Android Fragmentation Visualized

http://opensignalmaps.com/reports/fragmentation.php?

by sinak • 14 years ago

168 84 14 years ago

So what can Google do to reduce the problem? Release only one major version of Android every year? Every 3 years like Windows? Release a private "beta" version for most manufacturers (not just one like now) so that they all have devices with the new OS on the official launch day?

Develop better abstraction layers for hardware? Force manufacturers to use only a few resolutions like 480x320, 800x480 and 1280x720 (retina) for phones, and only 1280x800 and 2560x1600 (retina) for tablets?

What can Google do so that Android still supports many different devices from different manufacturers, but the fragmentation issue is dramatically minimized?

taligent5• 14 years ago

They really need to structure the OS so that the core components can be updated independent of the vendor ones. Then just ship updates regardless of what vendors do.

People act like Google is somehow unique here. Microsoft and Linux support a vastly more complex array of hardware configurations and still manages to support a diverse ecosystem above the core OS.

Steko5• 14 years ago

Not sure why downvoted this is certainly the biggest thing Google can do to help alleviate fragmentation.

Of course it does run into two opposing aims:

(1) "cracking down" on the carriers at a time when Microsoft is literally throwing cash at them in an attempt to buy market share may by counterproductive.

(2) shipping os updates independently of carrier ui layers can break major ux or, even worse, crash the whole device.

What else could Google do? Well they could keep their major vendors in the loop instead of just dumping the new code on them after each nexus launch. I mean ICS launched in October but because of the development time frames involved many new handsets launched in the last couple months still shipped with Gingerbread.

How about this: if you're an Android branded product and decide to make a substantial UI layer modification you need to give google the source code and a team at Google will work to keep your differentiation layer working with updates.

king_jester• 14 years ago

> They really need to structure the OS so that the core components can be updated independent of the vendor ones. Then just ship updates regardless of what vendors do.

Except that won't work because what vendors do is modify core system components. Network stacks, audio/video codecs, system themes, etc. are all things changed by carriers and manufacturers for a variety of reasons.

There are two core reasons why Android OS updates are slow to roll out:

1) there is no profit motive to upgrade phones that have already passed their prime retail lifespan

2) modifications made my carriers/manufacturers are not simple and often have dramatic consequences for how the phone and apps on the phone behave

For companies like Microsoft, there is a profit motive to updating released software and selling larger OS upgrades at a price. For Linux users, the onus to upgrade comes from the users themselves, much like how there are those that choose to install custom ROMs on Android to get those advanced features.

Regardless, the fact that you can create an Android app that runs on so many hardware configurations is extraordinary. The downside to the popularity is that its likely your app won't run on every hardware configuration, so the question is how will Google mitigate that problem?

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

What a terribly obvious misnomer.

1. OEMs deserve 90% of the blame for being slow. CM is proof that OEMs are absurdly slow at updates, almost surely because they put absolutely no priority on supporting old devices. People blame Google because OEMs are greedy and lazy and are more interested in making the next buck than support an already cashed-out device.

2. Building a ROM for a phone is wildly different than adding hardware support to the Linux kernel or bundling drivers. Number one, because that is flat out impossible to do on mobile devices due to reasons that I only understand as "component manufacturers have tight control of software radio components", to the point that it makes it nie impossible for Google to distribute everything to make complete images even for their own Nexus phones.

3. OEMs over customize because they have access to the source code. They can do >= 90% of their customization using stock Android and just change what ships by default, but because they have the source, they tear into it and modify every last piece. If you don't think this would happen if OEMs had source for Windows, you're crazy.

huggyface4• 14 years ago

So what can Google do to reduce the problem?

What problem? The linked article could as easily have been called "The Diversity of Android". That title would have been more honest, if less likely to get linked.

r00fus• 14 years ago

Diversity is all well and nice, but how do developers possibly test against all those configurations? If you don't test - how do you ensure that as low as possible a percentage won't return your app, and ding your ratings simply because their phone has issues with your software?

Google needs to do more work to make software development and testing easier - as an end customer I don't want the pain of having to guess if the software I buy is or is not going to work.

cek• 14 years ago

There is nothing Google can do about it. The cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Everything they try will simply make the problem worse.

- Release new versions faster? Nope. More fragmentation.

- Pressure MOs/OEMs to only ship latest versions? Nope. Just pisses them off and makes them more inclined to fork.

