Angry Birds shows Android fragmentation
(Credit: Composite image by John Chan/CNET Asia)
The most exciting app for Android at the moment is not something that will make your phone superfast or help you become more productive. No, it's Angry Birds, one of the biggest hits on the Apple App Store. Yesterday, someone told me she couldn't get the app on her HTC Wildfire. It didn't appear when she searched on the Android Market. She took her case to HTC, and a customer service personnel told her different phone models see different apps in the Market. Her conclusion was that she shouldn't have bought an HTC phone.
I didn't think her opinion was fair to the Taiwan manufacturer. My initial assessment was that Angry Birds didn't support QVGA screens, which is what the Wildfire has. But this hypothesis was proved wrong when I managed to download the app from the Android Market on a Motorola Flipout, which also has a QVGA display.
After further investigation, I found two other Android users who couldn't find the app on the Market. They owned the Motorola Dext and HTC Hero. The reason was obvious for the Dext, which runs the incredibly outdated Android 1.5, which is not supported by the game. What about the Hero, which sports Android 2.1? Well, according to developers Rovio, Angry Birds "will run on second-generation Android devices and upward". Perhaps the Hero has certain hardware specifications that make it "first-generation"? After all, its innards are largely identical to the older HTC Magic.
If you ask me, the fault does not lie with Rovio. As a developer, it will want Angry Birds to run on as many phones as possible. However, the company has to put in extra effort to make sure the game works on different handsets, some sporting low-resolution screens, others with slower processors and different OS versions. Rovio took the most efficient route and launched Angry Birds to work on a good number of devices--that the app was downloaded 2 million times in four days is testament to that.
But the fact of the matter is that such things annoy Android users. The Wildfire user mentioned above bought her phone less than six months ago. To her, it was a new product and should not be deemed too outdated for the newest apps. In this case, the reputation of the manufacturer took a beating because of her impression of the issue, which was essentially an Android matter, not HTC. And for the record, Rovio did say the current version doesn't support QVGA displays, backing up my original hypothesis. So, the Motorola Flipout being able to download the game is strange. In any case, the app didn't run perfectly on the Flipout's landscape QVGA screen.
Think about it this way: An old iPhone 3G from mid-2008 runs Angry Birds fine, but a 2010 HTC Wildfire can't? You can give all the reasonable arguments in the world and it still won't make sense to the average user. To them, a newer product should naturally be better.
Android's head honcho, Andy Rubin, has been asked about this. He said in an interview that the much-talked-about fragmentation issue is really just "legacy"--like how you can't expect new Windows desktop software to run on the older Windows 3.1. The good news is that the update rate of Android will be slowed down, which means users will see their devices get obsolete at a slower rate.
In the meantime, if your friend tells you he can't download Angry Birds, be sympathetic and don't try to explain that it's a legacy thing, not a fragmentation issue. He might just call you a pig and throw something at you.
About the author
Editor John Chan's love for gadgets can be traced back to the days when he disassembled his toys and couldn't put them back together again. He practices great restraint in not opening up every review product that comes through the CNET Asia Labs, and before that, in his previous job at HardwareZone. He has reviewed items big and small, from mobile phones to projectors and feels everyone should carry a multitool at all times in case of MacGyver situations.
Latest comments
"That said, I'm an early adopter of Android. Trust me, Android is also a closed system. You have to get root access to do anything outside of the Android market, and that in itself is essentially another form of "jailbreak". Whats worse is that new OS updates don't apply to every phone out there although it can if Google wanted it to, as proven by the Custom Roms that users put together." Please stop the confusion which Steve Jobs is very good at, it will not make people switching to IOS like you planned. I state only one time, installing Apps outside Market **DOES NOT** need your phone to be rooted. I can install any games on my phone without root access. Root is for the hardcore advanced apps which needs to accessing/modifying the system kernel such as overclocking apps.
I have a Samsung Galaxy S running Android 2.1-update1, and I was very disappointed that I couldn't (and still can't) find Angry Birds available to me on the Market. Having said that, I downloaded the .apk from another source and have since completed the game with no problems whatsoever, apart from the short lagtime at the beginning of each stage when an ad is displayed. (I think John Chen's friend can do the same and get the game on her Wildfire, although she will probably have some issues because of her QVGA display.) Does this highlight the problem of "Android fragmentation"? Perhaps. But I believe the issue with the Angry-Birds-on-Wildfire-Flipout-discrepancy is not Android's (and by extension, Google's) fault, but rather the fault of the individual OEMs. After all, it is they who choose which version of Android to run on their products. So bashing Google is barking up the wrong tree, methinks. And unlike the other poster who says Android will go the way of WinMo, I think we will see less of these "fragmentation" issues once Android matures and all the OEMs start to adopt the most current version of the OS. Given how fast-paced the smartphone market is, I think it is very easy to overlook the fact that Android development is still very much in its initial stages, and that the OS has really come a long way in a very short period. So give it more time, people, and before long I believe we will all be making phone comparisons purely on OEM/Carrier differences rather than on which version of Android we're running.
