Ah yes, avoiding the iPhone and iPod Touch there I see. How convenient.
Tell me, how many of those iPad 1s are running the latest version of iOS?
Thanks for introducing a completely different argument that has nothing whatsoever to do with what he's talking about. But I'll go ahead and respond to it by saying that a five year old device that can't have the newest OS (iOS) and a five month old device that can't have the newest OS (Android) aren't comparable.
Not really. It's the junior developers or ones new to screen independence that have the problem.
Most figure it out, such as Rovio, who eneded up doing a great job of Angry Birds running on virtually every new and old Android device. It just takes the right mindset... one which btw, Apple also needs to break out of their display resolution cage
Yes Really to quote rovio themselves in a gigaohm article:
Android fragmentation is a serious issue for developers. In its tweets, Rovio Mobile said it began working on the Android version of Angry Birds in the spring. But the company said it took a long time to test for all the different Android devices to ensure they worked well. “Main challenge with Android is the amount of different devices. They are all different. Takes forever to test,” the company said tweeted. In the end, there are still devices like the HTC Hero and Sony Ericsson X10 that appear to have problems running the game. By comparison, porting over Angry Birds to webOS earlier this year only took a “few hours.” This could be a growing problem for Android developers as the number and variety of devices proliferates.
Even rovio tells us that it is a huge pain in the arse to port to android and that there are still android phones that wont or have a difficult time running angry birds. Android is the problem with its horrible fragmentation. They also said in the same article that paid game models like on iOS dont work on android because of the mindset of the users. People want freemium games on android. A game they can download for free and just click the ads out of the way.
Thats horrible 44% of android devices still running gingerbread!! Only 16.4% running the latest two os's! This is from googles developer sight.
Contrast this with iOS 83% are currently running iOS 6.0 6.1, 6.1.1, 6.1.2 or 6.1.3 all of the last three are small point revisions to fix certain bugs like the microsoft exchange bug. No one will convince me that android is not an utter disaster of fragmentation.
Here is a link to wikipedia for iOS device support with different iOS devices. Its a good chart. But one thing it shows is a vastly bigger amount of support for iOS devices running newer versions of iOS than android devices running there latest os. Most iOS devices get 4 to 5 generations of support with new versions of iOS.
Contrast that to android still running 44% of there devices on gingerbread with no hope of an upgrade.
Hell iOS 6 can even still run on the 3GS albeit with features missing but it still can.
Ad hominem? Implying they are wrong because of their degree? Sad.
Since you have a frequent history of ad hominem, it's easy to see why you would jump to that conclusion.
One of my dear sisters-in-law is also a PoliSci PhD, but I would not task her to write a blog on Android fragmentation using numbers she can chart but clearly wouldn't understand.
Heck, anyone who hasn't developed for Android should not be claiming to know what's hard and what isn't. That's like listening to city dwelling civilians pretending they know what it's like to be in the field in the military.
--
As for APIs... again, remember that Android itself has long supported the major core things developers need to do.
Everything else is gravy, and usually comes as libraries. So what Google does, is release Support Libraries that can be included so that even apps running on really old OS versions (like 1.6) can still use some 3.x and above APIs... such as the screen fragment API for tablets.
Thus you can specify a minimum SDK level that's old, and also specify that your app will be compiled against a much newer SDK level.
In that case, your app will run on the old OS, but behave like it's on a newer version.
Yes Really to quote rovio themselves in a gigaohm article:
That was an old article back when they first started porting Angry Birds.
As I noted, the concept of screen resolution independence was new to them.
Later, they said all was good, and also pointed out that they were making more from the Android ad based free version, than from the paid iOS version.
I'm not saying there's no problems. Far from it. But the things that most people (non-developers) bring up (like display differences), are not the big deals they think they are. Everything depends on what kind of app you're doing.
Tell that to the iPad 1 owners. Or the poor bastards who bought Nokia WP7 phones expecting an update to WP8.
Unlike Samsung's products, everysingleiOSdevice has had a major OS upgrade available.
