Android's "Extreme Fragmentation," Colorfully Visualized by TweetDeck's Team(engadget.com)
engadget.com
Android's "Extreme Fragmentation," Colorfully Visualized by TweetDeck's Team
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/13/visualized-tweetdeck-beta-usage-chart-beautifully-showcases-and/
Will Windows Phone 7 be anywhere near as hacker friendly? Keep in mind xda-developers originally formed as a Windows Mobile community.
8 comments
"extreme fragmentation."
Kind of like IBM compatibles? Or maybe Java-capable phones?
Diversity of hardware is not something to be afraid of. Yes, it can cause a few difficulties, but it also provides a much wider market to sell to at the same time.
Choice is good.
Kind of like IBM compatibles? Or maybe Java-capable phones?
Diversity of hardware is not something to be afraid of. Yes, it can cause a few difficulties, but it also provides a much wider market to sell to at the same time.
Choice is good.
The first pie chart is split by hardware and shows only adoption (a good thing), not fragmentation.
The second pie chart is split by OS ID strings. While it shows fragmentation, it hugely exaggerates it because it counts all builds of a given version, say of 2.2, as unique even though they are built from the same or similar (i.e. bugfixed) sources. Besides that, there a a lot of single digit builds that are unidentifiable based on the name - what version of Android are the two copies of "Interceptor V5", for instance?
As a thought exercise, imagine what that pie chart would look like for any phone OS other than iOS. Symbian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian_OS and Windows Mobile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_mobile (soon to become fragmented again as WP7) both have several major version (i.e. true fragmentation) and many, many different handset manufacturers and flavors within each major version.
The second pie chart is split by OS ID strings. While it shows fragmentation, it hugely exaggerates it because it counts all builds of a given version, say of 2.2, as unique even though they are built from the same or similar (i.e. bugfixed) sources. Besides that, there a a lot of single digit builds that are unidentifiable based on the name - what version of Android are the two copies of "Interceptor V5", for instance?
As a thought exercise, imagine what that pie chart would look like for any phone OS other than iOS. Symbian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian_OS and Windows Mobile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_mobile (soon to become fragmented again as WP7) both have several major version (i.e. true fragmentation) and many, many different handset manufacturers and flavors within each major version.
Or imaging plotting the different user-agent strings for a website.
You've left out other examples where diversity hasn't been the shit, like video game consoles, and spinning optical disks for playing back music or video. And your example of java capable phones isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for creating a large market for 3rd party developers, since most java capable phones are running 0 3rd party apps.
Look, fragmentation increaces costs. A well capitalized developer can cover those costs and do the marketing to drive the volumes needed to ensure a good ROI. The economics aren't as attractive to small developers.
Android could end up with a much larger market share than iOS, though they'll be fighting with Microsoft to get it.
Even so, that isn't enough to guarantee a good market for app developers. The Android marketplace hasn't exactly caught on like the App store, not yet.
Look, fragmentation increaces costs. A well capitalized developer can cover those costs and do the marketing to drive the volumes needed to ensure a good ROI. The economics aren't as attractive to small developers.
Android could end up with a much larger market share than iOS, though they'll be fighting with Microsoft to get it.
Even so, that isn't enough to guarantee a good market for app developers. The Android marketplace hasn't exactly caught on like the App store, not yet.
Supporting a wider variety of hardware does not necessarily lead to commanding a larger market share. Who's to say a smaller number of devices that Google (or the device makers) were able to spend more time on supporting and polishing wouldn't sell more units than the broad array of phones we see? It would certainly lower the barrier to creating great apps on the platform, which would encourage wider adoption.
It seems silly to me to say blankly that "Choice is good." Obviously there are upper limits on how true that can be. If Motorola were designing and shipping and selling thirty different android phones right now, that choice would not be good. The phones would suffer and customers wouldn't know where to begin thinking about which phone they wanted.
