Quote:
Originally Posted by Brainless 
Ok, try that slowly for you again. We talked about fragmentation from the developer point of view. Although the interface (mostly of the home screen) might be different between different Android models, the API is pretty much stable through different versions. They are adding new features, similar to your "natural progression of the iPhone", but at the same time, more and more devices gets the OS update, so before developer is done with application that uses new 2.0 features (API), the use base will probably have it. On the other hand, most of Android devices are pretty much the same from the hardware point of view, there are no devices left in the cold without GPS, Camera, Compass, so you can count on devices to have them. So you can create applications using those features that will address entire platform, while on iPhone you are out of such luck. Some of the features are optional on Android, so perhaps we'll see one day a device, that ships without GPS, so the platform gets more fragmented so it will be on par with iPhone, but right now it is simply less fragmented. I know the truth hurts, especially if you still repeat your mantra "OS and HW is from the same manufacturer so it gotta be better" but in fact it is not.
iPhone is still very powerful and nice device, but I wouldn't play that "fragmentation" card against Android, because if you look at the facts, it sounds silly.
Ok, try that slowly for you again. We talked about fragmentation from the developer point of view. Although the interface (mostly of the home screen) might be different between different Android models, the API is pretty much stable through different versions. They are adding new features, similar to your "natural progression of the iPhone", but at the same time, more and more devices gets the OS update, so before developer is done with application that uses new 2.0 features (API), the use base will probably have it. On the other hand, most of Android devices are pretty much the same from the hardware point of view, there are no devices left in the cold without GPS, Camera, Compass, so you can count on devices to have them. So you can create applications using those features that will address entire platform, while on iPhone you are out of such luck. Some of the features are optional on Android, so perhaps we'll see one day a device, that ships without GPS, so the platform gets more fragmented so it will be on par with iPhone, but right now it is simply less fragmented. I know the truth hurts, especially if you still repeat your mantra "OS and HW is from the same manufacturer so it gotta be better" but in fact it is not.
iPhone is still very powerful and nice device, but I wouldn't play that "fragmentation" card against Android, because if you look at the facts, it sounds silly.
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What you have posted above, and in prior posts is technically true from a developer perspective.
Lets look at it from a different standpoint.
For example, the Touch doesn't have a camera, so if you develop an app using the camera, you cannot sell it to the Touch users.... or maybe you can! Being creative, you as a developer have written an app that enhances the built-in camera function. What if you were to supply the same capability to the Photos stored on the Touch? By simply re-thinking (re-engineering) your app you could have potentially millions of new sales.
Certainly, this also applies to the many, varied devices running Android. You could engineer your app so that it ran on every flavor (pun intended) of Android OS, and every device (hardware set) that runs Android... and support (or, at least, tolerate) every manufacturer's custom UI.
But, would you?
From a practical perspective, probably not! There is not enough sales potential to do this. More likely, you would cherry-pick a few popular Android versions and a few popular devices.
Which ones?
What the iPhone/Touch platform does is assist you to make the the decision of which OS versions and which devices to target.
You can [fairly] easily find the population of OS versions and devices on the iPhone/Touch platform. With this information, you can make a business decision on which versions will give you the ROI to make it worthwhile.
Then, with the app store you can market your versions as lites, downgrades, upgrades, in-app extensions... whatever makes sense.
Again, you can do this with the Android platform, but it is, likely, harder and costlier because of the proliferation of choices. Again, would you? Which ones?
Then there is the whole issue of cross-grades. How do you handle the customer who has purchased a version of your app that requires a specific OS version and device, and wants to change to a more (or less) capable OS version and device.
What do you charge him?
What do you do about the one he already has?
Finally, we're talking a matter of degree of proliferation (or fragmentation, if you prefer).
It is easier for the Developer to write, sell, maintain, update fewer versions for fewer devices running on fewer OS versions.
And when the manufacturer(s) provide a lurch forward with new hardware or software capabilities, it is easier to deal with a single manufacturer and a single lurch.
That's looking at the situation from a practical perspective.
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"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
– Alan Kay –
"So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you’ll rule the world."
– Alan Kay –
– Alan Kay –