Unlike Samsung, Apple's current entire iPhone iPad and iPod Touch lineup runs the current iOS 6.
In the past twelve months Samsung has released Gingerbread phones like the Pocket and the Ace 2.
It seems Samsung doesn't want its budget customers to benefit from Android's new APIs.
Samsung is partially responsible for the Android fragmentation issue; other manufacturers have made budget Android phones with more recent Android software.
Comparatively you're much more likely to have your Apple product updated than your Samsung.
ipad 1/2 - 9'7" screen - 1,024 × 768 pixels at 132 ppi
ipad 3/4 - 9'7" screen - 2,048 × 1,536 pixels at 264 ppi
ipad mini - 7.9" screen - 1,024 × 768 pixels at 163 ppi
fragmentation?
Not really...
All iPads have the same aspect ratio... which solves one problem. And the Retina/non-Retina issue is handled by making graphical assets @2X
Any app designed for a Retina iPad will work on the iPad 2 or iPad Mini. iPads are actually the least worrisome.
The iPhone and iPod Touch did undergo a change in aspect ratio (one change in 6 years... the horror) so developers had some extra work to do. But I think it's safe to say that the iPhone and the iPod Touch will remain 16:9 for the foreseeable future. And Retina graphics have been a part of the iPhone since 2010. So... it may be a little more work to make your apps work on both 3:2 displays and 16:9 displays and Retina/non-Retina.... but apparently developers are doing it.
Apple insists that developers make pixel-perfect graphics in their apps for the exact dimensions of the screen on the device. Is that such a bad thing?
In contrast... Android devices come in all sorts of shapes and resolutions: 15:9, 16:9 and 16:10 for aspect ratios... and a multitude of screen resolutions.
Question: How do you design an app with pixel-perfect accuracy that looks good on a 1920x1080 HTC Droid DNA... a 1280x720 Galaxy SIII... and a 800x480 Galaxy SII ???
Answer: You don't. You must rely on scaling and interpolation... which could result in muddy-looking graphics.
Sure... it might not look that bad... but it's certainly a different philosophy than Apple.
which will lead to most developers not bothering to support new features offered by more recent Android versions and APIs, and thus most android manufacturers not bothering with the extra complexity of dealing with a more recent Android version.
This may go some way to explaining why the bulk of Android devices are 2.6.3 or below.
In contrast, my four year old iPhone 3GS with its current iOS can take advantage of the latest programmes with the latest APIs.
Also note how Google deceives it's Android cattle by making multiple API inclusions have the same primary version number AND codename.
This article is genius! This is exactly what happened with computers: remember when the Mac had one 512x342 monochrome display, and there were apps everywhere, but as soon as we got multiple screen sizes, different color depths, different RAM configurations, and then those newfangled hard drive things, it all went to hell in a handbasket? Gosh, how can developers ever hope to write software for anything more than a single screen size? Good gawd, it's never been done before! It's beyond all possible technology! Android is doomed!
The "logic" you're using here makes me want to eat an entire shaker of salt.
I don't blame you. However, it's as good a "logic" as the ridiculous claims of shills around here.
Heck, about a month ago I watched as a well known pro-Apple fanatic came here and started posting. He was accused of being a shill and you could see his shock. He protested and listed his Apple background, and even then he was torn to pieces. He left. The whole thing was idiotic beyond belief. It was like watching a group of cannibalistic piranha.
Comments
Originally Posted by stike vomit
Ah yes, avoiding the iPhone and iPod Touch there I see. How convenient.
Tell me, how many of those iPad 1s are running the latest version of iOS?
Thanks for introducing a completely different argument that has nothing whatsoever to do with what he's talking about. But I'll go ahead and respond to it by saying that a five year old device that can't have the newest OS (iOS) and a five month old device that can't have the newest OS (Android) aren't comparable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KDarling
Not really. It's the junior developers or ones new to screen independence that have the problem.
