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Apple Highlights Low Fragmentation Among iOS Devices in Direct Jab at Android
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It's just fine actually. I bought a phone a year ago for $39 with no contract, spend less than $10 a month on minutes and MBs, and use my 2.3.3 android phone every day.
My wife has a nexus with 4.2, and it's nice, but when you get right down to it, I don't need anything more than I have right now, and I'm much happier with a phone I'm not afraid to damage, and without the knowledge that I have hundreds of unused roll-over minutes expiring every month that I paid for, just because I don't talk on the phone that much.
Don't pity me. I feel sorry for people who have built up 3+ years of contract obligation because they can't stand to keep using last year's Shiny New Thing when this year's gets announced. It must suck to be a slave to corporate advertising.
I guess all those Android app developers publishing the 700K+ apps aren't developers either - clearly they couldn't publish their apps because of lack of APIs and those who did couldn't get the users to download them.
Thing is if you are a developer - insisting on latest and greatest APIs is likely the dumbest thing you can do unless yours is one of those handful of niche apps.
Wow, over a third using an OS that's over 2 years old
What's worse is to think of the number of security holes in frameworks like WebKit have been fixed in that time.
There's a lot of exploitable Android phones out there.
So Apple is still holding on to "Fragmentation" mantra and doling out the same phones with small screen sizes and outdated displays?
Well that is not going to work anymore.
Google is inching closer to providing a seamless cloud integration with documents,contacts(already there) and photos.
I recently switched to Samsung Galaxy S4 (Wanted the SONY Experia but was not available). It was bulky at first and am getting used to it. But then yesterday looked at my iPhone 4S and it looked wierd. I can truly use the SG4 to read web pages and news articles without eye strain. Which is what a smartphone is for.
I was using the iPhone just for email, text and voice calls as I found the screen to be too limiting.
That's my personal opinion and different folks might have different feelings about that.
iOS7? Scott Forstall is missed!!!
Well that is not going to work anymore.
Google is inching closer to providing a seamless cloud integration with documents,contacts(already there) and photos.
I recently switched to Samsung Galaxy S4 (Wanted the SONY Experia but was not available). It was bulky at first and am getting used to it. But then yesterday looked at my iPhone 4S and it looked wierd. I can truly use the SG4 to read web pages and news articles without eye strain. Which is what a smartphone is for.
I was using the iPhone just for email, text and voice calls as I found the screen to be too limiting.
That's my personal opinion and different folks might have different feelings about that.
iOS7? Scott Forstall is missed!!!
I disagree. People will crave the new look, especially after they see everyone else using it. I give it 8 months and we will see the same % on iOS 7 as currently on 6.
This isn't a "direct" jab at Android. It is Apple trying to push 3rd party devs to incorporate iOS6+ features in their apps, by showing how small the audience for <iOS6 is.
Apple has taken direct jabs at Android's fragmentation, especially in keynotes. This is not one of those.
Apple has taken direct jabs at Android's fragmentation, especially in keynotes. This is not one of those.
His phone IS a Nexus, and as I posted here, the Android devices I worry the most about are the ones least in Google's control (though I can see Amazon stepping in to solve this within their own ecosystem too). Nexus is 100% the way I would go if recommending an Android phone. (Despite some recent Nexus horror stories.)
But it is too soon to say that those few devices (what market share do they have?) receiving "full support" now will get iOS style long-life updates in future. Maybe... but Google surely isn't afraid to forget the old and move on; nor are they afraid to let carriers and phone makers have their way, which often means abandoned hardware. And they haven't integrated Motorola the way everyone would have hoped. So I think it's fair to say there's hope that SOME Android models will avoid SOME of this problem... but it's also fair to call moving to Android in order to get better software updates a "gamble," even with a Nexus.
It really is awesome that it works for you. But a lot of people aren't just worried about "that shiny new thing". A lot of them are worried about actually getting new software (which we have coined as just 'apps') as well as further software support.
The thing that most seem to miss is that you can have this on Android too. The group that buys the old tech handset for under $50 is different than the group that buys the $600 newer handsets. Realistically developers shouldn't even be targeting your group of people, because you are happy with what you have and not worried and likely don't even care about installing additional software. You use your phones as feature phones, and that is perfectly fine.
It applies to all Web Developers - not just Android. Web developers are used to working around different browsers and that is true on desktop and true on mobile. May be you should either consider making a native app or your users can install Opera/Firefox/Dolphin/Whatever and make that their default browser - I don't see how that is so problematic.
How many of us smug bastards are going to be linking this story to our android friends?
