How Google is Managing the Android Fragmentation Issue

I'd like to point out that Android suffers from much more fragmentation than is apparent to the casual US-based reader, in that international versions of Android themselves are also fragmented.

For example, Google Navigation is still only available in the US, and if you are living in Canada, although the language and driving conventions are the same and all the map data is already available, Google Navigation launches only to tell you that it won't run in Canada.

Additionally, for the first year, paid market apps were not available in Canada. Our version of Market didn't even have a paid section at all. As of this week, they're starting to add it, but this section of the market is absolutely empty.

I don't buy for a minute that this has anything to do with the complexity involved making transactions in Canada, since Google checkout is the payment backend and it's worked in canada for about 5 years. Also, I installed MarketEnabled on my phone to pretend I was on T-Mobile, and was able to access paid apps and purchase them just fine with my Canadian bank info.

The real fragmentation I see Android suffering from is that it is at the mercy of: 1) A totally heterogenous set of carriers that each want the OS to work in a certain way. (Rogers refuses to ship a 1.6 upgrade to the OS) 2) A totally heterogenous set of manufacturers that each want to differenciate their handsets through the OS (HTC Sense UI, Motorola Blurr UI, Android stock UI, I'm guessing the sony X10 will have its own too).

And I perceive google as constantly bending over to the strange conditions imposed by carriers and manufacturers, constantly having to do extra work to compensate because they're losing more and more control of the platform.

I also perceive the Nexus one as an attempt to get out of this mess by re-gaining leverage over the carriers, and I think each Android handset sold makes their platform more relevant, hopefully providing them with more leverage also, but in the short term future, the fragmentation will only become increasingly complex.

Back-porting features is great for providing a consistent user interface to users but it doesn't really reduce the testing overhead that fragmentation causes. Maybe Google is big enough or smart enough to handle it, but I think it's a drag on the platform no matter what.