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CanadianRip
join:2009-07-15
Oakville, ON

CanadianRip to Guspaz

Member

to Guspaz

Re: RIM Earnings Out, Stock Surges

said by Guspaz:

The iPad Mini is selling like gangbusters, stealing back a lot of lost marketshare for Apple. I think their general lack of software innovation is going to hurt them in the mid-term if not addressed soon, but I don't think the iPad Mini has anything to do with that.

The problem here is innovating as one, versus an entire giant group of people. Everyone yaks about "Fragmentation" like it's a bad thing.
Flip the word to diversity; which means the same thing. Now you realize it's actually an advantage. If you allow innovators to do what they want with minimal disruption and intervention - that's a good thing.

This is why the PC dominated for decades - it was the easiest platform to get done what you wanted! Want to build an Air Traffic Control system, no problem you're free to do with the hardware/software as you please.

Can't say the same about any platform other then Android at the moment.
komal
join:2003-02-16

komal

Member

said by CanadianRip:

said by Guspaz:

The iPad Mini is selling like gangbusters, stealing back a lot of lost marketshare for Apple. I think their general lack of software innovation is going to hurt them in the mid-term if not addressed soon, but I don't think the iPad Mini has anything to do with that.

The problem here is innovating as one, versus an entire giant group of people. Everyone yaks about "Fragmentation" like it's a bad thing.
Flip the word to diversity; which means the same thing. Now you realize it's actually an advantage. If you allow innovators to do what they want with minimal disruption and intervention - that's a good thing.

This is why the PC dominated for decades - it was the easiest platform to get done what you wanted! Want to build an Air Traffic Control system, no problem you're free to do with the hardware/software as you please.

Can't say the same about any platform other then Android at the moment.

When discussing Android, fragmentation refers to software and not hardware, because after all, Android is software, not hardware.

The PC was about having hardware for which anybody could write the software. It could run Linux, Unix, Windows etc.

Android devices run Android. End of story.

Fragmentation is a problem because of the jump in features available with Android 4.0. Developers wanting to incorporate those features ended up making apps incompatible with older versions of Android, the still popular and present Gingerbread (2.3).

It is similar to the problem Microsoft had with IE 6. People were too reluctant or slow to switch and that made developing web apps more difficult.

Similarly, people developing apps for ICS aren't able to sell those apps to Gingerbread users unless they go to lengths to make them compatible or have a different version.

That means Android developers can't make 1 app and sell to everybody. Gingerbread still has significant market share.

iPhone devs on the other hand can easily develop 1 application and sell to all iPhone users except for those whose handsets are outdated and no longer get updates, but by that point those users will be able to upgrade as their contracts expire.

That means developers have an incentive to develop for iPhone over Android.

This isn't such an issue now because most phones released over the past couple of years have been released with ICS or upgraded to ICS, but the next time there is a big update and new features, this fragmentation will become a huge issue all over again.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

said by komal:

Fragmentation is a problem because of the jump in features available with Android 4.0. Developers wanting to incorporate those features ended up making apps incompatible with older versions of Android, the still popular and present Gingerbread (2.3).

Even with same release version the same manufacturer of various devices does not offer a consistent experience.

Samsung, for example, has different menu options on the same exact release version between different phones and tablets, so you can't write a procedural enterprise document to guide users to complete the same tasks they can easily complete with their iPhone's or Blackberrys.

It's bad enough every manufacturer can do things differently but the same manufacturer's aren't consistent. An annoyance for documentation.

I'm also starting to hear regular user's using "Android" and "Samsung" interchangeably.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by urbanriot:

Samsung, for example, has different menu options on the same exact release version between different phones and tablets, so you can't write a procedural enterprise document to guide users to complete the same tasks they can easily complete with their iPhone's or Blackberrys.

That's because Samsung has their own version of TouchWiz as a home screen replacement app. In an enterprise environment you could install the default Android OS launcher and then find a way to lock it down if it really became that big of an issue. When there's a will, there's a way.
said by urbanriot:

I'm also starting to hear regular user's using "Android" and "Samsung" interchangeably.

Haha, like the way people annoyingly use Mac and Apple interchangeably, no doubt.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

said by Gone:

Haha, like the way people annoyingly use Mac and Apple interchangeably, no doubt.

I'm guilty of that... although to be fair to myself, I realize I'm stupid and make a correction immediately thereafter.

Gone
Premium Member
join:2011-01-24
Fort Erie, ON

Gone

Premium Member

said by urbanriot:

I'm guilty of that... although to be fair to myself, I realize I'm stupid and make a correction immediately thereafter.

I can tolerate calling the computers Apple far more than I can calling the company Mac, which happens far more than people would ever think it does.

koira
Hey Siri Walk Me
Premium Member
join:2004-02-16

koira

Premium Member

said by Gone:

said by urbanriot:

I'm guilty of that... although to be fair to myself, I realize I'm stupid and make a correction immediately thereafter.

I can tolerate calling the computers Apple far more than I can calling the company Mac, which happens far more than people would ever think it does.

let me test for understanding. Is it okay to call my powermac g5 a mac? And it's not okay to call my ipod a mac?

CanadianRip
join:2009-07-15
Oakville, ON

1 edit

CanadianRip to komal

Member

to komal
said by komal:

When discussing Android, fragmentation refers to software and not hardware, because after all, Android is software, not hardware.

It refers to both. The exact same thing happened in the PC era with vendors putting skins over-top of DOS and Windows.

Android is a base OS with a set of utilities on top of it, no different then Windows was. In the mobile world those base utilities have morphed to fit the implementation metaphor - nothing more nothing less.

I recall these exact same discussions occurring among peers in the days of OS/2 Warp. At the time I was in the banking industry and everyone in it thought that Warp was going to be the ways thing went due to its superior architectural design. In fact it had everything going for it - well except for the fact that there wasn't critical mass.

In the end we ended up with Windows and its fragmentation. There was driver issues, and absurd skins including Microsoft's own "Bob" product which I think they've effectively written out of the history books.

What endured is that it was open enough to get done what you had to. Whatever your single purpose was, with all the different "fragments" of Windows hardware and software you could find a suitable fit for your particular use case.

That fragmentation led to competition, innovation, and some products ranging from fantastic to abysmal. This is a good thing, because seriously I was bored at IPhone 3. I don't know if I could take IPhone 8, there's only so much of rehashing the same thing for $ 700 one can stomach.