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"Creating an app for Android means taking in stride the inconsistency in hardware calibration, as there is a huge diversity in the Android market in terms of th

"Creating an app for Android means taking in stride the inconsistency in hardware calibration, as there is a huge diversity in the Android market in terms of the brands that sell Android phones." Please not this. The fragmentation argument sounded very clever in 2010, but it's just not true. The OS takes care of most device diversity just like OSs have for decades. It's true that users are on different OS versions, more so than iOS, meaning that you can't just assume everyone has the latest version, but that's standard for most software. It's not like everything breaks just because the user has a Sony phone. Progressive enhancement, graceful degradation, and responsive design are well-understood, time-honored, practices for dealing with different platforms and devices. Also, Google's trick of updating Play services means older OSs now get a bunch of upgrades anyway.

njs12345 13y ago
I agree the fragmentation issue isn't anywhere near as bad as it's made out to be in general, but.. > It's not like everything breaks just because the user has a Sony phone. Even with Android 4+, there are still gotchas. For instance, I was recently bitten by this compass bug: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-developers/U3N9eL5BcJk/i38uZKIlbQwJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-developers/U3N... It'd be nice if Google put more stuff in the support library, or even put notes about it in the docs, as they're clearly working around it in their own Android apps..
statictype 13y ago
I see the 'Android fragmentation problem' meme to be similar to the 'iPads are for consumption, not creation' meme. Possibly overblown but also has a bit of truth to it.
krschultz 13y ago
Honestly iOS6 vs iOS7 is causing more pain than all the "fragmentation" on Android at the moment.
halostatue 13y ago
It's still true. When I was at SurfEasy, the guy doing Android development had to jump through lots of hoops to get the VPN working in the general case (and it wouldn't work at all pre-4.0.1, IIRC) and even then, we had to buy several specific phones because they had subtle bugs either in display, timing, or VPN handling. iOS VPN development has its own nightmarish problems, but those were primarily handled through the provisioning process, not in getting the software to work on weird hardware combination.
jinushaun 13y ago
"It's not like everything breaks just because the user has a Sony phone." Actually, recent experience developing for Android tells me it does. Can't tell you how many times I've had the app behave dramatically differently or crash on different devices. Even using a Nexus One as your baseline doesn't help. And if you work with the camera… welcome to hell. The Support Library is not a cure all.

njs12345 13y ago

I agree the fragmentation issue isn't anywhere near as bad as it's made out to be in general, but.. > It's not like everything breaks just because the user has a Sony phone. Even with Android 4+, there are still gotchas. For instance, I was recently bitten by this compass bug: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-developers/U3N9eL5BcJk/i38uZKIlbQwJ https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/android-developers/U3N... It'd be nice if Google put more stuff in the support library, or even put notes about it in the docs, as they're clearly working around it in their own Android apps..

statictype 13y ago

I see the 'Android fragmentation problem' meme to be similar to the 'iPads are for consumption, not creation' meme. Possibly overblown but also has a bit of truth to it.

krschultz 13y ago

Honestly iOS6 vs iOS7 is causing more pain than all the "fragmentation" on Android at the moment.

halostatue 13y ago

It's still true. When I was at SurfEasy, the guy doing Android development had to jump through lots of hoops to get the VPN working in the general case (and it wouldn't work at all pre-4.0.1, IIRC) and even then, we had to buy several specific phones because they had subtle bugs either in display, timing, or VPN handling. iOS VPN development has its own nightmarish problems, but those were primarily handled through the provisioning process, not in getting the software to work on weird hardware combination.

jinushaun 13y ago

"It's not like everything breaks just because the user has a Sony phone." Actually, recent experience developing for Android tells me it does. Can't tell you how many times I've had the app behave dramatically differently or crash on different devices. Even using a Nexus One as your baseline doesn't help. And if you work with the camera… welcome to hell. The Support Library is not a cure all.