Android Device Fragmentation is worse than ever—August 2015
Source: OpenSignal
Posted on 08/05/2015 9:16:50 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Android devices come in all shapes and sizes and may run any one of more than a half-dozen active versions of Google’s operating system.
This diversity is both a blessing and a curse, as OpenSignal reported Wednesday in its latest survey.
On one hand, fragmentation gives app developers a wide audience to build for—far wider than Apple’s iOS. On the other, trying to develop an app that will run on the entire range of Android devices can be a nightmare.
One striking finding in this year’s report is the increased fragmentation of manufacturers, with over 1,000 manufacturers seen this year that were not seen three years ago in OpenSignal’s first survey.
How fragmented has Android become? From OpenSignal’s report:
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By contrast, if you want a device that runs iOS, you have to buy from Apple.
Below: Android fragmentation by manufacturer:
LINK: Android Fragmentation Visualized (with cool interactive graphics)
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I recently bought some Android smartphones.
Got a 10 dollar one that has Gingerbread on it and several 20 dollar phones with Kit Kat.
They came with chargers and a 4GB sd card ... not bad little toys for the giveaway price.
I’m working up a few Ham Radio type apps for them now.
All the software tools for creating apps are free.
There is a lot of fragmentation but it’s worth the hassle given the low price of entry.
I put the Hangouts Dialer app on them and they all can make and receive free phone calls using a wifi connection.... very cool! Free long distance to the US and Canada.
Can you post or freepmail me where you bought these cool toys?
M4L android
For $10 it’s a good throw away, or toy as you put it.
I have been using the 10$ one as a sweet little GPS device.
The 10$ one is the Huawei Ascend Y H866C
So the Hangouts Dialer app assigns a phone number to your device, which makes it possible to receive calls?
Hangouts dialer lets you assign your Android device to answer calls that are made to your Google Voice telephone number.
Works on Kit Kat and above.
If you do not use your Google Voice number you can still make calls on the Android device but you can’t receive them. And any calls you make display [unknown] as the caller ID.
Getting a Google Voice number is free but local numbers have run out in several large cities... my Voice number is an El Paso number. I used to live there and old friends can make a local call to me and it rings on my Android tablet and smart phone.
You can move your current cellphone number to be your Google Voice number but there is a 20 dollar fee for the paperwork involved. Sometimes that’s the only way to get a local number for Voice though... move your cell number to voice and then get a new cell number.
The really cheap Huawei Ascend Y H866C runs Android 2.3
It’s too old a version to run hangouts Dialer... but there are many other cheap Android phones that can run the app.
This is definitely one of the advantages Apple has over android. The android manufacturers to an absolutely horrible job of post-sale support. I still prefer the way my android device works as opposed to an ipad like my wife has, but I’m really disappointed in the fact that even a major company like samsung seems to make no effort to keep the device updated.
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