Zod wrote:
> So there is no limitation on the usage and customization of the
> framework, and eventually application developers should prepare to
> write code for "various flavors of Android".

At minimum, application developers should prepare to test their code for
"various flavors of Android" devices (e.g., does it have QWERTY? does it
have a touchscreen?). Whether or not they will need flavor-specific code
will depend greatly upon how they write their application.

> I work with Linux for more than 10 years now, so I see the similarity
> with distributions here. Also I don't want to start a flamewar here,
> but is this kind of diversity a good thing for such a fresh platform
> as Android ?

IMHO, yes.

> (If we look at the Linux distribution landscape today, we
> can see how hard it is for the developers to maintain a lot of
> packages for various distributions, or to start a new project and
> decide which toolkit and windowing system to use/support).

The degree of difference between flavors of Android device will likely
pale in comparison to, say, writing to Qt vs. GTK+. Even for bigger
things like touchscreen-based games dealing with non-touchscreen
devices, developers will be able to apply <uses-configuration> to say
"my app has gotta gotta gotta have a touchscreen".

With respect to other applications/APIs baked into some devices'
firmware, that is far closer to having pre-installed apps on a PC. If
you write a PC application that, say, assumes the existence of Adobe
Reader, you better have smarts to detect when that's not there and do
something intelligent when Reader is not there. Same thing holds for
Android.

-- 
Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy)
http://commonsware.com | http://twitter.com/commonsguy

_The Busy Coder's Guide to *Advanced* Android Development_
Version 0.9 Available!

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