> "I'm talking about fragmentation of the basic operating system as deployed in the field.[...] I'm talking about APIs. [...] Apple is deploying and the installed base is rapidly upgrading to much more powerful APIs on the devices in consumers' hands"
The article says iOS newer APIs are better than Android older APIs, but he doesn't seem to back it up. I'm not very familar with iOS as I am with Android. So I would like to learn what exactly am I missing in the iOS API that is better?
As far as I know, Android 2.3 still have many useful APIs for us that iOS 5 is still missing, such as intent filters. And many of the great newer APIs were made backward compatiple, such as tablet/phone layout templating on the same app, and fragments. You can develop with these even if you support older devices. But I personally don't know of any features that the iOS puts available to us that developing for Android 2.3 does not.
If that is true. Then, for the developer perspective, OS API fragmentation only hurts Android when compared to "how much better Android could be". But it's not a problem when compared against iOS, if even Android 2.3 has better API than iOS 5?
So am I wrong here? If I am, could someone point me to a few examples of which awesome API features that iOS offer us that Android doesn't? I'm curious to learn that. Or is the article just full of it?
I'm not qualified to compare Android APIs to those on iOS. I believe the author's main point in this regard is simply that old Android devices don't usually get any new Android features (and APIs, for improved apps), because the manufacturers/carriers don't update the old devices very often.
I think that the point of this comment is that that's mostly incorrect. There are support libraries which basically mean that any device can run at any API level. This is fact, it has been for a while. Suck it up.
The article says iOS newer APIs are better than Android older APIs, but he doesn't seem to back it up. I'm not very familar with iOS as I am with Android. So I would like to learn what exactly am I missing in the iOS API that is better?
As far as I know, Android 2.3 still have many useful APIs for us that iOS 5 is still missing, such as intent filters. And many of the great newer APIs were made backward compatiple, such as tablet/phone layout templating on the same app, and fragments. You can develop with these even if you support older devices. But I personally don't know of any features that the iOS puts available to us that developing for Android 2.3 does not.
If that is true. Then, for the developer perspective, OS API fragmentation only hurts Android when compared to "how much better Android could be". But it's not a problem when compared against iOS, if even Android 2.3 has better API than iOS 5?
So am I wrong here? If I am, could someone point me to a few examples of which awesome API features that iOS offer us that Android doesn't? I'm curious to learn that. Or is the article just full of it?