Rovio Impacted By Android Market Fragmentation - Plans "light" version of Angry Birds

[Patranus]

So, it's real after all, huh? Android fragmentation is making its way into the news again, and this time it counts. Rovio, developer of a little-known title called "Angry Birds," has just penned a new blog post detailing the night terrors that have come with coding a single program to work on a cornucopia of platforms. In the weeks since Angry Birds was released to Android users everywhere, the company has been inundated with performance complaints, mostly from users with older / underpowered Android devices or phones using Android 1.6 or earlier. A laundry list of smartphones have now been added to the "unsupported" list (shown in full after the break), but thankfully for you, a "lightweight" version of the game is in the works. According to Rovio, that build won't reduce the amount of levels (or amount of fun / frustration, for that matter), but will instead be optimized for dawdling processors and Android versions that have been helplessly malformed by carriers. Nice going, guys.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/19/rovio-feels-the-burn-of-android-fragmentation-plans-light-ver/

Market fragmentation is a big deal contrary to other posters on this forum.
I wonder how this will impact Android gaming, especially with the release of RAGE of iOS.

 

[QueBert]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/19/rovio-feels-the-burn-of-android-fragmentation-plans-light-ver/

Market fragmentation is a big deal contrary to other posters on this forum.
I wonder how this will impact Android gaming, especially with the release of RAGE of iOS.

I don't get the underpowered excuse why it doesn't run well on older Android phones. Angry Birds runs flawlessly on my 1g iPod Touch. Which is way less powerful than even the Android phones people are complaining about A.B. not running well on. Since it's the same game why the fuck won't it run well on Android devices but has no problem on a 4+ year old iPod?

 

[TheStu]

I don't get the underpowered excuse why it doesn't run well on older Android phones. Angry Birds runs flawlessly on my 1g iPod Touch. Which is way less powerful than even the Android phones people are complaining about A.B. not running well on. Since it's the same game why the fuck won't it run well on Android devices but has no problem on a 4+ year old iPod?

Maybe it has to do with code optimization? Differences in the languages used? Is there information on Android OS versions and their ability to run Angry Birds?

What I mean is, using as an example... the Droid Incredible. Can the Incredible with 2.2 run the game whereas the Incredible with 2.1 not?

 

[charrison]

Maybe it has to do with code optimization? Differences in the languages used? Is there information on Android OS versions and their ability to run Angry Birds?

What I mean is, using as an example... the Droid Incredible. Can the Incredible with 2.2 run the game whereas the Incredible with 2.1 not?

I think it more like the eris/hero that runs at half the speed of the incredible and will never get the speedier 2.2 update.

Fragmention is an issue, but not really a big of an issue as it is made out to be. I am pretty sure there are apps for the iphone that have fragmentation issues.

 

[gsaldivar]

Meh, I won't lose sleep over this since I don't use my phone for games.

 

[TheStu]

I think it more like the eris/hero that runs at half the speed of the incredible and will never get the speedier 2.2 update.

Fragmention is an issue, but not really a big of an issue as it is made out to be. I am pretty sure there are apps for the iphone that have fragmentation issues.

If there are programs or games that will run best on the later hardware, then they can set it to only work on iOS 4.

Angry Birds works just fine on my iPhone 1, but I have been shot down by apps that say they only work on iOS 4.

 

[zerocool84]

I don't get the underpowered excuse why it doesn't run well on older Android phones. Angry Birds runs flawlessly on my 1g iPod Touch. Which is way less powerful than even the Android phones people are complaining about A.B. not running well on. Since it's the same game why the fuck won't it run well on Android devices but has no problem on a 4+ year old iPod?

I have an older Android phone, the Moment, and it ran fine until they recently updated the game so they obviously changed some code that made it not run good at all on older hardware.

Oh and your iPod Touch can only do one thing at a time. It can't handle more than one thing. People always say well my old iPhone ran stuff good, well it's cus it couldn't two things at once.

 

[Patranus]

Oh and your iPod Touch can only do one thing at a time. It can't handle more than one thing. People always say well my old iPhone ran stuff good, well it's cus it couldn't two things at once.

Huh?

Just yesterday I got a call while playing a game, answered it, and then looked something up in my email while the call was on speakerphone.

My phone can most certainly do more than one thing at once.

 

[zerocool84]

Huh?

Just yesterday I got a call while playing a game, answered it, and then looked something up in my email while the call was on speakerphone.

My phone can most certainly do more than one thing at once.

You know what I mean.

Older generation ones can't multi-task. It only has to basically work on one thing at a time.

 

[TheStu]

I have an older Android phone, the Moment, and it ran fine until they recently updated the game so they obviously changed some code that made it not run good at all on older hardware.

Oh and your iPod Touch can only do one thing at a time. It can't handle more than one thing. People always say well my old iPhone ran stuff good, well it's cus it couldn't two things at once.

Are you implying malice here, because I am not sure.

