I agree and disagree.
I agree on your point that it may not matter that much to most consumers. However it certainly does matter for developers. I am planning development of an Android app right now. As a developer, I want to make use of the newest features of 2.2. In fact my app may require those features to function or become a lot more compelling with those features than it would be if I were to code for 1.5. But I also want my app to be available to the widest number of potential consumers. If a significant portion of the Android consumer base is on an earlier version like 1.5, that version becomes the lowest common denominator that I must develop for if I want the best chances for success.
I also disagree on your suggestion that only a small subset of users are victims of fragmentation (as well as the other columnists who have suggested that fragmentation is a myth). Take a look at Google's Official Platform Version Stats at:
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html
Based on those official numbers from Google more than half of Android users are still on a 1.x version of the OS - 54.5% as of June 1 2010 to be specific. So as lovely as 2.2 may be, I'm not so stupid as to cut out half of my potential consumer audience by coding for it only. It's just a bad business decision all around.
Also, let me propose that fragmentation may be an unavoidable side-effect of having multiple hardware vendors. I'm not sure that it will ever go away. So what I think would be best is if Google (and platform advocates like yourself) were to accept this as the nature of their beast and instead of trying to deny its existence or belittle its importance to various segments of the ecosystem, rather work on strategies to live with it and work through it effectively.
Fragmentation is real and it will limit innovation on the platform if strategies are not developed to live with it. I want this platform to be as successful as any of you, but unless we deal head on with the issues we come across, it will fail and we will all be worse off for it. Simple as that.
This is a post about my personal opinion — feel free to disagree. Post your opinion in the Talk Back.
There is a relatively small subset of Android users who care about “fragmentation”, and an even smaller subset of those users who are knowingly victims of it. The fact is that when you have a phone, you use it for what it does. If you want a phone that does something else, you either wait until your contract expires, or buy one outright.
Even if you only have Android 1.5, the majority of developers are still developing for your platform. It’s silly to target newer versions if your application doesn’t require it. That means that the majority of applications you can find in the entire marketplace will work on your phone. In fact, you probably won’t even know what you’re missing since the marketplace only shows applications that will work on your device.
So does “fragmentation” really matter? Or is it just a buzz word that people are latching onto for some reason? Let’s hear it in the Talk Back.
