With the passing release of the Droid on the Verizon network in the US, this creates the first real test of fragmentation with Android. The Droid is the first phone to run Android 2.0 however, this will then make it three versions of Android out on phones. Will mobile operators running older devices provide free updates to the latest OS? Will Google also permit it? Or is there going to be fragmentation with older devices stuck running older OS versions similar to Windows Mobile? So far most of the operators have allowed devices to update to Android 1.5 (Cupcake) and Android 1.6 (Donut) but it still remains to be seen whether older devices will be able to upgrade free of charge to Android 2.0 Eclair. Currently no update is showing for the HTC Magic.
If some phones continue to run old versions, issues could arise with application compatibility across the different OS versions. Most application providers are now only compiling their software in the latest version of the OS because it becomes a logistical nightmare to support 2 or 3 versions of the OS and SDK.
Obviously one of the big incentives to force people to upgrade their phone is to not provide the latest release to older phones, and this is something we see a lot especially on Windows Mobile.
Let’s see what happens over the coming weeks and months…
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