Have a Galaxy S3 and my wife has the latest iPhone. I have phone envy. Can't stand my phone.
I'll concede here, maybe a better option for providing metrics would be to break it down by devices that are capable of running a cutting edge game, etc. I don't know the Android space well, but my guess is the majority of the devices running Ginger Bread cannot run any of the newer games, etc. I could be wrong, but the 3GS even struggles at simple tasks like running Facebook.
As a Dev I would rather see a break out by device classification (I.e. Processing Power, Hi-Res screen, etc). I don't think an all encompassing metric like devices that accessed Google Play store is helpful on it's own merits as a Dev.
The way that current gen Nexus (read: not tied to US carriers) work is they are able to get updates with minimal additional work from Google. Obviously I can't say with absolute certainty, but this is Google's new push; they have a device that is no longer subject to software fragmentation. I REALLY don't see them throwing that away.
Another important distinction is the price. If I grab a Nexus 4, I am paying, at Most $350 out of pocket. If Google does decide to drop support within two years, I have still spent far less than I have on my newest iOS device. Thus, I can buy another, newer Nexus device, and have spent less to get those updates I decided I NEED to have.
The business models are different though...
If you compared the OS distribution between the iPhone and various Google Nexus models you'll see more of a similarity. Google isn't the reason all phones aren't getting the latest version of the OS its the carriers/manufacturers. I'm not saying its not a plus to usually have the latest OS on your phone but if you want that you can go buy a Google Nexus phone just like an iPhone.
If you compared the OS distribution between the iPhone and various Google Nexus models you'll see more of a similarity. Google isn't the reason all phones aren't getting the latest version of the OS its the carriers/manufacturers. I'm not saying its not a plus to usually have the latest OS on your phone but if you want that you can go buy a Google Nexus phone just like an iPhone.
Fear should never drive people's actions, especially when we're talking about a freaking phone, not a life altering experience
I've been betaing iOS 7 and it's still got bugs to work out but it's a loooot nicer. I've showed it to about 2-3 friends and almost all of them want to sign up as a dev so they can use it.
I'm surprised iOS 6 adoption is so high. My iPhone & iPad are on iOS 5 and I know several in our office haven't updated their iPads. I've no real reason to - it's likely to result in slower performance, there's a chance I'll lose some files/media/preferences in the updgrade, and there aren't really any features in iOS 6 that I want.
The only thing that might make me upgrade is the increasing number of apps which no longer support iOS 5.
I'm probably replacing both iPhone & iPad over the next year, so I'll just get iOS 7 that way.
The only thing that might make me upgrade is the increasing number of apps which no longer support iOS 5.
I'm probably replacing both iPhone & iPad over the next year, so I'll just get iOS 7 that way.
Fear should never drive people's actions, especially when we're talking about a freaking phone, not a life altering experience
I've been betaing iOS 7 and it's still got bugs to work out but it's a loooot nicer. I've showed it to about 2-3 friends and almost all of them want to sign up as a dev so they can use it.
I think you are taking the word "afraid" a bit too literally here. Being afraid of change can simply mean "I don't want to change". iOS7, especially to the older crowd, is going to feel like learning a new OS. We young folk can;t understand this, but it's a common complaint among the 50+, those who did not grow up around computers. As excited as I personally am for iOS7, I am dreading the constant phone calls from mom asking how to do things she already learned how to do.
You're comparing two things that happen on a much different scale.
The percentage of old/crippled Android phones running old OS versions is much higher on Android. Apple doesn't sell iOS devices with a 3 years old OS, and unless you have data to contradict that, app sales to iPhone 4 users are a more than probably a lot higher than to the $75 Android phone users you're describing. Developers who develop for both platform must know that.
The whole point of this is that the Android global marketshare majority doesn't mean much, and that the iOS apps ecosystem is still better overall than on Android, for both devs and users.
People plug their phone into their computer, see there is an update, and click "ok". I think it really just boils down to that.
I'm not completely satisfied with this research. The numbers consist of devices that visited the app store the last 14 days. But for older devices, there are almost no apps anymore for the device. On my 2nd gen Touch (with iOS 3.2.1) I can barely run any apps anymore. Or it needs a higher iOS version, or it needs to have some sort of capabilities my device lacks. The few I can run, then run slowly or crash a lot. I think many people still using older iOS devices are discouraged to take advantage of the iOS store, and this might give faded numbers.
Lucky you! Unfortunately, the majority of my coworkers are Android users so I am the minority.
"Mavericks" hasn't grown on me, but those Android OS names are ridiculous
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I've yet to have any of those arguments. Maybe I just pick my friends well