Android and Alleged Fragmentation
March 22, 2012
I was in a third world health care facility this morning. As luck would have it, no fragmentation injuries ahead of me and twisted knickers. I kicked back in the delightful on deck circle for the emergency room checking out posts on my lousy notebook computer.
What did I spy? A headline about “fragmentation.” Well, in my line of work anything with the stem frag* warrants a second look. The headline? “Fragmentation B_mb Wounds Android in Developer War” is an interesting headline. One “watch word”, b_mb and one word on the fence, w-r.
The focus of the article was not on a military topic. The article describes how a mobile phone operating system has a negative impact because of the many different versions of the operating symptom. The collateral in this type of fragmentation affects developers. I see some impact upon civilian users.
There is no Google Android fragmentation. There are just different types of cookies. There is the parent cookie Google Android, and then the different children cookies. What’s the problem?
Here’s the passage I noted:
A new study conducted by IDC and mobile-developer platform and services company Appcelerator has determined that as Google’s open source Android operating system becomes more and more fragmented, fewer and fewer developers are putting it on their “must-code-for” list. “We’ve seen a steady erosion of interest in Android” among developers, Appcelerator’s principal mobile strategist Mike King told The Reg in a prebriefing before the study was released on Tuesday morning.
Okay, the sample size looks fine, but I don’t know anything about the representativeness of the sample. The fact that a single developer group was the source of the sample adds more questions about the validity of the survey.
So, let’s assume that the big study findings are okay. The hot platform for mobile developers to support is the walled garden inside the Apple Country Club & Bank. The losers living in the digital trailer courts are coders who are into Symbian, HP’s TouchPad, the BlackBerry Stone Age gizmos, and Windows Phone. It is early days for Windows 8, so these laggards may come on strong in the mobile developer race.
Where is Google Android—the operating system described in the article with enough watch list words to get invited to a law enforcement fish fry? Well, Android is not one thing. The research which we must dust with salt points out there is Android Tablet and Android Phone. The Android phone is within shouting distance of the Apple orchard, just not in amongst the trees. The Android table is within a couple of SAT briefings of being able to answer the question, “What is the most popular mobile phone operating system?” Answer: Apple.
The fragmentation argument is that there are Android devices with different numbers attached to the devices’ operating systems plus some snacky type versions call Ice Cream Sandwich, Donut, Honeycomb, and Gingerbread.
The source article “Android Interest Slipping” contains some graphs that explain how far ahead Apple is and how little behind Android is.
I find the data interesting, but I think we need more inputs on this subject before writing off the Android operating system as the ideal environment for making money from third party apps.
The more interesting question to me is, “When Google contains the fragmentation, what will the clever Chinese mobile device manufacturers do?” My hunch is do whatever maximizes their revenue. If that means forking Android, so be it. Will this fork Google search? For sure.
Stephen E Arnold, March 22, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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Nice throughout! I hope authority will also give proper attention as your deep observation. Thanks for your sharing.
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