fragmentation

Android is notorious in the developer community for its rampant fragmentation. Developing an app for Google’s platform means wrestling to make the app work optimally on the ecosystem of thousands of devices in different shapes and sizes. And according to a new report out today giving us a look at the state of Android fragmentation as of this month, August 2015, there’s both some bad and good news: There are more devices than ever before, but fewer users that are spread out across different operating system versions.

Expand
Expanding
Close

There’s always been much debate over whether or not the intense fragmentation of the Android ecosystem is a good thing, but I think the latest Android fragmentation report from OpenSignal puts it best: “Fragmentation is both a strength and weakness of the Android ecosystem, a headache for developers that also provides the basis for Android’s global reach.” This report gives us a great look at where Android stands as a platform, does a bit of comparing it to iOS, and visualizes (not so?) neatly how fragmented Google’s mobile operating system truly is.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Analytics firm Localytics released a study today depicting Android fragmentation as a not-so serious issue in recent times.

Fragmentation is the inability to develop an application against a singular reference and achieve its intended behavior throughout all devices or operating systems suitable for the application. Localytics pinpointed Android’s succession to a couple operating systems, screen sizes, and display resolutions as the primary factors contributing to the removal of fragmentation among handheld devices and tablets…

Expand
Expanding
Close