It always gets me when someone rants about 'fragmentation' and then mentions Windows as if it isn't an example of it. It's the BEST example of it. They forget how many versions of Windows there are, and how hard it used to be to get programs to work on different hardware, even though Windows itself was the same exact version.
Android is facing the same problem. Even on the Web, we have to deal with differences in each browser.
However, I'd argue that fragmentation within a platform (like Android or Windows) is less of an issue for developers than having to deal with 3 or 4 vastly different platforms.
I've actually been trying to reduce my web browser usage on my laptop and move what I can to local apps. I feel a lot safer using a Twitter app, than using Twitter in a web browser, and a lot safer using an IMAP client than a webmail client.
You actually trust the browser less than the individual apps developed by different companies? I'd think the apps would have more security holes than a browser that's been tested and used by millions of people everyday.
Yeah, in general. Twitter has had XSS flaws that hit people using web browsers but I've not heared of any Twitter app exploits. I'd trust Thunderbird+IMAP more than Firefox+GMail without a doubt. I don't read my RSS feeds in a browser either, they get pulled down and converted to emails and are read in Thunderbird.