AndroidFragmentation
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Android 2.3 continues soaring upward, now installed on 55 percent of Google devices
Google's monthly Android distribution charts may be the most visual piece of evidence that the mobile OS is riddled with fragmentation, but at least Gingerbread has clearly become the dominant player -- and it continues to build momentum at a healthy pace (for now, at least). As always, Google reviewed which devices accessed the Android Market during a 14-day period of time in the month of December, and found that over 55 percent of those units were running a version of Android 2.3, a ten percent turbo boost from October and an increase of seventeen percent over three months. Froyo devices -- many of which are likely older phones or tablets sentenced to a upgrade-less future -- numbered over 30 percent, and Honeycomb still amounts to a meager 3.3 percent. Cupcake and ICS are tied for last place, but we expect ICS to climb rapidly as soon as it's, y'know, officially available on more devices.
Study: Verizon Wireless and HTC most eager to provide Android 2.2 updates
Look, if you buy a carrier-branded Android handset, you should know good and well that you may never see the first Android update. It ain't easy to hear, but as mama always said, the truth ain't always painless. That said, there's still some research you should do before picking a phone and carrier, and ComputerWorld has seemingly done just that for you. The methodology is all explained down in the source link, but the long and short of it is this: in the last half of 2010, Verizon upgraded 33 percent of its sub-2.2 phones to Froyo, while Sprint updated just 28.6 percent of its stable and T-Mobile blessed only 12.5 percent of its phones with the new digs. AT&T bashers should take note, as Ma Bell didn't update a single one of its nine Android phones during the June-December 2010 time period. Yeah, ouch. Over on the handset side, we've got HTC gifting half of its devices with Froyo, while Motorola comes in second with 15.4 percent and Samsung third with 11.1 percent. No matter how you slice it, it's a depressing study to look at, and it probably makes your decision to skip over a Nexus One seem all the more idiotic in retrospect. But hey, at least there's the Nexus S to console you... if you're willing to sign up with T-Mob, that is.
Rovio feels the burn of Android fragmentation, plans 'light' version of Angry Birds
So, it's real after all, huh? Android fragmentation is making its way into the news again, and this time it counts. Rovio, developer of a little-known title called "Angry Birds," has just penned a new blog post detailing the night terrors that have come with coding a single program to work on a cornucopia of platforms. In the weeks since Angry Birds was released to Android users everywhere, the company has been inundated with performance complaints, mostly from users with older / underpowered Android devices or phones using Android 1.6 or earlier. A laundry list of smartphones have now been added to the "unsupported" list (shown in full after the break), but thankfully for you, a "lightweight" version of the game is in the works. According to Rovio, that build won't reduce the number of levels (or amount of fun / frustration, for that matter), but will instead be optimized for dawdling processors and Android versions that have been helplessly malformed by carriers. Nice going, guys. [Thanks, Justin]
Advent Vega tablet won't come with Android Market, might get it as part of Gingerbread update (video)
Lack of Google's official app store has been a thorn in the side of would-be Android tablet makers for a good long while, and it looks like the Tegra 2-powered Advent Vega will be no exception when it hits the high street tomorrow. Electricpig took the £249 device for a spin, chatting up Advent product manager Adam Lockyer the whole time, and discovered that while the 10-inch tablet will come with the 5,000-app-strong Archos AppsLib store, it won't have Android Market at launch. "The plan is that when you get to January time, there's a new release of Android and you'll be able to get the marketplace on this product," Lockyer said, suggesting that maybe -- just maybe -- the availability of Android Market itself might be one of the fragmentation issues Google intends to fix in Gingerbread. Wouldn't that be nice? Video after the break. [Thanks, Chak I.]
Visualized: TweetDeck Beta usage chart beautifully showcases Android diversity
Some, like our own Paul Miller, call it "Android fragmentation." Some call it downright gorgeous. The hard-working developers behind TweetDeck call it "extreme fragmentation." The chart shown above demonstrates the breakdown of the 36,427 beta users of the outfit's famed Twitter application for Android, and the company confessed that they were "shocked [in a good way] to see the number of custom ROMs, crazy phones and general level of customization / hackalicious nature of Android." Hit the source link for the full spread, and be sure to holler if you're included somewhere in the mix. [Thanks, Heath]
Entelligence: Is Android fragmented or is this the new rate of innovation?
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide. A few weeks ago I sat down with the father of Android, Andy Rubin. Andy's a super smart person, having done stints at Apple, General Magic, WebTV and Danger before starting the Android project. We talked about a lot of things, and we particularly spent time discussing Android fragmentation. I've written in the past about my concern that the Android platform is fragmenting much like desktop Linux has over the years, and the potential for the platform to turn into a patchwork of devices and vendor specific modifications that bear little relationship with each other. I've spent a lot of time thinking about my conversation with Andy, and I've rewritten this column more than a few times as a result. Today, there are at least five different versions of Android on the market. Many of them are highly customized to allow for new features and device differentiation, but that same customization also makes it harder for vendors to update them to the latest versions. New releases and versions of Android are often outdated by newer versions in the span of just a few weeks. For example, the Nexus One when released was capable of running apps like Google Earth that devices such as the Droid could not, because it ran Android 2.0, not 2.1.Tablet vendors complain their Android offerings lack features such as Android Market because Google forbids them to install the marketplace app, forcing them to create proprietary alternatives. It would appear Android is indeed fragmenting -- but perhaps there are other forces at work. When I spoke with Andy, he pointed out there are several classical symptoms of platform fragmentation. First, older APIs no longer work and break in new releases. Second, multiple application marketplaces offer different applications that lack uniformity across platforms. Both of these are true when you look at desktop Linux. Neither are true of Android.
Entelligence: Will Android fragmentation destroy the platform?
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he'll explore where our industry is and where it's going -- on both micro and macro levels -- with the unique wit and insight only he can provide. My friend and colleague Harry McCracken recently bought a brand new Droid from Motorola. He says it's a "loaf of day old bread." He's right. The Droid and Android 2.0 were introduced with much fanfare in December, but have already been eclipsed by Android 2.1 running on Google's Nexus One, and there are some serious ramifications for being behind. For example, Google recently touted the latest mobile version of Google Earth, which is a cool app that you won't be able to use unless you're running 2.1. Sure, Google says "Google Earth will be available in Android Market on most devices that have Android 2.1 or later versions," but that's most, not every. And what does Google mean when it says "as devices like the Droid get updated..." to 2.1? When will they get updated? Is it any wonder that some Android users are starting to get pangs of buyers remorse? When Android was announced, I wrote that if "Google can deliver, the impact could be huge," but I caveated a major issue: Google would need to prevent the market from fragmenting and allow it to succeed where other mobile and desktop Linux implementations had failed. Linux fragmentation remains one of the many reasons the open-source OS has failed to capture a meaningful share of the PC desktop market, and Android is rapidly following a similar path by fragmenting into different versions with different core feature sets, different users experiences and run different applications.
