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I believe the fragmentation issue is going to take a lot longer to solve than the author leads on. Android is rooted in its open nature, and it's what caused th

I believe the fragmentation issue is going to take a lot longer to solve than the author leads on. Android is rooted in its open nature, and it's what caused the proliferation of the OS in the first place. It's going to take much longer for OEMs to stop shipping bloatware on the devices, or Google will effectively fork the OS simply because the OEMs can't keep up. Look how long it's taken Microsoft to get their OEMs to comply (but I do believe Google is a different beast in this regard).

viraptor 10y ago
Depends on the contract really... do we know what terms do the OEMs sign? If Google is free to change the terms on renewal, then they can simply state "must provide updates for X years, up to Y days after upstream, cannot change Z - or you can't call it Android". That would either cause an instant solution or instant full-OEM-forks.
pjmlp 10y ago
Fragmentation is an old beast. Android is no better than what we had with Symbian, J2ME or proprietary mobile OSes that came before current crop of mobile OSes. As long as OEM and networks have the last word on firmware, it will always exist´, in name of product differentiation.
- viraptor 10y ago
  It's way better than J2ME and lightyears ahead of proprietary OSes. If you think that's not the case, I don't think you remember those times very well. With J2ME it was basically close to impossible to create any app apart from the most basic ones without producer-specific APIs. Nokia, Siemens, Samsung, Motorola, etc. - they all had their own special extensions. Even if some game was released for more than one handset, each make had its own version. (Although it was possible to write a translation layer - I wrote a nokia-to-siemens translating classes which worked in most cases) Now you may have issues with versions of Android and which features you can support. You may also have issues with different resolutions. But it's nowhere as bad as in 2002.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    I did develop for J2ME. > With J2ME it was basically close to impossible to create any app apart from the most basic ones without producer-specific APIs. Nokia, Siemens, Samsung, Motorola, etc. - they all had their own special extensions. Even if some game was released for more than one handset, each make had its own version. How is this different from the firmware issues that plague Android? Have you ever tried to make the support library work properly across Samsung devices, or even worse cheap chinese brands? Or track down native crashes or memory leaks across Android firmware? Whoever believes that Android is better than J2ME, never had to make their apps work on cheap or network specific Android devices.
    - Oletros 10y ago
      > How is this different from the firmware issues that plague Android? What "firmware issues plague Android? > Whoever believes that Android is better than J2ME, never had to make their apps work on cheap or network specific Android devices. This must be a joke
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        > What "firmware issues plague Android? Apparently you lack reading comprehension as I listed two of them. > This must be a joke So here are a some more jokes specially just for you: https://github.com/google/iosched/issues/79 https://github.com/google/iosched/issues/79 http://www.androidheadlines.com/2014/11/samsung-devices-might-face-problems-rendering-apps-material-design.html http://www.androidheadlines.com/2014/11/samsung-devices-migh... http://verybadalloc.com/android/2015/12/19/special-place-for-samsung-in-android-hell/ http://verybadalloc.com/android/2015/12/19/special-place-for... https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?can=1&q=firmware&colspec=ID+Status+Priority+Owner+Summary+Stars+Reporter+Opened&cells=tiles https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?can=1&q=firmwa...
        Gracana 10y ago
        I'm experiencing a great low-level bug right now. Last week Google released an update that breaks SSL in chrome, google now, and the search bar. Apparently this phone has a buggy neon unit and their latest update broke the check that would detect the problem and disable the offending instructions. Even for a company with experience and talent like Google, and even having seen this bug before, they still released this code that breaks most things on my phone, and there has not been a fix for six days now. I can't imagine being a small developer trying to handle quirks like this in the vast array of phones on the market.

viraptor 10y ago

Depends on the contract really... do we know what terms do the OEMs sign? If Google is free to change the terms on renewal, then they can simply state "must provide updates for X years, up to Y days after upstream, cannot change Z - or you can't call it Android". That would either cause an instant solution or instant full-OEM-forks.

pjmlp 10y ago

Fragmentation is an old beast. Android is no better than what we had with Symbian, J2ME or proprietary mobile OSes that came before current crop of mobile OSes. As long as OEM and networks have the last word on firmware, it will always exist´, in name of product differentiation.

viraptor 10y ago
It's way better than J2ME and lightyears ahead of proprietary OSes. If you think that's not the case, I don't think you remember those times very well. With J2ME it was basically close to impossible to create any app apart from the most basic ones without producer-specific APIs. Nokia, Siemens, Samsung, Motorola, etc. - they all had their own special extensions. Even if some game was released for more than one handset, each make had its own version. (Although it was possible to write a translation layer - I wrote a nokia-to-siemens translating classes which worked in most cases) Now you may have issues with versions of Android and which features you can support. You may also have issues with different resolutions. But it's nowhere as bad as in 2002.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  I did develop for J2ME. > With J2ME it was basically close to impossible to create any app apart from the most basic ones without producer-specific APIs. Nokia, Siemens, Samsung, Motorola, etc. - they all had their own special extensions. Even if some game was released for more than one handset, each make had its own version. How is this different from the firmware issues that plague Android? Have you ever tried to make the support library work properly across Samsung devices, or even worse cheap chinese brands? Or track down native crashes or memory leaks across Android firmware? Whoever believes that Android is better than J2ME, never had to make their apps work on cheap or network specific Android devices.
  - Oletros 10y ago
    > How is this different from the firmware issues that plague Android? What "firmware issues plague Android? > Whoever believes that Android is better than J2ME, never had to make their apps work on cheap or network specific Android devices. This must be a joke
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      > What "firmware issues plague Android? Apparently you lack reading comprehension as I listed two of them. > This must be a joke So here are a some more jokes specially just for you: https://github.com/google/iosched/issues/79 https://github.com/google/iosched/issues/79 http://www.androidheadlines.com/2014/11/samsung-devices-might-face-problems-rendering-apps-material-design.html http://www.androidheadlines.com/2014/11/samsung-devices-migh... http://verybadalloc.com/android/2015/12/19/special-place-for-samsung-in-android-hell/ http://verybadalloc.com/android/2015/12/19/special-place-for... https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?can=1&q=firmware&colspec=ID+Status+Priority+Owner+Summary+Stars+Reporter+Opened&cells=tiles https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list?can=1&q=firmwa...
      - Gracana 10y ago
        I'm experiencing a great low-level bug right now. Last week Google released an update that breaks SSL in chrome, google now, and the search bar. Apparently this phone has a buggy neon unit and their latest update broke the check that would detect the problem and disable the offending instructions. Even for a company with experience and talent like Google, and even having seen this bug before, they still released this code that breaks most things on my phone, and there has not been a fix for six days now. I can't imagine being a small developer trying to handle quirks like this in the vast array of phones on the market.