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Comment by xuki | Hacker News Reader

Instead of testing on 5+ devices for Android, you just have to buy an old iPod touch with 3.1.3 on it. Is it too costly for you?

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I had an iPod Touch with 3.1.3 on it but by then I'd upgraded to to 4.x with no way to downgrade it. Sure I could have bought another sooner but this is not something I was expecting as up till that point I could always test in the simulator for any version.

you can download old versions of iOS and downgrade your ipod.

It has been a few months since I tried to downgrade but I certainly did try and killed too much time in the process. Could you point me in the direction of some instructions?

It's fairly easy, just save your old SHSH blobs (I always jailbreak my device so I'm not sure if jailbreak is required, there's a tool called TinyUmbrella to do it), then you can downgrade to whatever version you want.

You can, but it is a hassle, and Apple certainly could have made it easier.

You're right. It would be so much easier if Netscape had just stayed dead, and IE was the only web browser that I had to develop for.

Also:

* It would be so much easier choosing an ISP if AOL was the only ISP in America.

* It would be so much easier being a mechanic if the only automobiles were Fords, and they only made 2 models.

* It would be so much easier developing video games if people weren't allow to configure their own systems. Then I wouldn't have to worry about all sorts of machines with various levels of beefiness in the hardware department.

Whining about Android fragmentation while praising lack of choice with Apple as 'simplicity' just seems childish.

Please read, I never whine about Android fragmentation. I'm saying iOS (at least to me) is not as fragmented as Android, so the title is misleading.

You don't have to test on 5+ actual Android devices - emulator supports creating specific devices with different hardware and software versions. Plus you can alway push your beta in the market and let lots of users with actual devices do the real testing for you.

Sometimes you need to test on real devices for real performance and experience.

I only have to test my app on my iPhone 4 and 2nd gen iPod touch.

Same thing applies to beta testing on iOS, but since Apple don't allow beta app, developers have to issue adhoc build.

Don't you have to test on an iPad? For that matter - testing on couple real Android devices is equally effective - Galaxy Tab and Optimus S or G1/ADP and Nexus One.

My point was that you don't need to test on ALL different Android devices - just a few which seems to be similar with iOS from what you said. If you want to test lots of real devices - it's actually easy with Android - push the beta in the Market and let users do the compatibility testing.

If my app is not designed for the iPad, no.

If it is, I don't have to test on the previous 2 devices.

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