Most figure it out, such as Rovio, who eneded up doing a great job of Angry Birds running on virtually every new and old Android device. It just takes the right mindset... one which btw, Apple also needs to break out of their display resolution cage
Yes Really to quote rovio themselves in a gigaohm article:
Android fragmentation is a serious issue for developers. In its tweets, Rovio Mobile said it began working on the Android version of Angry Birds in the spring. But the company said it took a long time to test for all the different Android devices to ensure they worked well. “Main challenge with Android is the amount of different devices. They are all different. Takes forever to test,” the company said tweeted. In the end, there are still devices like the HTC Hero and Sony Ericsson X10 that appear to have problems running the game. By comparison, porting over Angry Birds to webOS earlier this year only took a “few hours.” This could be a growing problem for Android developers as the number and variety of devices proliferates.
Even rovio tells us that it is a huge pain in the arse to port to android and that there are still android phones that wont or have a difficult time running angry birds. Android is the problem with its horrible fragmentation. They also said in the same article that paid game models like on iOS dont work on android because of the mindset of the users. People want freemium games on android. A game they can download for free and just click the ads out of the way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stike vomit
Tell that to the iPad 1 owners. Or the poor bastards who bought Nokia WP7 phones expecting an update to WP8.
Look at the current android distribution from developer.android.com
Version
Codename
API
Distribution
1.6
Donut
4
0.2%
2.1
Eclair
7
1.9%
2.2
Froyo
8
7.6%
2.3 - 2.3.2
Gingerbread
9
0.2%
2.3.3 - 2.3.7
10
44%
3.1
Honeycomb
12
0.3%
3.2
13
0.9%
4.0.3 - 4.0.4
Ice Cream Sandwich
15
28.6%
4.1
Jelly Bean
16
14.9%
4.2
17
1.6%
Thats horrible 44% of android devices still running gingerbread!! Only 16.4% running the latest two os's! This is from googles developer sight.
Contrast this with iOS 83% are currently running iOS 6.0 6.1, 6.1.1, 6.1.2 or 6.1.3 all of the last three are small point revisions to fix certain bugs like the microsoft exchange bug. No one will convince me that android is not an utter disaster of fragmentation.
Here is a link to wikipedia for iOS device support with different iOS devices. Its a good chart. But one thing it shows is a vastly bigger amount of support for iOS devices running newer versions of iOS than android devices running there latest os. Most iOS devices get 4 to 5 generations of support with new versions of iOS.
Contrast that to android still running 44% of there devices on gingerbread with no hope of an upgrade.
Hell iOS 6 can even still run on the 3GS albeit with features missing but it still can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history
If you code width=800 vs width=100% then you shouldn't even be coding in the first place. Screen size is the least of Androids fragmentation problem
Quote:
Originally Posted by EricTheHalfBee
Ad hominem? Implying they are wrong because of their degree? Sad.
Since you have a frequent history of ad hominem, it's easy to see why you would jump to that conclusion.
One of my dear sisters-in-law is also a PoliSci PhD, but I would not task her to write a blog on Android fragmentation using numbers she can chart but clearly wouldn't understand.
Heck, anyone who hasn't developed for Android should not be claiming to know what's hard and what isn't. That's like listening to city dwelling civilians pretending they know what it's like to be in the field in the military.
--
As for APIs... again, remember that Android itself has long supported the major core things developers need to do.
Everything else is gravy, and usually comes as libraries. So what Google does, is release Support Libraries that can be included so that even apps running on really old OS versions (like 1.6) can still use some 3.x and above APIs... such as the screen fragment API for tablets.
Thus you can specify a minimum SDK level that's old, and also specify that your app will be compiled against a much newer SDK level.
In that case, your app will run on the old OS, but behave like it's on a newer version.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mechanic
Yes Really to quote rovio themselves in a gigaohm article:
That was an old article back when they first started porting Angry Birds.
As I noted, the concept of screen resolution independence was new to them.
Later, they said all was good, and also pointed out that they were making more from the Android ad based free version, than from the paid iOS version.
I'm not saying there's no problems. Far from it. But the things that most people (non-developers) bring up (like display differences), are not the big deals they think they are. Everything depends on what kind of app you're doing.
