Red Herring Archive

  • Latest Android stats show pre-2.1 versions still reign supreme

    Latest Android stats show pre-2.1 versions still reign supreme

    Posted on June 2, 2010 | No Comments
    Fragmentation's a red herring, eh, Google? We'd suggest you look at your own stats, where -- as of yesterday, anyway -- fragmentation was alive and well, no matter how you define it. In the two-week period of Google's data collection ending June 1, some 54.5 percent of devices in the field were still using pre-Eclair versions of Android, a pretty sorry stat considering that it was released back in late 2009 and xda-developers members have proven countless times that every Android phone ever made can run 2.0 and above with aplomb. To be fair, 2.1 picked up significant steam since the last roundup and the trailing devices aren't entirely Google's fault -- manufacturers and carriers need to take most of the blame for the delays in getting upgrades pushed out -- but it's Google's wild development pace that has left this trail of premature obsolescence in its wake. Upgrades are good, but necessitating that your development community has its eyeballs on at least four versions of your platform (1.5, 1.6, 2.1, and 2.2) is generally bad.

    Latest Android stats show pre-2.1 versions still reign supreme originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Google: Android fragmentation ‘is a boogeyman, a red herring’

    Google: Android fragmentation ‘is a boogeyman, a red herring’

    Posted on June 1, 2010 | No Comments
    Google's Dan Morrill, open source and compatibility program manager in the Android team, just penned a lengthy diatribe against the very concept of fragmentation on the official Android Developers Blog, basically saying it doesn't exist. Actually, the language is a little more colorful:
    "Because it means everything, it actually means nothing, so the term is useless. Stories on 'fragmentation' are dramatic and they drive traffic to pundits' blogs, but they have little to do with reality. 'Fragmentation' is a bogeyman, a red herring, a story you tell to frighten junior developers. Yawn."
    Sure, as Android goes, the term "fragmentation" has meant moderately different things in different contexts over the past couple years -- fair enough. But the fact remains that releasing six major revisions of any platform within the span of 19 months (four of which are in heavy user circulation) is unprecedented and potentially unsettling to manufacturers and consumers alike. Your average Joe isn't going to understand why, for example, his HTC Hero that he bought a few months back can't use the Buzz widget or some of the cooler features in Google Maps, and Google hasn't done a very good job of explaining or justifying it, other than by blocking incompatible apps and updates from being visible in the Market.

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    Google: Android fragmentation 'is a boogeyman, a red herring' originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Zoom Zoom: Office 2010 promo video

    Zoom Zoom: Office 2010 promo video

    Posted on July 9, 2009 | No Comments
    Office Team Lead: Guys, we need something really exciting to make people excited about Office 2010. Some Office Programmer Guy: Can we call Google to hint at ChromeOS to take the heat off of us when we launch on Monday? OTL: Already done. We need a video. SOPG: What should it include? A little run-through of the program? [...]

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