This is what Android fragmentation looks like

Written by

Kim-Mai Cutler:

Animoca, a Hong Kong mobile app developer that has seen more than 70 million downloads, says it does quality assurance testing with about 400 Android devices. Again, that’s testing with four hundred different phones and tablets for every app they ship!

What a bunch of shit to make your developers go through.



  • http://www.sk1wbw.wordpress.com/ Wayne Williams

    Yeah, but Android is open, not hiding behind a walled garden.

  • http://www.johncblandii.com John C. Bland II

    They really don’t have to do that, per se.

    I find it akin to Windows app dev. There are N manufacturers out there with X number of system configurations. Windows app devs don’t buy every single type of Windows system.

    In my testing I have several Android devices but namely around screen sizes/qualities.

    • http://www.aichon.com Brad

      Key difference: HP, Dell, Toshiba, and whoever else don’t get to tweak Windows in the same sorts of ways that HTC, Samsung, or the carriers are able to (and do) tweak Android.

      Not only that, but when you do allow third parties to play around with Windows’ lower levels, such as in the case of drivers, you start running into issues (admittedly, less of them in recent years). Video game developers still have to keep a wide assortment of hardware configurations on hand in order to ensure that everything works as expected.

      Even Apple implicitly acknowledges these sorts of issues, since they have a Developer Compatibility Lab for which you can schedule time to sit down with hundreds of legacy devices and test how your code works on them.

      https://developer.apple.com/labs/

      Granted, I think that having 400 devices on hand is massive overkill, but with iOS you can pick up a half-dozen devices and provide some capability to test your project on every processor, screen resolution, and OS version from the last two years. With Android, you’ll need considerably more devices to cover that same territory.

      • http://www.johncblandii.com John C. Bland II

        My point still stands. Even the tweaked Android means you only need one of those to test against: one with Sense, Motoblur, TouchWiz, etc.

        I’m not saying it isn’t an issue/concern but 400 devices, as you say, is massive overkill.

  • Player_16

    Just covering the bases…

    …covering the bases.