Originally Posted by stike vomit
Tell that to the iPad 1 owners. Or the poor bastards who bought Nokia WP7 phones expecting an update to WP8.
Unlike Samsung's products, every single iOS device has had a major OS upgrade available.
Unlike Samsung, Apple's current entire iPhone iPad and iPod Touch lineup runs the current iOS 6.
In the past twelve months Samsung has released Gingerbread phones like the Pocket and the Ace 2.
It seems Samsung doesn't want its budget customers to benefit from Android's new APIs.
Samsung is partially responsible for the Android fragmentation issue; other manufacturers have made budget Android phones with more recent Android software.
Comparatively you're much more likely to have your Apple product updated than your Samsung.
Originally Posted by ChiA
Unlike Samsung's products, every single iOS device has had at least three major OS upgrades available.
Fixed, for further punishment.
Not really...
All iPads have the same aspect ratio... which solves one problem. And the Retina/non-Retina issue is handled by making graphical assets @2X
Any app designed for a Retina iPad will work on the iPad 2 or iPad Mini. iPads are actually the least worrisome.
The iPhone and iPod Touch did undergo a change in aspect ratio (one change in 6 years... the horror) so developers had some extra work to do. But I think it's safe to say that the iPhone and the iPod Touch will remain 16:9 for the foreseeable future. And Retina graphics have been a part of the iPhone since 2010. So... it may be a little more work to make your apps work on both 3:2 displays and 16:9 displays and Retina/non-Retina.... but apparently developers are doing it.
Apple insists that developers make pixel-perfect graphics in their apps for the exact dimensions of the screen on the device. Is that such a bad thing?
In contrast... Android devices come in all sorts of shapes and resolutions: 15:9, 16:9 and 16:10 for aspect ratios... and a multitude of screen resolutions.
Question: How do you design an app with pixel-perfect accuracy that looks good on a 1920x1080 HTC Droid DNA... a 1280x720 Galaxy SIII... and a 800x480 Galaxy SII ???
Answer: You don't. You must rely on scaling and interpolation... which could result in muddy-looking graphics.
Sure... it might not look that bad... but it's certainly a different philosophy than Apple.
Also note how Google deceives it's Android cattle by making multiple API inclusions have the same primary version number AND codename.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Scrip
Answer: You don't. You must rely on scaling and interpolation... which could result in muddy-looking graphics.
Sure... it might not look that bad... but it's certainly a different philosophy than Apple.
Apple used cheap pixel doubling, for goodness's sake. Talk about scaled-up muddy graphics!
God dammit I can't stand all the bullshit you post. I've never thought anyone was actually a paid shill until you started posting.
God dammit I can't stand all the bullshit you post. I've never thought anyone was actually a paid shill until you started posting.
deleted
This article is genius! This is exactly what happened with computers: remember when the Mac had one 512x342 monochrome display, and there were apps everywhere, but as soon as we got multiple screen sizes, different color depths, different RAM configurations, and then those newfangled hard drive things, it all went to hell in a handbasket? Gosh, how can developers ever hope to write software for anything more than a single screen size? Good gawd, it's never been done before! It's beyond all possible technology! Android is doomed!
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
God dammit I can't stand all the bullshit you post. I've never thought anyone was actually a paid shill until you started posting.
lol
Then it must be AI who's paying all these shills you see in your head, because...
Who do you think keeps starting all the Samsung and Android related news threads?
Hint: they run the site.
Originally Posted by KDarling
Then it must be AI who's paying all these shills you see in your head, because...
Who do you think keeps starting all the Samsung and Android related news threads?
Hint: they run the site.
The "logic" you're using here makes me want to eat an entire shaker of salt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
The "logic" you're using here makes me want to eat an entire shaker of salt.
I don't blame you. However, it's as good a "logic" as the ridiculous claims of shills around here.
Heck, about a month ago I watched as a well known pro-Apple fanatic came here and started posting. He was accused of being a shill and you could see his shock. He protested and listed his Apple background, and even then he was torn to pieces. He left. The whole thing was idiotic beyond belief. It was like watching a group of cannibalistic piranha.