Real Problem about Android

by Onur Avsar

Android and iOSNo, it is not fragmentation. Developing same application for different kind of devices which have different screen sizes and all other hardware based differences is not easy. But it is easier than developing for different operating systems with different programming languages.

Of course developing for a fragmented operating system is not preferred, fortunately Android SDK came with really good tools and techniques which makes application development not only possible also easier than expected. Moreover, this fragmentation came with some bonuses such as chance of reaching to more people. Undoubtedly, if Android ecosystem would be more strict like iOS, Android could not reach to such large penetrations. Therefore, smartphone sector would have more major operating systems instead of two. And that would make mobile application development strictly harder.

Fragmentation of Android ecosystem is not something we should complain about it, it is something we should be thankful. Real problem about Android is its cheapness. Android is cheap. When comparing with iOS platform Android has no premium style. Moreover this problem starts from application development. Android absolutely is a nice operating system and some Android devices have really high-level hardware but when topic comes to third most important part of this ecosystem which is native applications, Android absolutely is not shine against iOS. Android apps have slightly lower quality than iOS. And I believe biggest responsibility on this problem is belong to Android’s development environment provided by Google. While Apple provides XCode and Interface Builder, Google provides Eclipse with ADT Plugin. Of course, Eclipse is a great IDE however when comparing it with XCode, it looks a little cheap. I believe that iOS’s nicely designed development environment makes app developers more sensitive about their own applications’ design. Therefore, this situation makes Android apps look poorly designed against iOS apps.