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by FigBug 4472 days ago
It's not. Except Windows has 95% of the market and the Mac had 5% of the market. So even though it's easier and cheaper to support a Mac app, the market is so much smaller it's still not really worth it.

Compare to mobile where iOS market place was leading, it didn't make a lot of sense to spend more effort on the smaller market.

Now the Android market is about equal, you are still spending more effort to make the same money.
2 comments
pjmlp 4472 days ago
> Except Windows has 95% of the market and the Mac had 5% of the market.

Except you are forgetting, screen resolution, processor speed, graphics card, sound card, co-processor, printer type, scanner type, microphone, webcam, harddisk, network card, modem, ...

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mgkimsal 4472 days ago
Way back in the day it was pretty common for people to swap out pieces of a system (not too much today except for gamers).

Your system needs a bigger screen? Get a bigger monitor and/or graphics card. Need a faster modem? Buy one. Need a camera? Add it.

Go upgrade the graphics chip in your Android 2.3 handset. Oh wait...

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pjmlp 4471 days ago
That doesn't have anything to do with the complaint about Android's fragmentation.
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mgkimsal 4471 days ago
you're pointing out 'fragmentation' in the windows market because of all the varying hardware, and it seemed you were saying it was equivalent to the android world. it's not, because you generally could change hardware on a windows system, but not on an android device.
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pjmlp 4471 days ago
Quite the contrary.

I am pointing out that fragmentation in the COMPUTER HARDWARE and SOFTWARE is normal and exists since computers are among us. Windows market is a tiny spot of the COMPUTER HARDWARE and SOFTWARE around the world.

Any good developer learns to deal with it instead of writing posts whining about it.

Plus iOS which is oversold as not being fragmented has different set of API support depending on iOS/handset/tablet pair set.

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mgkimsal 4470 days ago
But... it wasn't ('a tiny spot') at the time. And good developers didn't 'deal with it' so much as people simply upgraded their hardware - computer stores routinely upgraded people's modems, graphics cards, sound cards, monitors, etc. Of course, some software would run with lower quality hardware, or try to run without certain features, but people mostly upgraded components (or entire systems) to be able to run newer software. We do that today somewhat - buying new systems - but no one reasonably tries to upgrade the CPU in their android smartphone - they just get a new one.

We're either talking past each other or have a vastly different sense of the issue we're talking about (or both).

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eloisant 4472 days ago
Well, no, Android market share is not equal to iPhone. It's much, much more.
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