One of the first things that comes to a lot of iOS users’ minds when they hear “Android” is “fragmentation”. And while Google pledged to stop fragmentation at I/O 2011, this clearly didn’t happen as over 50 percent of Android devices are still running an old version of Android. Unfortunately for Android users, Google may have just made fragmentation worse for everyone. How? Google is going to release three different versions of Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). Yeah, you heard that right — three.
Why would Google do such a thing? Google wants to make a different version of Android for smartphones, 7-inch tablets and full sized tablets. This is going to be a huge pain for developers as they’re not only going to have to build apps for old versions of Android, but three different versions of Jelly Bean as well. Before this update, Android developers could use the Android developers tools to help optimize one app to look normal on all devices.
On the other hand, some users may look at this as a good thing because Android apps will be more optimized than ever before. However, this will only happen if developers decide to make their apps compatible with all three versions of Jelly Bean. What do you think of Google creating three different versions of Jelly Bean? Is this just adding to fragmentation or will something good come of it? Let us know in the comments.
Source: AndroidPIT
Image Credit: Sterlic