OR too much hate with Apple... I don't have issues with the Apple eco-system because it works. I have a stable portable system that does pretty much everything I want and anything else can be gotten via Jailbreaks. That said, I'm an early adopter of Android. Trust me, Android is also a closed system. You have to get root access to do anything outside of the Android market, and that in itself is essentially another form of "jailbreak". Whats worse is that new OS updates don't apply to every phone out there although it can if Google wanted it to, as proven by the Custom Roms that users put together. As a user I know that half a year down the road I probably can't run new apps written. As a developer, I have to code multiple versions of the same app to try and cover as many permutations of the hardware options out there as possible. There is a reason why apps run well on the iOS and OSX platform - Developers KNOW what hardware will be running their app.
I have 2 Android phones and I utterly disappointed with Google Android. Update does not comes as fast as Android update is release. Google just let manufacturer build the hardware as they wanted. In the end, manufacturer will have a very late update or there's never going to be a update for their Android phone. Guess Google Android will the the path of Windows Mobile...... Well.... enough said. My next phone will be an iPhone...
- What's so stopping you from downloading the Angry Bird game and install it off line? Or are you just too accustomed to Apple locking you down to doing/installing **EVERYTHING** in iTunes unless you JB ? - Are people buying aged hardware really expect to enjoy every benefit one can experience with a first class device ? Can you buy a iPhone 3G today and get the same experience as an iPhone4? - Even there are some apps out there that are specially designed for iPhone 4 only with its 960x640 resolution. Why don't post a new topic on this Apple fragmentation? Quite obviously, people who falls into believing the fragmentation issues is just too much in love with Apple.
OR too much hate with Apple... I don't have issues with the Apple eco-system because it works. I have a stable portable system that does pretty much everything I want and anything else can be gotten via Jailbreaks. That said, I'm an early adopter of Android. Trust me, Android is also a closed system. You have to get root access to do anything outside of the Android market, and that in itself is essentially another form of "jailbreak". Whats worse is that new OS updates don't apply to every phone out there although it can if Google wanted it to, as proven by the Custom Roms that users put together. As a user I know that half a year down the road I probably can't run new apps written. As a developer, I have to code multiple versions of the same app to try and cover as many permutations of the hardware options out there as possible. There is a reason why apps run well on the iOS and OSX platform - Developers KNOW what hardware will be running their app.
"That said, I'm an early adopter of Android. Trust me, Android is also a closed system. You have to get root access to do anything outside of the Android market, and that in itself is essentially another form of "jailbreak". Whats worse is that new OS updates don't apply to every phone out there although it can if Google wanted it to, as proven by the Custom Roms that users put together." Please stop the confusion which Steve Jobs is very good at, it will not make people switching to IOS like you planned. I state only one time, installing Apps outside Market **DOES NOT** need your phone to be rooted. I can install any games on my phone without root access. Root is for the hardcore advanced apps which needs to accessing/modifying the system kernel such as overclocking apps.
I tend to agree with those who say here that the inability of the devices to play Angry Birds cannot just be dismissed to the fragmentation issue. This is the problem at times with off-the-fly articles. Just because you mentioned several phones that can and cannot play the app means that you can hastily jump to a conclusion. Especially when the conclusion you are reaching is obviously a current buzzword. Just my two cents.
Wow this is simply amazing how even people that right reviews for a living can misuse the word fragmentation. Based on this article it seems you can use the Motorola Flipout, but not the HTC Wildfire to download angry birds. The problem might not be the OS since both those two phone are running Android 2.1 Enclair. I don't know what the issue is in this case but you should probably blame the manufactures or carrier for this problem. I would say its more of the manufactures fault, but I don't really know that much.
Android is walking the path of Windows Mobile. It is just a matter of time before they reach the end of the path just like Windows Mobile unless Google can come up with something. Maybe I should be going back to Windows Phone 7 instead of Android.
The Android update rate will slow down? and this is the answer to the problems? No its not... The answer is to get everyone on the same accord, This is What I like about Apple... Hate on it if you want, but it works, also if theres a problem they can get everyone fixed and running again with 1 update or fix. We have Android devices running all sorts of different versions of the software...Yes it is fragmented...Very much so....Maybe this is what some owners like..and this to is good because we have choice... :-) "enjoy"
That is why I bought an iPhone :) Sometimes a closed eco-system has its benefits.
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