- Reduce flexiblilty (better abstraction layers for hardware) ala WP7? Nope. MOs/OEMs care most about flexibility which got them on Android to begin with. They'll just fork.

- Do something really innovative. Maybe, but it would have to be mind-blowingly-differentiated. Can't find any proof points of Google doing that in the past, so have to assume it won't happen in the future.

Android is alive and well. It is an extremely healthy ecosystem. But it is no longer Google's ecosystem. And it will continue to fragment no matter what Google tries.

FWIW, I wrote about this in depth earlier this year in a post titled "Fragmentation is not the End of Android" here:

http://ceklog.kindel.com/2012/01/14/fragmentation-is-not-the...

drivebyacct22• 14 years ago

>Maybe, but it would have to be mind-blowingly-differentiated. Can't find any proof points of Google doing that in the past, so have to assume it won't happen in the future.

Right, because Android itself doesn't meet that exact specification? A completely free operating system that is enormously huge on hundreds (thousands yet?) of different devices that anyone can build and distribute without royalties? It literally changed how smart phones exist and has put them in the hands of people that would never otherwise own a smartphone.

If you want revolutionary, check out boot to gecko. Even cheaper phones, more transparency, all open standards.

inoop• 14 years ago

Do what Sun did for Java, create a really extensive test suite and make sure no device gets the Google stamp of approval unless it passes.

jcromartie3• 14 years ago

I did some research this morning, since I might be doing some Android work soon. As of May 1 2012, about 5% are on any version of the latest major release: Ice Cream Sandwich. About 3% are on the previous major version: Honeycomb. The rest, a whopping 92%, are still two or more major versions behind.

By developing against the latest major version, you are going to reach 5% of Android users. Compare that to iOS, where developing for the latest major version (5.0+) means reaching maybe 80% of users.

juliano_q• 14 years ago

Honeycomb was not the previous major version. It was a version released only for tablets. The previous major version for mobile/tablets was Gingerbread (2.3).

ajross4• 14 years ago

You're mixing things up, so I'd suggest going back to do more research. Honeycomb was tablet-only, it was never released for handsets. That's like complaining that only 7% (or whatever) of iOS users can run iPad apps, it's meaningless.

ICS uptake, however, has been ploddingly slow. It's finally breaking through now as the vendors clear out their holiday inventory and start pushing new models.

taligent5• 14 years ago

See what you wrote though ? "As vendors .. start pushing new models".

There seems to be this acceptance on the Android platform that in order to get the latest OS you basically have to buy a new phone. It's quite extraordinary.

jcromartie3• 14 years ago

Yeah, I'm not up to speed on Android. But, so, that only accounts for 3% of the users. It still means only %5 are on ICS, and the rest are basically on 2.3.

So the process for developing a new iOS app today is:

    1. Download latest SDK
    2. Develop for iOS 5.1

For Android, it seems to necessarily be:

    1. Download latest SDK
    2. Develop for Android 2.3

nextparadigms4• 14 years ago

You could also say that you get 6-12 months to develop for the new version once it's launched, without the users crying foul for not getting it early.

billjings2• 14 years ago

Could you guys get a simple histogram of the model data up? The 2d visualization is clever, but it does not tell me what I need to know: does the distribution have a long tail or not? It sort of looks like it does, but the visualization obscures the truth and prevents comparison with similar datasets.

sinak• 14 years ago

yeah very true, we'll try and throw one up to show that a little more clearly

billjings2• 14 years ago

Thanks! The data is killer, btw.

glogla• 14 years ago

I too would be thankful for that. Sometimes, simple histogram is the best way to show something. And while you're at it, I think that cumulative version chart would be interesting for readers as well.

Even now, lot of carriers are pushing cheap phones with Android 2.2 or even 2.1 and while for better known devices this can be fixed with CyanogenMod, the state of Android versions is still bad.

estel• 14 years ago

Not the same thing, but Android Police put together a decent histogram of Platform Versions: http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/04/27/the-big-android-char...

luigi3• 14 years ago

It seems to me that the best way to think of Android is to compare it to the world of Linux distros. (I believe Dan Benjamin of 5by5 pointed this out on one of his podcasts.) Yes, there's Linux, but there's no one Linux. There's Android, but there's no one Android.

So while Android is technically an operating system, it's really an open platform on which to build mobile devices on top of. So the Android device I buy is that vendor's take on the hardware and the software. Google has its own take, as does Amazon, as does Samsung.

