Aaron Souppouris, The Verge, on a recent survey that shows the increasing fragmentation of Android devices and OS versions:
This mix of old and new hardware in the device chart, as well as lax update policies from manufacturers, leads us to an inevitable point: Android fragmentation. It’s been the butt of many an Apple keynote joke, and is frequently cited as a major problem for Google, but is it getting better or worse? According to OS, its worse now than ever before. The company used Google’s data for the visualization above, which groups Android by the API set that each version uses. With the release of Android 4.3, we’re now up to level 18 of the Android API, but OS’s charts don’t reflect the recent change. The most prevalent version of Android remains Gingerbread, released in 2011, and stuck on API level 10.
As a comparison, Apple states that 93% of iOS users are using the latest version.
Another graph shows that Samsung has distributed over 100 devices to reach the top spot in the smartphone market. Apple, on the other hand, has claimed second on the list by releasing a total of six iPhone models since 2007.
Some contend that choice is better for consumers, and perhaps they are correct. However, as someone who develops mobile applications, the thought of supporting the vast number of screen sizes, device capabilities, and OS versions in Android is mind-numbing. I would argue that those constraints often lead to sub-par experiences for many end-users.