Google plans to ‘shame’ smartphone makers to fix one of the worst problems with Android
If you ask developers about their gripes with building apps for Android, the same problem comes up again and again and again: “Fragmentation.” On Android, Google’s mobile operating system, it is the smartphone manufacturers — not Google — who are responsible for pushing out software updates to users. This is in stark contrast to iOS, where Apple can push out an update to every single (compatible) iPhone in the world simultaneously. And as a result, the Android market is intensely fragmented — with numerous different versions of the OS out there. This complicates development, as the majority of Android phones end up unable to utilise the latest features Google introduces for developers. And more worryingly, it can leave millions of users open to hacking as security patches never reach them. In short: Google could build an incredible new feature for the next version of Android, but unless Samsung gets around to deciding to push the update to you, you’re never goi...