3 ms·
I think the report could benefit from dropping the lowest 1/5/10% of devices by market share. As can readily be seen from the first diagram, Android has a long
by morsch 13y ago
I think the report could benefit from dropping the lowest 1/5/10% of devices by market share. As can readily be seen from the first diagram, Android has a long tail of obscure devices. Dropping that would make many of the other graphs more readable and more insightful. I guess it'd also be interesting to exclude devices by other characteristics, e.g. exclude all <4.0 devices because maybe you don't want to support them anyway.
I was first puzzled and am now intrigued by their choice to use physical screen size as a basis for that diagram, as opposed to screen resolution. Very appropriate in our resolution-independent times. Of course either way you do it, Android is going to have more variation than Apple. That diagram is also kind of difficult to read; what shade of blue corresponds to what market share?
Finally, it's awesome of them to share the source data! Maybe I'll actually get around to implementing my suggestions.
- warfangle 13y ago>Android is going to have more variation than Apple Absolutely. However, what struck me as crazy is the sheer number of devices per manufacturer. There are more than 100 devices there -- for Samsung alone. I get that they put out different devices for different locales. But I can't imagine the overhead in having that many devices in all kinds of different sizes. What gives?
- ajross 13y agoSome of the answer is that these aren't really "different" devices. They're different cases produced for different carriers, etc... The actual number of true SoC platforms is actually fairly small. But most of it is that hardware manufacturing of low-margin products is hard. Sure, you might really want to use a partcular Snapdragon part, but Qualcomm can't give them to you in the volumes you want, so you make two boards for two different chips. Or the camera manufacturer you were using just had a glitch and can't give you the second batch in time, but with a quick PCB rev you could use this other sensor which is "mostly" the same, etc... Apple doesn't do this because Apple ships high margin parts and can pay more (i.e. order extras, pay premiums to get first priority in shipments, etc...) to get the components they want. And, frankly, because Apple is willing to eat the occasional supply burp and just spin it as "demand was too high!".
- jakub_g 13y ago> I guess it'd also be interesting to exclude devices by other characteristics, e.g. exclude all <4.0 devices because maybe you don't want to support them anyway. Android 2.3 has around 40% of the Android market. I doubt many players can do it. Some companies still want IE7 or IE6 support.
- jordanthoms 13y agoDepends on what countries you are targeting. In the US, 2.3 is more like 15%.
- clarky07 13y ago15% is still a lot. do you want to take a 15% pay cut?
- tadfisher 13y agoNot so simple -- if it means you are better able to support your market, features are faster to develop, etc, there may be a net benefit. Hell, if dropping Gingerbread support raises your average review from 4 to 5 stars, you might be in the black.
- MAGZine 13y agoCloser to 30%, and even less in North America.
- clarky07 13y ago34.1%, it's in the article.
- xsmasher 13y agoIt'd be nice to have the option of viewing the data without the tiny slices, but just dropping them or putting them in an "other" category would blunt the message here - "There are more android devices under the sun than you have dreamed of."