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Comment by podperson | Hacker News Reader

No, the problem here isn't supporting _devices_ but OSes. If you flag your app as v4 (correctly) anyone who wants to use it can upgrade to v4 and use it. No fragmentation. Under Android it's a dog's breakfast just on that point, forget screen resolutions etc.

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Have you developed for Android and released a useful app? What are you basing your dog breakfast story on? That doesn't ring true at all for anyone who has developed for Android.

What about what Rovio, the developers of Angry Birds faced? http://www.rovio.com/index.php?mact=Blogs,cntnt01,showentry,...

Well, they also claim "Fragmentation on the device side is not a huge problem"[1]. They do say ecosystem fragmentation is a problem. The problem addressed in your link is more underpowered devices than fragmentation. Sure, Android's ability to be slapped on any hardware leads the problems of underpowered devices, but it isn't really fragmentation.

[1]:http://technmarketing.com/iphone/peter-vesterbacka-maker-of-...

Do you actually have any specifics about Android fragmentation causing a problem? If you do, ESR has been trying to find any specifics to back up the generic claims of fragmentation, and has said he has not found any reasonable evidence of such problems. Same question for all you apparent Apple fanboys who voted this comment up so much, any specifics? If you have any here's the thread where ESR's been requesting them - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2835.

I program for both platforms. A couple things that annoy me the most often, aside from devices shipping with old versions of Android:

- Resolution differences, and no real scalable interface APIs. - HTC vs Blur vs Samsung's distribution of Android. They all dick with stuff their own way. - Physical buttons on each device. Some are overly sensitive capacitive buttons, clicky buttons, or high latency. Each require model specific code.

You can verify this by searching the release notes for apps in the Market. There's commonly caveats for certain models.

Btw what does ESR have to do with Android? I don't see how reporting it to some random Linux enthusiast is going to help.

Avoid fragmentation by just dropping support for older versions of the OS?

Keep in mind, Apple occasionally charges for iOS upgrades, so requiring an upgrade effectively increases the cost of your application by a nontrivial amount. Not all users want to upgrade, especially when upgrades degrade performance and have limited new features for older devices.

"Keep in mind, Apple used to charge for iOS upgrades, so requiring an upgrade effectively increases the cost of your application by a nontrivial amount." [FTFY]

Apple attributed the fee to strange accounting rules (something dealing with when revenue is recognized - I don't exactly recall off hand) - rules which were recently changed. Just an excuse to milk some more cash out of iPod touch users? Maybe - I won't argue with you on that. But as of iOS 4.0, Apple no longer charges iPod touch users for updates.

"Not all users want to upgrade, especially when upgrades degrade performance and have limited new features for older devices."

Here is the real roadblock to updating. 4.0 has rendered my 3G frustratingly unusable. In my mind, those who haven't updated fall into three camps:

1. Those who jailbroke and haven't gone through the hassle of updating

2. Those who could care less about new features/aren't aware there is an update

3. As you mentioned, those who have older devices and don't want to update because of performance or development reasons

There is no real roadblock. Just try 4.2, it's not slow.

Thanks for the tip. I was still on 4.1, so I updated yesterday. It's better, but a number of apps are still a far cry from usable.

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