When viewed in that frame, it's not so frustrating or confusing, or even an actual problem. Fragmentation can be viewed as a natural consequence of the open Android ecosystem.

sciurus3• 14 years ago

The alternative isn't for all these devices of different sizes and capabilities not to exist. The alternative is for them all the be running even more disparate, vendor-specific operating systems. We should be thankful for the degree of unification Android's success has brought.

cube132• 14 years ago

One of the annoyances I've had with Android, from a new consumer's point of view, is that it's presented as this monolithic OS that's the same across every phone. But once you do the research, you find that it's really not. Except for the Nexus line, there really isn't a "Google Android" experience. When you buy an Android device, you're really buying HTC's, Samsung's, Amazon's or Motorola's Android. Every device has different capabilities. Some ship with different Google services out of the box, others ship with their own internal apps. Google's Android strategy is that every manufacturer can make their own Android shell, without placing any requirements on the vendors as to what version of Android they're using.

It's a great thing that there's all this choice for the devices. It's a great thing that Android allows this kind of freedom. But it's led to a lot of issues for Google and for developers.

The problem that Google has is that they've effectively lost control of Android. They can't force manufacturers to use the latest version of Android. So they're left with situations like this, where the vast majority of Android devices are running an old version of the OS, and will never be updated to the newest version, because the manufacturers just don't want to[1]. So the result is that they have to support around 4 different codelines at the same time(ICS, HC, Gingerbread, and Froyo).

It's a problem for developers because your display code might not look right on a new device with a weird screen resolution. Or you might need API calls that are only in 4.0, which would lock you out of 90% of the devices right now.

No, the alternative is for Google to exert control over the device manufacturers and state that if they're going to be using the Android OS, they need to support and update their devices to the latest version for at least 2 years after the phones are released.

[1] There is a good economic argument that patching phones that are 18 months old with 24 month contracts about to be up just doesn't make sense, but honestly, it comes down to that the manufacturers just aren't willing to do it.

gjulianm• 14 years ago

But there is a huge difference. First, that desktop OS are ready for differences in hardware. As a developer, you usually don't care about screen size, or processor, or memory.

With Android, you have to. Some devices will not be capable to run your app, in some others your app will not even fit the screen... And, of course, because of different drivers, hardware and OS versions your app will not absolutely work on some phones because of some weird error. It's nowhere near Linux development.

I don't know if fragmentation is good or bad for the users, but for developers it's an infinite source of headaches. From my experience (I develop a Twitter client for WP7), even with a system with much less fragmentation than Android, every phone has unique features which can make your app crash for no reason, and you can only wait to be randomly corrected or get that specific model and debugging the app.

einmus• 14 years ago

I don't think so. Even desktop OSes are not ready for such vast differences of today's hardwares.

Desktop-PC usually have approximately 100dpi screens, so the OS and the app generally don't consider dpi differences. So, if you've ever got a high dpi screen for Windows, you'll see the icons are frigging small.

Whereas, on mobile platform, we have screens ranging from 80dpi to above 300dpi. Android take dpi differences into account in the first place, to make sure, a same icon have almost same size on different dpi screens. It's a start.

I much doubted Microsoft or Apple would deal better with 'retina' desktop-pc coming in. Real trouble have just begun...

taligent5• 14 years ago

The difference is Linux has its act together. Android doesn't.

Right now I can SSH into a vastly different array of hardware and update a roughly equivalent set of packages to get for example the latest rendering engine or security fixes. This is not possible at all on Android which is a joke. And I will never understand how people such as yourself can defend it.

Fragmentation is a huge issue for Android and it is only going to get worse unless Google does something about it.

luigi3• 14 years ago

I'm not defending it, I'm explaining it.

Google has created an open ecosystem, and these are the natural consequences. Google can't "do something about it" because of the open terms of their licensing.

sshrin• 14 years ago

One difference between different linux distros and android is that, in the former case, end users recognize that software written for another distro may not work on their specific OS. In the latter case, however, end users (especially ones that aren't technical) think that they have the same OS (when in reality they all own phones with different levels of API support / compatibility) and are upset when a specific app does not work as expected on their device.

klodolph• 14 years ago

So because it's a "natural consequence" it's not an actual problem? Sorry.

