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Here's How Bad Android's Fragmentation Problem Is [GRAPHIC] When Google first launched Android, the open-source operating system came with the promise that it could power almost any device. That's created a proverbial cornucopia of mobile devices that consumers have to choose from, but it's also led to the issue of fragmentation — there are so many devices running different versions of Android with different capabilities that can alter experience. Just how bad is the problem? The site Open Signal Maps studied fragmentation in detail, gathering data from 195 countries, and it put its findings in easy-to-discern graphics. The main takeaways: Yes, fragmentation is huge, with 3,997 devices, but it's also a blessing that has led to the platform becoming the No. 1 mobile OS in the world by far. From the graphic above, it's clear Samsung is the king of the mountain among Android devices. The graphic below shows that the Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone is the most popular device, making it the world's most popular Android phone.

Maps - Android Fragmentation Visualized The many faces of a little green robot August, 2012 Fragmentation matters to the entire Android community: users, developers, OEMs, brands & networks. It's a blessing and a curse. The Blessing. The Curse. The Study. Some of the Android devices we use to test OpenSignalMaps Model We've spotted 3997 distinct devices. One complication is that custom ROMs can overwrite the android.build.MODEL variable that we use for the device model. Brand Android brands are almost as fragmented as device models, indicating just how much easier it has become to source electronics. Some highlights: 2 tablets have been spotted sporting the ill-fated FusionGarage brand, 7 with Polaroid's smart-camera. The clear winner is Samsung again with 270,144 devices - or 40% of the market as seen by us. API Level API level - or Android version (e.g. Resolution Each point represents a particular resolution e.g 480*800, note the constancy of the line that represents the most common aspect ratio 5:3. Scale 2:7 <3 Fragmentation?

The shocking toll of hardware and software fragmentation on Android development Android fragmentation is a huge problem. The fact that there are hundreds of different hardware devices running over half a dozen different versions of Google’s OS makes it annoying for users, but makes it an especially devastating issue for developers trying to make a business out of the Android ecosystem. This was highlighted by the recent release of Temple Run on the Android platform. A previously (very) successful game on iOS, it was brought over to Android in order to take advantage of the huge number of devices that run the OS. 99.9% of support emails are complaining their device isn’t supported. Natalia Luckyanova of Imangi tweeted out that most of their 1200 emails over the past 12 hours of release had been devoted to the fact that the app just didn’t work on one of the hundreds of devices owned by those users. But then Developer David Smith replied to her, saying that he had some 1443 unique devices on the logs for his Android app Audiobooks (also Free).

Android Development: In practice, how bad is Android fragmentation for developers that are targeting multiple devices porting - Effort due to Android fragmentation