Starbucks mobile exec on Android fragmentation
K.C. MacLaren, director of mobile and emerging platforms at Starbucks, talking to GeekWire:
You mentioned in your talk that Android is a ‘watered down’ experience. What did you mean by that?
In a broad sense, in terms of some of the fragmentation in Android, with multiple resolutions, multiple screen sizes, different capabilities of different platforms that run Android, some users may find that they have to produce a watered down experience. They can’t deliver a consistent one. If they are using a lot of native device elements — like the accelerometer and the camera and gyroscope and all of the different pieces of the hardware — those are handled very differently on different devices. So, if you needed that, you might not be able to deliver that in a great way. You might have to take that feature out, for example.
The usual response to this is about how solid iOS is in this regard, but it’s wrong to argue there’s no fragmentation at all on iOS. New devices arrive that are more powerful and have a different feature set to old models. Ageing kit is eventually unsupported by iOS updates. And there are now three different screen resolutions. But on iOS, the low number of systems and, importantly, their general consistency in terms of behaviour, nonetheless makes them appealing to developers despite the (very slowly) increasing fragmentation. Contrast this with MacLaren’s comments: not only are there tons of Android devices available, but even hardware components don’t work consistently across all of them.
Via Curious Rat.
About the iOS fragmentation, as a user I have to say that I’m very impressed of how well my first generation iPhone is holding up. There are very few apps that won’t run and most run very well.
Fragmentation is a given with any technology – as tech advances, new models are released with new features and that means older models start to lose out. It’s the same with computers and practically any other piece of hardware.
The Android market is fragmented at the moment but things are getting better – most people are on 2.2 now and that has sorted out many of the app incompatibility issues. OS Fragmentation on Android is much less of an issue that it was a year ago.
However, MacLaren seems to be addressing hardware fragmentation, and I have to admit, aside from the differences between resistive and capacitive screens (resistive ones can’t track more than one point of pressure, so you can’t fully use multi-touch apps with them) I’ve never experienced any situation where an Android device has had a hardware feature disabled. I’d love to see examples of what he’s talking about.
To the best of my knowledge, all Android devices have camera, and you have to go way back to the first generation of Android phones (2008) to find one that doesn’t have an accelerometer. His argument is no more valid that saying that the iPhone market is fragmented because first-gen iPhone owners are missing out on recent apps. Like I said, I’d love to see evidence of what he’s saying. His use of the word ‘might’ seems to suggest he’s plucking this information out of thin air.
But what you say about iOS fragmentation is very true Craig; it’s happening, but on a much less dramatic scale. However, let’s not forget that many games now require at least a 3rd gen iTouch or 3GS, while it’s possible to run many 3D Android games on a crusty old HTC Hero (albeit in a rather jerky fashion). There are a lot of iPhone 3Gs out there and that means many iOS users aren’t getting the full experience.
Quite a lot of iOS devs in gaming could optimise more. There seems to be a lot of “this needs a third-gen” and then—lo and behold—older iOS devices get to join the party some way down the line.
From devs I’ve spoken to for various articles, it’s clear that iOS fragmentation is understated, but Android fragmentation in terms of software and even hardware is a major pain (hardware mostly due to screen size issues). But I guess that’s one of the downsides to having hundreds of devices in the hands of dozens of hardware manufacturers, compared to the more console-like experience that Apple’s gone for.