In one of the meetings that took place during this I / O 2013, a team of Google engineers commented that they are working very hard to try end the blissful fragmentation existing in Android, and that causes headaches to most companies and operators.
Specifying that its primary objective is to ensure that Android updates are deployed in record time to all devices.
During that talk on Thursday, 11 members of the Android development team were asked by the audience of developers who participated in the annual Google conference. They responded to the continuing problem of fragmentation in the Android ecosystem.
"There is something we do not stop thinking about"Said Dave Burke, Director Engineer of the Android platform. "We're working internally to streamline the development process and make the software even more layered ».
It has been very difficult for companies and operators that sell smartphones and tablets to keep up with the pace that Google maintained since the beginning of its existence with the continuous updates year after year, from Donut, Eclair, Gingerbread, HoneyComb, Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly beam. It really has been crazy, and users ultimately, have been those who have suffered even more from this madness of updates year after year, getting irritated against the operators; these in turn against the companies, and ultimately against Google.
You all know the times that we have asked the telephone operators when Gingerbread was going to leave, if ICS was coming to our recently acquired terminal, etc. With the frustration that came with knowing it would take months, even a year to get the latest Android update, or in the worst cases, not even the appearance of the happy new version.
Fragmented Android
As a result there is millions of devices still running Android 2.2 Froyo and 2.3 Gingerbread introduced in May and December 2010 by Google, and the Android programming interface has been altered since then.
Burke commented that thanks to the layered software, chip and device makers will be able to update and improve different areas of the software more quickly, speeding up device updates. He also said that the company is trying to better understand variations of the hardware that Android uses.
The reason that different Android devices in emerging markets they use old versions like Gingerbread it is due to limitations such as memory. Android, by itself, doesn't require that much anymore, but applications are growing in capabilities and are making more use of it, he said. That is why most of the new applications developed for the latest version of Android cannot be installed, or used in some cases, on old devices.
Another topic Google engineers talked about was that they have no plans yet to slow down the Android innovation cycle. Burke says, «Android is still a baby. There is much more we can do, and also what can be done at the hardware level. There are many innovations yet to come ».
Specifying that cameras are one of the points where the hardware can improve even more, "The camera on a phone tries to emulate a digital camera, which tries to look like an old Kodak analog camera", at the same time he said, "The camera is an area where it is possible to evolve even much more than what has been achieved so far".
Fragmentation has been one of the biggest drawbacks con which users, companies, operators and Google itself have come across, in such rapid evolution that the Android operating system has had in these very few years of life. It is one of the biggest steps to take so that we can leave this obstacle of updating our device to have the latest feature or improvement.
An example of this layered software has been been able to observe these days with the Sony Xperia Z. On Friday they released the latest software update that contained many improvements, first reaching certain regions such as Singapore in Asia and Germany in Europe. The next day users could download it on Orange, and later, in the afternoon, those with Vodafone as their operator. And in several days most Xperia Z devices were being updated globally.
Google does not stop working and evolvingAnd as Burke has said, Android is a baby taking its first steps.
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Source - Cnet