On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:57 AM, Kevin Duffey <[email protected]> wrote:
> Good reply Dianne. I get pissed when I read blogs about how fragmented > Android is as well. I don't get how it's fragmented. The only fragmentation > that seems slightly just is the issue where individual phone vendors are > providing their own special UI and extra features. I think the biggest issue > that we may face is if our app doesn't work on those devices due to them > rebuilding android for their device that may affect our apps running on them > as they should. I personally don't know if this is happening. So far most > posts I've seen indicate the issue of phones that are 1.5 to 2.1 with 1.5 > apps not working on 2.0 or vice versa. Yeah manufacturer customization is definitely the kind of fragmentation that is more unusual to Android, and something we care a lot about. There have certainly been some issues there, but I think a lot of this is just everyone learning how to do things (manufacturers, developers, and the platform) to avoid the problems. Certainly, it is not yet anywhere near like what MIDP got like, which is the scary monster that people are conjuring up (whether they realize it or not) when they say "fragmentation." > Dianne, can you clarify the issue of updates... if I have a 1.5 app and > update my app, changing the minsdk to 2.1, will a user on a 1.5 phone be > able to update to the 2.1 version? One post here indicated that once a user > has installed the app, which was fine for the 1.5 app on a 1.5 phone... that > they can then get the updates even if the minsdk of the updated app is > higher than the phone it's to be run on? That doesn't make any sense that if > it's not installed, it wont even show up (which is good), but if you > installed it then update it to work on newer versions, that the older api > phones can still update to it, most likely causing it to not work any more. > It seems to me we're forced to build a new app for the later api IF it might > not work on the older api devices due to some api calls, such as the > contacts api. > I don't work on the Market team, so I'm not sure of the current situation, but if you say minSdkVerion=5 then your app should never be delivered to a device running something < 5. If there are cases when it can be, then that needs to be fixed. -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer [email protected] Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them.
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