[akennberg]

Or, they simply allowed for apps to release on their own schedule, because the OS point version wasn't ready. If they could of announced it all together they would of.

This, however, does nothing to solve update fragmentation. OS updates change the OS, and certain devices simply don't have the memory, or other hardware restrictions, to allow for newer updates. Those did not include app-stuff, the app announcements were just coupled with OS announcement.

[ChrisClark]

It's not actually about the apps being de-coupled from the OS. It's all about the Android compatibility library and the Google Play Services library that gets pushed to all devices through the Play Store is the important part.

When they introduced fragments in 3.0 they decided to backport them and push them out to older devices. All the new UI libraries get pushed out to older devices, this allows app developers to use some of the latest and greatest parts of Android on all versions.

It's kind of strange they didn't include the Action Bar in the library, but Action Bar Sherlock takes care of that.

With the addition of Sherlock you can follow the latest UI guidelines and APIs without much worry. It makes it extremely easy then to support multiple sized devices, small phones, tablets, laptops.

There is some fragmentation in other parts, like sensors and cameras and such that can be troublesome, but for most apps there really isn't a fragmentation problem. I've never run into anything that wasn't solved in an afternoon.

Of course, if you compared it to writing for iOS, yes it's trickier. If an iOS developer decides to jump into Android without actually learning how the UI works, he's going to have a horrible time. iOS design can almost be pixel perfect, Android is more like a responsive CSS design.

Without the compatibility library being pushed to older devices a lot of this wouldn't be possible.

[eridius]

iOS design can almost be pixel perfect

I would go so far as to say that iOS design can be and often is pixel perfect.

[zmmmmm]

It's going to be really interesting if (as rumoured) they make major UI theme changes in iOS7. Until now Apple has reaped the benefits but not really had to pay the true price for the relatively inflexible approach with the UI. If they update the UI to look different, every app that hard coded images, colors, dimensions or other facets of the UI is going to suddenly look broken. It'll be really interesting to see how it goes.

[czr80]

They'll change, some things will break, we'll endure thousands of blog posts proclaiming the end of the iPhone, 80% of devs will race to fix their apps, life will go on...

[rimantas]

Not sure if I follow. If app uses custom styling it means it does not use OS theme, and hence is not influenced by its change. Also, developers will get an early access so they can test and fix things in advance.

[RyanZAG]

Some apps use default styling for half of their UI, and custom for the other half. When the default styling changes, it's going to have a strange effect of the custom components no longer fitting in.

[drivebyacct2]

And then Apple releases another form factor and developers scramble!