Re:New Phones Still Sold With Old Versions of Android
by mlinsey on Monday March 15, 2010 @09:02PM
(#1194619)
"3GS or better required" is much more understandable than "1Ghz Snapdragon or better required", since the package the customer buys says "3GS" prominently - it's even in the name of the device. In fact, customers already are faced with the decision of "3G" vs "3GS" when they buy an iPhone.
What this suggests is that the solution for Android will be to have some easily-understandable number or naming scheme to roughly classify the power of the phone, so apps don't have to list compatible phones en masse. For desktop software, most people basically used the required and recommended CPU speed as such a number. Even though it didn't really capture the full nuances of whether an app required more RAM or more CPU, it was a good enough rough metric.
What this suggests is that the solution for Android will be to have some easily-understandable number or naming scheme to roughly classify the power of the phone, so apps don't have to list compatible phones en masse. For desktop software, most people basically used the required and recommended CPU speed as such a number. Even though it didn't really capture the full nuances of whether an app required more RAM or more CPU, it was a good enough rough metric.