What Feature Is Mobile Fragmentation?

In the world of mobile today, there is a vast range of mobile features, applications and services that can be found on an equally wide range of mobile devices and platforms. Because of this wide range however, mobile developers are discovering a key issue in mobile, which is Fragmentation. With mobile being such an exciting and promising venture, it pays to know what exactly mobile fragmentation is, and why it is seen as an issue.

Mobile Fragmentation refers to the varying specifications and capabilities of the vast range of mobile devices and platforms across the world, and the inability for designing and developing a single application that can operate across the board. This often means that many mobile ventures have to target a single device in their strategies as designing and developing the application for each of the major devices and platforms is time consuming and highly cost inefficient, in both the short term and the long term.

The fragmentation occurs specifically in diversities in the varying mobile platforms and devices that include; hardware diversity; differences in screen parameters (size, colour depth, orientation, and aspect ratio), memory size, processing power etc. Software diversity; Platform diversity, such as differences in platform/Operating Systems. Implementation diversity, resulting from implementation bugs/quirks, which is considered one of the most tiresome type of fragmentations. User-preference diversity, including language, style, etc. and, Environmental diversity; such as diversity in the deployment infrastructure (e.g., branding by carrier, gateway characteristics etc.)

From this brief account of examples alone, it is possible to see the extent to which mobile fragmentation is an issue for mobile. However, there has been speculation that there is a “magic bullet” will make the entire process much simpler. Many development and design teams believe there is potential for a unifying technology that will make de-fragmentation possible. On the flipside however, there is a strong argument not only denying the possibility of this unifying technology, but also that mobile fragmentation is even detrimental to mobile. These people argue that the existing diversities in mobile are a result of healthy competition and corporation’s acknowledgment of the diverse preferences of their users.

Mobile fragmentation is most certainly a significant hurdle in the development and design process of mobile then. It possesses a seemingly never-ending range of diversities that make a single and functional application for all major mobile devices and platforms impossible. However, with the debate about whether or not it is in fact a detriment to the evolution of mobile as whole still raging, only time will tell if the “magic bullet” myth is in fact a myth, or if it is a holy grail waiting to bring mobile into a new age.

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