Increasing Fragmentation in iOS and Android

A nightly build is a neutral build that takes place automatically - Wikipedia

Let us compare the upgrade history of Android’s KitKat and the recent iOS 8:

• October 31, 2013 - Android 4.4 aka KitKat
• December 5, 2013 - 4.4.1
• December 9, 2013 - 4.4.2
• June 2, 2014 - 4.4.3
• June 19, 2014 - 4.4.4

Till it finally stabilized.

• September 17, 2014 - iOS 8.0
• September 24, 2014 - iOS 8.0.1
• September 25, 2014 - iOS 8.0.2

Still not finalized, a beta 8.1 has been released on 29th September but the bug fixes are still unknown and it might be followed by some more updates till it stabilizes.

At the time of release of KitKat 4.4.1 and 4.4.2 it felt like Google was releasing nightlies and the same has been shamelessly adopted by Apple. Instead of rigorously testing and then releasing the updates, both corporations are in a hurry to release new features and bug fixes. This is leading to fragmentation which is evident in the android ecosystem and now has also begun emerging prominently in iOS which was virtually non existent till now.

Also Apple dumped a lot of iPhone 4 in India during 2013-14. The latest iOS upgrade does not upgrades the iPhone 4 and even the iPhone 4S have reported to be sluggish by the iOS 8 upgrade. This will adversely affect the iOS fragmentation statistics as well as customer dissatisfaction.

Both Google and Apple should concentrate on releasing all new features in one consolidated and tested major update rather than releasing patches as minor updates.

Image credits: appadvice.com