So, Apple can design and tailor the experience just the way it likes. Apple knows what model it is going to make and how many different hardware designs that it needs to support. This advantage translates to macOS pretty well. This diversity of hardware and software makes it impossible for Google to guarantee reliability, app compatibility, acceptable performance, and timely updates.Īpple doesn’t suffer from the problem of fragmentation because it doesn’t have too many hardware designs to consider. From altering the UI to tweaking underlying technologies, Android manufacturers make significant changes to the core OS to stand out from the competition. Android manufacturers can customize the OS any way they want. Android smartphones range from cheap phones to ultra-expensive foldable devices. This phenomenon is called 'fragmentation.' And although OS manufacturers like to downplay this issue, it remains one of the biggest problems that every OS manufacturer has to deal with.įor instance, Android is on more than 70% of all smartphones on the planet. With the increase in the number of hardware variations, it becomes difficult to ensure software compatibility between these variants.
