Conrad's (Personal) Closet

Good time to be an early adopter, eh? I wonder if you’ll have to mail it in to get it fixed.

It’s usable on your iPhone 2G, either in iOS or Android. Your Galaxy S? Not so much.

(Source: daringfireball.net)

The thing is, nobody ever defined “fragmentation”

“Fragmentation” is a bogeyman, a red herring, a story you tell to frighten junior developers. Yawn.

Here, let me try: 53% of Android devices in the wild do not expose the multitouch API. I want to develop a photo viewing and manipulation application. A comic book reader let’s say! I can now choose between:

1. Making a product a minority of the install base can use
2. Making two different versions, with two different modes of scaling, rotating, etc that will both appear on the Android market (to 2.0+ users)
3. Saying “fuck it” and waiting until the scene “settles down.”

Especially now as Android tablets weasel their way into the market (more 1.x devices; yay!), the fewer problems I have to worry about on the software side the better. We’re not talking about screen sizes or pixel density; we’re talking about dealing with your beta-quality API almost two years later.

That is fragmentation.