Android - fragmentation

...and everyone with their own Mobile App Store.

We, as developers, should boycott all but the 1-2 biggest ones - force the industry to cooperate. Look at all those Android phone manufacturers - each with their own Market.

Why should I, as a mobile app developer, publish my apps in 5-10 different app stores? I want to spend time on developing, not maintaining listings in all those stores. Each update to my apps would make me update the app in all the different stores. And that's for the Android platform only. Forget it.

Look to Apple! The reason for their success is uniformity.

Android - fragmentation

As a small time mobile developer, the biggest issue I can see is fragmentation and lack of backwards compatibility on new devices. Each time a new device comes out, I get flooded by messages complaining about that one of my 20+ apps does not work on this or that device.

I am not making a lot of money from my apps, so there is no way I can test and bugfix my apps for all the devices out there, with different screen sizes and hardware setups.

This is why J2ME sucks. This is why Apple rocks. I hope Google gets their act together with Android, or they are going to loose out against Apple.

Android - fragmentation

Programming for different screen sizes and input methods is a lot better on Android than on any other platform I've developed for in the past, but still leaves something to be desired. For example trackballs, camera, keyboard, hardkeys and sensors behave differently across different handsets. J2ME all over again. This must be fixed, and it has to be fixed by the Android OS developers.

The app developers have the power to:

- Boycott every manufacturer/operator who puts up their own application store. Publish apps to Android Market exclusively. It is the available apps that will sell handsets in the future - when noone publishes apps to all the new application stores out there, the operators/handset manufacturers will be forced to cooperate.

- Boycott every 'clever' handset manufacturer that creates devices with non-standard screens and other 'special features' that requires heavy customization of software to work. Manufacturers try to push the work they themself should have done over on the individual developer. Don't let them.

As a small indie developer I can't afford to test my applications on 20 different handsets to ensure correct operation. I don't want to upload my applications to 20 different application stores.