And how many other things is someone going to be doing while playing Angry Birds? Why isn't Android killing background processes when an intensive app such as a game is running? Isn't that supposed to be the comeback in defense of Android's ability to multi-task better than iOS (or at all depending on your definition) at the cost of battery life/performance?

 

[zerocool84]

Are you implying malice here, because I am not sure.

And how many other things is someone going to be doing while playing Angry Birds? Why isn't Android killing background processes when an intensive app such as a game is running? Isn't that supposed to be the comeback in defense of Android's ability to multi-task better than iOS (or at all depending on your definition) at the cost of battery life/performance?

Of course it's not malice. They were probably coding it to run better on newer hardware which made it worse on older hardware which makes sense cus newer hardware is more important right now than older stuff.

Everyone knows Android's multi-tasking needs tweaking. Even though Apple's way doesn't allow as much as Android's, I'd gladly give up a little function if it meant a large impact on battery life.

 

[TheStu]

Of course it's not malice. They were probably coding it to run better on newer hardware which made it worse on older hardware which makes sense cus newer hardware is more important right now than older stuff.

Everyone knows Android's multi-tasking needs tweaking. Even though Apple's way doesn't allow as much as Android's, I'd gladly give up a little function if it meant a large impact on battery life.

I just wanted to check, nothing else to it.

 

[zerocool84]

I just wanted to check, nothing else to it.

The original Android release worked perfect on my phone, then after the update, it's unplayable. So since only older phones were having problems, I assumed they might have optimized it for newer phones.

 

[sswingle]

Big freaking deal. I don't really have a hard time comprehending that my Eris that was $50 won't run a game as well as my Droid.

Its just like PCs. No one expects to run Crysis on a budget PC.

 

[Patranus]

Big freaking deal. I don't really have a hard time comprehending that my Eris that was $50 won't run a game as well as my Droid.

Its just like PCs. No one expects to run Crysis on a budget PC.

Not it is not like PCs.

Cell phones are consumer electronics.
People expect them to work.

If Angry Birds is advertised to run on Android, people expect it to run on Android.

 

[zerocool84]

Not it is not like PCs.

Cell phones are consumer electronics.
People expect them to work.

If Angry Birds is advertised to run on Android, people expect it to run on Android.

and it did, until the developer messed it up with an update

 

[gsaldivar]

NIf Angry Birds is advertised to run on Android, people expect it to run on Android.

If they are going to advertise that, maybe they should hire an extra programmer to find out why their latest updates broke that compatibility?

I'm just sayin'...

 

[ponyo]

They really messed up with the update. Not only is it unplayable on older phones, it's unplayable on newer ones too. The game runs smooth as butter on my Galaxy S but now they placed ad banners near top of the screen in path of bird flight. I uninstalled the game because it's unplayable with the ads now.

 

[kaerflog]

So why didn't they sell the game for .99 like they did for the iphone instead of placing ads ??

 

[gsaldivar]

So why didn't they sell the game for .99 like they did for the iphone instead of placing ads ??

Apparently that makes too much sense.

 

[Pliablemoose]

They really messed up with the update. Not only is it unplayable on older phones, it's unplayable on newer ones too. The game runs smooth as butter on my Galaxy S but now they placed ad banners near top of the screen in path of bird flight. I uninstalled the game because it's unplayable with the ads now.

Same here.

 

[charrison]

Apparently that makes too much sense.

Well ads are sold globally and the android market is not yet global.

 

[Demo24]

The update works fine on my droid, actually works better than the original release. With the original release it was very stuttery when the ads were present. On most levels now thats not the case, which is why I assume they stay significantly longer.

On my mom's eris however it was completely unplayable. Hardly surprising really, but hey a lite version wouldn't be unwelcome for that phone.

 

[MrX8503]

I think there's some misinformation here.

I think the performance issues stems from Android's fragmentation. Heck, even iPods/iPhones have fragmentation, just not as bad. There are some apps that the 1g iPhone/iPod can't run, but just because it can run Angry Birds does not mean that the same can be said on the Android side.

Also multitasking is not the issue here. The issue is that when optimizing for the majority of consumers things may break for the minority of consumers who are still running older Android handsets.

Android is kind of in a pickle right now. Although there are massive amounts of Android handsets, the handsets are all over the place ranging from 1.6-2.2. Whereas on the iOS side, there are many more handsets that are running iOS 4.1.

Developers know this and they know that they'll make way more money by developing for iOS. Its also easier to develop for iOS. Here is a recent excerpt from John Carmack on Android:

"...there's a lot of things with how the distribution platform works and the diversity of the platforms that you have to target, where things are still much, much nicer on the iOS world."

Thats just a very nice way of John C. saying, "Android is fragmented and we need to figure out how to target its fragmented users, but iOS is much easier to make apps for."

These are some of the reasons why iOS gets games like RAGE HD and the upcoming Infinity Blade from Epic Games. It also goes beyond games as well, it goes towards all apps in general.

 

[ew915]

LOL rovio sees a opportunity to make more ad revenue from the suckers who click the banners during gameplay, soon enough they'll put ads in the middle of the screen.