
Angry Birds maker apologizes for Android fragmentation issues - evo_9
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/11/19/angry_birds_maker_apologizes_for_android_fragmentation_issues.html
======
jrockway
Incidentally, the web has failed because there are 5 different major browsers,
and personal computers have failed, because there is an infinite combination
of available hardware.

How could anyone have tested on all those? How could anyone have ever
developed a working web application? How could anyone have ever developed a
working Windows application?

The non-sarcastic answer: most of the time, the differences are irrelevant.
The rest of the time, you need to build an abstraction, and then the second
case becomes the first! Forever!

(Android is open-source. If you need a function that only Android 2.2 has,
backport it to 1.6! If you need an abstraction layer for dealing with 24-bit
or 16-bit screens, write one and share it with the world! Android is open, and
you have to exploit that fact to be successful. You can't go off into your own
little Universe where there is one person with one phone running one app at a
time. That may be the iOS strategy, but it's not what works for Android.)

~~~
mishmash
> If you need a function that only Android 2.2 has, backport it to 1.6!

And this solves the problems of users not having it how?

~~~
fletchowns
Well obviously you just need to backport it to 1.6, update all the custom user
interfaces that each of the device makers have made, hack into several
different OTA update systems, and force an update for millions of devices.
Piece of cake right?

~~~
GHFigs
You could do it in a weekend.

~~~
mishmash
the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u
git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"

That should handle it.

------
wccrawford
The problem isn't 'fragmentation'. The problem is that some hardware can't
handle the way they wrote the code. They are going to write a version that
uses less processor power and release that as well.

If they had written the 'lighter' version first, it would run on all devices.

Nobody ever talks about the PC market being fragmented, and yet it's nothing
but fragments. It's difficult to find 2 PCs that are identical unless they
were purchased at the same time. That doesn't stop developers from making apps
and games for PCs.

When they say that 'fragmentation' prevented them from reaching the whole
market, what they're really saying is that their software uses too much CPU or
another resource.

~~~
dpcan
Android is a like a whole new ball game when it comes to fragmentation.

You can't rely on the same kind of touch screens, or a keyboard being present,
or a trackball, or the speed being same, or an SD card existing, and the
screen sizes all seem to be so different, cutting off part of your game's
graphics or touch-areas.

On a PC, I can count on there being a 2 button mouse, keyboard, and a 1024x768
resolution in a pinch. There seems to be no fall-back on Android.

Then to top it off, it results in angry user feedback.

And what frustrates ME the most ... comments in the Android Market don't even
tell us what phone model the poster is using. For goodness sake, the number of
problems this would solve is HUGE.

OK ok, I'm beginning to rant. All I'm saying is Android is in a fragmentation
class of its own :)

~~~
DanHulton
Okay, it's good to see some backup on this - I got downmodded to hell the
other day for even suggesting that Android was fragmented:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1917559>

To be fair, my example sucked and I totally did misunderstand the Netflix
issue. But I was _right_ on the basic fragmentation problem, dagnabbit! =)

------
nym
Wow, talk about a biased article.

~~~
ido
Read the URL.

~~~
nym
Well of course. I'm surprised this article got voted up on HN.

------
kylemathews
I was going to complain about the poster editorializing again in the title
then noticed who the article was from.

------
smcdow
Does no one in HN understand the basic concepts of configuration management?

------
alphabeat
Apple Insider? It must be pretty high up her!

------
jwhitlark
Heh. You know you've arrived when the competition just can't stop talking
trash...

