On Wednesday, May 25, 2011 4:17:17 PM UTC-4, DanH wrote: I think you're getting the gist of it. It's always hard to tell how > much impact these "limiting decisions" will have in the future (and > there will always be differences of opinion about them), but certainly > they're there.
Personally, I think the time when they were seriously limiting was the past two years or so, but the ecosystem is now outgrowing that. Usually the platform will coast along under the momentum of existing > apps and users for awhile, but sooner or later the costs make it more > feasible (for both vendor and customer) to dump the old and switch > rather than to keep going. Some vendors (not to be named) "finesse" > this issue by forcing users to change platforms at regular intervals, > others, thanks to good initial design (or sometimes just clever > emulation), are able to advance their platforms while still > maintaining compatibility with apps that are 30 years old. But I > don't see the basis for either in Android. > I'm not very worried about that. Most current devices are marketed under an assumption of a short lifespan, and many can have alternative firmware loaded to find secondary uses after they are "obsolete". In terms of applications, I see very little reason why it would not be possible to continue to present the current API to existing applications, even if some future android-derived system (either from Google or anyone else) introduces a radically different way for 3rd party software to interface to the system. At an extreme, I was running the original unmodified binary of a nearly 30-year old game on my device the other day... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