Distribution on Linux can be a similar nightmare. Try downloading a source package to find that it requires version 2.3 of LibExample, and you have version 2.2, but the developers didn't know they needed 2.3 and the configure script doesn't detect the discrepancy, so you get some cryptic compilation error halfway through. Binary distribution on Linux is possible, the Xonotic folks did it, but it's a lot of work. Android development is more forgiving since the API as a whole is versioned, but portable programming is still more work.

Diversity of hardware and software isn't an inherent boon, it's just something that brings its own benefits and drawbacks.

romeodelight2• 14 years ago

>Diversity of hardware and software isn't an inherent boon, it's just something that brings its own benefits and drawbacks.

Absolutely. Also, fragmentation is more of an issue in Asia where there are literally hundreds of cheaper variations of the same phone with different Android versions, screen sizes, memory, etc.

Steko5• 14 years ago

"When viewed in that frame, it's not so frustrating or confusing, or even an actual problem"

Androids main competition allows developers to reach a similar sized user base which targeting a tiny fraction of devices. When it comes time to decide which platform to support or which to support first the answer becomes moot.

If that is "not ... even an actual problem" under the frame of reference you're talking about... all that tells us is that that frame of reference is probably bad. Which sounds about right given that neither is desktop linux a great consumer success story nor are linux distro's held hostage by a third party.

Imagine if you had to wait for Time Warner's permission to update linux, oh I think that would be bad...

gravitronic4• 14 years ago

Spoken like someone who isn't an Android developer.

Take your analogy to the next step. Someone opens an online store that sells binary-only copies of applications targeted to just "Linux".. you would call them crazy, no? That's what the Google Market is. Or the Amazon Market, samsung apps, nook store, ...

I wrote a blog post to help you understand the pragmatic issues faced by an Android developer trying to write decent software.

http://burnsmod.com/development/2012/05/01/Android-Fragmenta...

Your analogy does not make me sleep better at night.

luigi3• 14 years ago

Right, the problem is with the Google Market, Amazon Market, et. al. It's not with Android as a platform (or operating system).

The problem is that Google copied the "App Store" idea for software distribution that Apple created for their iPhone. Instead, they should have gone with the same idea that Linux distros use: The product vendor is responsible for distributing the software for the product. That would look completely different from what we have now, but it would be a more natural fit to what Android really is.

Also, you could have made your point just as well without the ad hominem.

robot• 14 years ago

Add to that the fact that every device has a different processor model, gpu, and most of the software on the device is locked.

mrb• 14 years ago

Your blog post blames a bug on Android fragmentation, but it sounds like it was your fault. You were not calling Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(), which is the portable way of accessing the storage area where users saves file via USB mount.

fpgeek4• 14 years ago

On fragmentation, your blog post is exactly backwards.

You're calling out hardware fragmentation, but that's exactly the fragmentation the consumer wants - they see it in the store and pick it (via form factor, price, etc.). Beyond that, Android couldn't rein in hardware fragmentation without being something utterly unrecognizable. On Android dealing with hardware fragmentation is your job, just as it is in the desktop/laptop/netbook/... world.

Software fragmentation is the fragmentation consumers can't see and, generally speaking, don't want. And that's the fragmentation that is often preventable, as CyanogenMod's porting success demonstrates.

moron• 14 years ago

Correct, Android is more of a meta-platform, a platform for building platforms, than a single platform itself.

nextparadigms4• 14 years ago

It's close to that, but not quite. Android is a bit more centralized, so apps are pretty much guaranteed to work on all versions of Android, while on Linux you need different packages for different distros and so on.

But I do think Google could do a lot more to centralize and standardize the platform and the app ecosystem.

rorrr• 14 years ago

I think a better analogy is a web browser. There are many versions, many resolutions, but they all roughly support the same API, while modern browsers have more features.

rapind• 14 years ago

It actually reminds me of the Personal Computer when I was growing up. There was Apple (a bit of a mushroom very few people had) and IBM (your dad's business computer), plus a whole bunch of IBM clones (even Samsung made one). All of the clones ran the same OS (or version thereof).

Obviously there are some huge differences, but it still feels very familiar to me. I don't think it'll play out the same though, given the quality and popularity of the Apple product this time around.

