This is pretty remarkable but it is to be expected. The world is large and diverse, and if there is going to be an OS that satisfies the mobile computing needs of the entire world, it is going to have to run on many different devices.
Apple, the poster boy for non-fragmentation, is consistently losing market share. They are now starting to realize that their only chance of continued growth depends on releasing more devices with different screen sizes and different price points. (Gasp -- more fragmentation).
It is up to Google to try to make programming across different devices as easy as possible. I am not sure how successful they are in this, I am not an android programmer. But fragmentation is not a choice or the result of a strategic error by Google. It is a fact of life when you are programming for hundreds of millions of users.
Think of it this way, if Google had chosen to go the Apple way and only used Android on their own Nexus devices, would there be more or less fragmentation? There would certainly be less fragmentation in Android, but there would be much more in mobile devices in general. Because Samsung, HTC, Sony and every other Android manufacturer would come up with their own wacky OS.
Apple isn't really consistently losing too much market share. They've actually been gaining share in the US and other developed countries. They are losing share to the really low end Android phones that developers are complaining about and are essentially worthless as far as a mobile app dev is concerned.
> But fragmentation is not a choice or the result of a strategic error by Google.
I think it is. The choices aren't 1 screen size or any screen size. There is a third perfectly reasonable alternative that windows phone took, and that is a handful of sizes that are likely to satisfy 99% of people.
Could you substantiate any of the claims? I'm surprised to hear that Google is shying away from Android or that they don't want Android to be used on as many devices as possible.
They are not shying away. I listen to Google earnings reports, and they are as gung ho about Android as ever. I did not reply to the grand parent, because I did not want to go off on a tangent.
Apple, the poster boy for non-fragmentation, is consistently losing market share. They are now starting to realize that their only chance of continued growth depends on releasing more devices with different screen sizes and different price points. (Gasp -- more fragmentation).
It is up to Google to try to make programming across different devices as easy as possible. I am not sure how successful they are in this, I am not an android programmer. But fragmentation is not a choice or the result of a strategic error by Google. It is a fact of life when you are programming for hundreds of millions of users.
Think of it this way, if Google had chosen to go the Apple way and only used Android on their own Nexus devices, would there be more or less fragmentation? There would certainly be less fragmentation in Android, but there would be much more in mobile devices in general. Because Samsung, HTC, Sony and every other Android manufacturer would come up with their own wacky OS.