The hassles for a developer associated with testing and making apps compatible on such a wide variety of devices are not trivial. It's a tradeoff, and Google is making no effort to control how that tradeoff breaks. Microsoft is taking a different approach. We'll see how that plays into things.
It seems silly to me to say blankly that "Choice is good." Obviously there are upper limits on how true that can be. If Motorola were designing and shipping and selling thirty different android phones right now, that choice would not be good. The phones would suffer and customers wouldn't know where to begin thinking about which phone they wanted.
The hassles for a developer associated with testing and making apps compatible on such a wide variety of devices are not trivial. It's a tradeoff, and Google is making no effort to control how that tradeoff breaks. Microsoft is taking a different approach. We'll see how that plays into things.
Well they do praise it, albeit it in an odd way.
I know several developers who frequently complain about Android fragmentation, but then again they might just be spoiled by iOS.
WP7 doesn't really allow for any oem/carrier skinning though...
I know several developers who frequently complain about Android fragmentation, but then again they might just be spoiled by iOS.
WP7 doesn't really allow for any oem/carrier skinning though...
Yet. http://www.google.com/search?q=vista+capable+lawsuit
Of course, it is hard to fragment 0. http://www.google.com/search?q=windows+phone+7+release+date
Of course, it is hard to fragment 0. http://www.google.com/search?q=windows+phone+7+release+date
For how many of those phones did TweetDeck have to make special accommodations? That there are many OS identification strings is not itself a problem. Fragmentation ought to be measured by differences on non-fundamental axes. Screen resolution differences are a good thing for users who want a choice of form factors, and developers at least know that they have to deal with both big and small screens. Axes like "strange combinations of API calls required to make the GPS provide a current position" (I'm making that one up) have no associated user benefit. The issue of dealing with multiple releases from Google isn't helped by the handset manufacturers/carriers being slow to provide upgrades, but I'd sure rather deal with multiple, known API levels than worry about platform stagnation killing my business.
With that said, I have yet to write a mobile app, so I don't have real-world experience. It's the lack of definition around "fragmentation" that is bothersome to me. What are some real issues faced by those here who have targeted a wide range of Android devices?
With that said, I have yet to write a mobile app, so I don't have real-world experience. It's the lack of definition around "fragmentation" that is bothersome to me. What are some real issues faced by those here who have targeted a wide range of Android devices?
Original source: http://blog.tweetdeck.com/android-ecosystem
Yes, thank you kindly.
Keep in mind that this is a ~35k user sample size of people downloading the TweetDeck beta application -- this is not "my mom" with an Android phone so I would recommend you don't look at this as a valid sample for the overall Android market.
The way to ensure the diversity remains compatible is by building a strong ecosystem around it that requires that compatibility -- the x86 ecosystem is a perfect example. By building applications that work with the Android mainline you create gravity forcing others to follow that path as well.
The way to ensure the diversity remains compatible is by building a strong ecosystem around it that requires that compatibility -- the x86 ecosystem is a perfect example. By building applications that work with the Android mainline you create gravity forcing others to follow that path as well.
If you read the source article, they say "From our perspective it's pretty cool to have our app work on such a wide variety of devices and Android OS variations."
Saying Android is fragmented because of many unique OS strings is kind of like saying the web is fragmented because of many unique user-agent strings.
It's apparent that TweetDeck understand this, but it seems Engadget just highlighted the "Fragmentation" aspect to drive page views.
Saying Android is fragmented because of many unique OS strings is kind of like saying the web is fragmented because of many unique user-agent strings.
It's apparent that TweetDeck understand this, but it seems Engadget just highlighted the "Fragmentation" aspect to drive page views.
I thought testing a bunch of browsers for my web apps sucked.
If seeing that doesn't scare you...you obviously don't care much about testing or user experience.
If seeing that doesn't scare you...you obviously don't care much about testing or user experience.
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Will Windows Phone 7 be anywhere near as hacker friendly? Keep in mind xda-developers originally formed as a Windows Mobile community.