Animoca Shows Off 400 Devices Used For App Testing (So This Is What Fragmentation Looks Like?)
Developing for Android isn’t easy. I think we can all agree with that. With so many handsets, it’s an ever increasing challenge for developers to make sure their apps work properly across a wide range of devices, if they hope to reach a large audience. Android app developer, Animoca, has been faced with this battle, accumulating more than 400 devices to guarantee compatibility across multiple, very multiple devices.
Animoca’s apps have accumulated more than 70 million downloads in Asia — my little cousin goes nuts for their games — and apparently, for every single app they develop, they test them on the fleet of Android devices you see above. According to the CEO of Outblaze (Animoca’s parent company) they’ve discovered more than 600 unique Android devices on their network and would have liked to add those as well, only problem being, many of them are no longer available for purchase. But yet, when it comes to Android’s “F” word, Animoca keeps a good attitude about things saying, “We like fragmentation as users prefer choice. We are not big believers that one size fits all.” Take that, Apple.
Of course, there’s aren’t too many developers out there that have the same corportate funding as Animoca, who’s backing by companies like Intel Capital and IDG-Accel allow them to make it rain Android devices onto their developers. It’s because of Animoca’s quality control testing, they feel they’re able to stand out from other developers and publishers. Still, even after all this time, Android’s fragmentation is still one of the platform’s biggest hurdles and doesn’t look like it will be “fixed” anytime soon.
[Tech Crunch | Animoca in the Play Store]