As much as I do appreciate Apple products, I'm glad they lost the PC revolution. I can't believe we'd have been better off building software for that closed system.

btipling• 14 years ago

I love my Android phone and I love developing for it but I sort of think that sometimes we have a little bit of Stockholm syndrome when I hear another Android developer say "fragmentation is great!." It really isn't, especially not with the differences between 2.3 and 3+, but I like being able to put my own apps on my phone without paying $99 a year, so I like my phone quite a bit.

ajross4• 14 years ago

I'd tend to agree. But at the same time I do get sick of all the articles like this one harping on "fragmentation" instead of actual porting issues. That's the clue that tells me the linked article was written by Apple fans with an axe to grind.

If people viewed this as an important problem worth solving, we'd see articles about how to do aspect-independent UIs, or apps that cleanly upgrade to gestures in Gingerbread+. Or cute workarounds for rendering bugs on the SGX vs. Mali vs. Tegra.

But we don't see any of that, because quite frankly most people don't care. Outside of stuff that directly faces hardware APIs, Android apps port quite well in the real world.

Contrast, for example, the web development world. There, platform compatibility issues have been a huge problem for years, spawned a bunch of frameworks to abstract the differences, and inspired sites like caniuse.com. The clear lack of these in the Android world is, I argue, an existence proof that "fragmentation" is a red herring.

romeodelight2• 14 years ago

I think for Asian developers, specially in China, fragmentation is a HUGE problem. There are literally hundreds of variations of cheap Android phones out there with different screen sizes, OS versions, etc. We replace our phones regularly here in the US and have access to the latest phones from Samsung, etc. but that is not the case in most parts of Asia.

fpgeek4• 14 years ago

I don't think it is that simple. In Asia, which is ground zero for non-Google Android devices, fragmentation is certainly a problem, but the absence of fragmentation would have been far worse. Without fragmenting an open-source Android, manufacturers just wouldn't have been able to make and sell the cheap smartphones Asian developers are targeting.

jjguy• 14 years ago

Also: Michael DeGusta's chart from Oct 2011

http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphan...

Steko5• 14 years ago

Good news everyone:

"Google to sell flagship Nexus devices with multiple partners this fall, reports WSJ"

http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/15/3022682/google-direct-sale...

linking verge because, paywall.

Apparently google read my comment below, made a major business decision and leaked that to the WSJ all in the last hour.

Me ITT:

"Well they could keep their major vendors in the loop instead of just dumping the new code on them after each nexus launch..."

nextparadigms4• 14 years ago

I think this is a major move in the right direction:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/15/3022682/google-direct-sale...

It should bring a lot more stock devices into the market. Manufacturers will be able to upgrade their devices faster, and if Google is smart, they will stick with 1 major release per year rather than 2, and this way manufacturers will have to upgrade their devices only twice in 2 years, rather than 4 times. And we won't have this problem of being "2 versions behind".

tdpeterson• 14 years ago

I love information like this, and I think the OpenSignalMaps opinion is healthy. Basically, it's cool to have an install base this diverse and dynamic. Maybe this is because I come from a traditional desktop dev background where diverse HW and SW environments were just part of the game.

I recently co-created an automated web-service that tests apps on real devices, and of the thousands of tests we've run, the majority of the failures and errors are more general software development issues. Errors caused by assumptions about the presence of other apps or network connectivity or the inability to handle certain transitions like screen orientation are much more common than device-specific problems like CPU type. It does happen, for sure, but not nearly as often, and free services like ours seek to mitigate these errors altogether.

andyjohnson02• 14 years ago

There seems to be a tendency to use 'fragmentation' to imply something vaguely negative - a kind of problematic deviation from the norm. I Prefer to think of it as diversity.

dagw2• 14 years ago

I think it depends on your perspective on things. As a consumer I love the diversity of the Android landscape. As a developer I dislike the fragmentation of the Android landscape.

andyjohnson02• 14 years ago

As a consumer I agree with you. As a developer, any frustration I have with the frag... ah diversity of Android is more than offset by the greater potential that it offers me.

nodata• 14 years ago

yes, or "choice".

Having lots of different screen sizes is never "fragmentation". Having different versions of Android? Maybe.

Stokestack3• 14 years ago

"Fragmentation allows users to take their pick from thousands of devices."

This person doesn't understand WTF fragmentation is.

Stokestack3• 14 years ago

Disappointing post. I was expecting a graph of the dozens (or more) versions of "Android" running around on devices that are being sold today.

I'm tired of seeing "Android" cited as a single OS in all kinds of statistics, when in fact it's a pile of proprietarily hacked OSes with a common heritage.

Android Fragmentation Visualized

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