Here's what I think about "fragmentation"

If you’re familiar with Android you’ve no doubt heard the phrase “Fragmentation” and if you have any significant knowledge of Android, you know that it’s not a real issue (less than 5% of my code addresses ‘fragmentation’).

If you’re not familiar with the phrase, it’s basically the sum of the following expectations:

• a single-core 500MHz device from 4 years ago should have the capabilities of a brand new dual-core 1.2GHz handset.
• Today’s dual-core 1.2GHz handset should sport the same 320×480 display of the single-core 500MHz handset of 4 years ago
• All handsets have the same aspect ratio and resolution
• All handsets provide the same sensor hardware (accelerometer, GPS, etc.)

Here’s the most recent example of half-assed paid-off bloggers/sites hanging on to “fragmentation” for lack of anything valuable to write. If your time is too valuable to waste on nonsense & garbage, let me summarize the article for you:

Kindel is a 21-year veteran of Microsoft who was Windows Phone’s chief developer …
left Redmond   in August, and in a December … Kindel said Windows Phone has failed … Now, he has turned his attention to Android … Kindel wrote … ”the fragmentation of Android is severe” … The search giant is “pissed as hell that Apple is so successful,” … Google followed the flexible and open-source model. … ”That model is like crack cocaine for the likes of Samsung and HTC,” Kindel wrote. “They have had years to get addicted to it and, from their perspective (selling boatloads of devices) it’s working just dandy for them.” … Kindel’s comments come one week after Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show and argued that Android is not fragmented but “differentiated,” …

So, in short, Kindel worked on WP7 (Windows Phone 7) at Microsoft, he failed, quit, got bored, and is now jealous of Android’s success because open source is bad. Why is it bad? Well … Samsung and HTC (NOT Microsoft) are selling boatloads of Android devices while Microsoft was hoping that they’d pick up WP7. Even after Schmidt clarified the Android ecosystem (Google makes money on the ads not the platform), this failure, Mr Kindel, still went on to publish his garbage.  Seems like Mr. Kindel has been having “routing” problems as of late … packets destined for his brain somehow end up routing via his ass.

The truth is that you will stop hearing about “fragmentation” when the Republicans and Democrats stop blaming each other and instead try to fix the problem. You’ll stop hearing it when the name “Honda” isn’t heard in a “Ford” commercial. You’ll stop hearing it when the skinny mac guy appears alone in the ads telling you why he’s so good instead of just saying that he’s better than the fat PC guy. You can come up with more examples. You’ll never stop hearing it as long as it continues to grow as it has. You will hear it for as long as the competitors and fanboys need the crutch.

“For years, Canada’s Big Three ‘tri-opoly’ have been acting like squirrels preparing for a 50-year winter. They hoard spectrum to keep others from giving consumers an affordable choice and Canadians have been paying the price for their self-serving interests for far too long.”

Please, sign the petition here and have your voice heard. This affects all Canadians:

You’re with the big3

They’re willing to pay billions to gobble up these wireless spectra. This cuts into their profit margins. Guess who has to make up for it? YOU, Sucker!
You Lose.

You’re with the new entrants

You don’t even have a cell phone

The people and businesses that you deal with use mobile services and if their costs go up, they’ll eventually pass those costs to you. You will end up paying more for everything.
You Lose.

Take 30 seconds and sign the petition and maybe we’ll actually see some fair competition here in Canada. Do nothing and watch and WE ALL LOSE.

I’ve made my choice, but it’ll take more than just me to make a difference. Give the big 3 the boot and the new entrants a chance. I switched to Mobilicity over a year ago and I am MUCH happier than I ever was with Rogers.

Stop the Squeeze here:.

The thing is that you shouldn’t care whether you’re running on a tablet or a phone. The real question you need to ask is whether the current device has the ability to support my feature.

The question of whether a device is a tablet or a phone often boils down to whether or not it supports telephony. Let’s say you have a viral app and you want to enable the users to send out SMS messages to their friends promoting your app. To do this, you don’t really need to know if you’re running on a tablet. All you need to know is whether the device is capable of sending SMS.

here’s a small piece of code that lets you do just that:

/**
* Determines if the current device has telephony capabilities
*
* @param context
* Context through which to access the telephony service
* @return true if the device has a phone radio, false otherwise
*/
public static boolean hasTelephony(Context context) {
    TelephonyManager telMgr = (TelephonyManager) context
        .getSystemService(Context.TELEPHONY_SERVICE);

    if (null == telMgr)
        return false; // no telephony

    return telMgr.getPhoneType() !=
        TelephonyManager.PHONE_TYPE_NONE;
}

Comments, corrections, and improvements are welcome

I’ll edit this post soon with a bit more about me, but until then, Cheers