buttons/trackpad/...).

cheald 13y ago
And the OS is specifically built to handle that. Layouts are't done in visual pixels, but in density-independent units. The layout engine itself is designed to accommodate different display sizes and aspect ratios. The entire OS is built around a capabilities system that is designed to make it run on devices that may or may not have a camera or trackpad or whatnot. Android fragmentation is about the availability of API levels, not the variance in hardware.
- shinratdr 13y ago
  > And the OS is specifically built to handle that. Then it does a pretty crappy job. Why does the Play Store silently block apps from your device if this is the case? Why does every Android dev publish a list of supported devices? Because it's nowhere close to this simple, and can't be solved by improvements in the OS, which by the way don't reach the vast majority of users, hence the problem.
- alayne 13y ago
  Well, my personal experience is that things break on different Android devices for various and sundry reasons despite the existence of dp. If apps run on the iOS simulator you rarely find issues on an actual device except performance issues. But you'd better test on the Note 2, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Tab, Nexus 7, HTC Desire C, LG Elite, ...
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - cageface 13y ago
    I haven't found device fragmentation to be much of an issue in practice in Android development. Admittedly the apps I've written so far haven't really been pushing the envelope but aside from some hassles with older Kindles I haven't had to spend that much time on device-specific bugs. Not much more, in fact, than I've had to spend getting apps that run fine on iPhone 4+ working on the 3GS. It's even less of an issue if you can afford to target only 4.0 and above, which is an increasingly reasonable choice for a lot of apps.

by alayne 13y ago

cheald 13y ago

And the OS is specifically built to handle that. Layouts are't done in visual pixels, but in density-independent units. The layout engine itself is designed to accommodate different display sizes and aspect ratios. The entire OS is built around a capabilities system that is designed to make it run on devices that may or may not have a camera or trackpad or whatnot. Android fragmentation is about the availability of API levels, not the variance in hardware.

shinratdr 13y ago
> And the OS is specifically built to handle that. Then it does a pretty crappy job. Why does the Play Store silently block apps from your device if this is the case? Why does every Android dev publish a list of supported devices? Because it's nowhere close to this simple, and can't be solved by improvements in the OS, which by the way don't reach the vast majority of users, hence the problem.
alayne 13y ago
Well, my personal experience is that things break on different Android devices for various and sundry reasons despite the existence of dp. If apps run on the iOS simulator you rarely find issues on an actual device except performance issues. But you'd better test on the Note 2, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S3, Galaxy Tab, Nexus 7, HTC Desire C, LG Elite, ...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- cageface 13y ago
  I haven't found device fragmentation to be much of an issue in practice in Android development. Admittedly the apps I've written so far haven't really been pushing the envelope but aside from some hassles with older Kindles I haven't had to spend that much time on device-specific bugs. Not much more, in fact, than I've had to spend getting apps that run fine on iPhone 4+ working on the 3GS. It's even less of an issue if you can afford to target only 4.0 and above, which is an increasingly reasonable choice for a lot of apps.