Android fragmentation appears to be on the decline as a pain for app developers, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a panoply of different devices running Android out there. In fact, the number of different Android devices continues to grow, according to a new report from OpenSignal, which collected data from nearly 19,000 different Android devices, a jump of roughly 7,000 more devices than last year.
This seemingly random assortment of colorful rectangles, reminiscent of a terrible paint swatch accident, actually represents the state of Android fragmentation in 2014. OpenSignal, a website dedicated to mapping all things mobile, pulled together this data and saw 18,769 distinct devices downloading its app on Android. And we thought last year was bad. How bad fragmentation actually is, though, remains up for debate. On the one hand, the insane—borderline ridiculous—number of sizes and devices makes developing a widely accessible app an overwhelming task, not to mention getting the apps to run optimally on all those disparate devices. Think testing with just the most-used smartphones will suffice? Nope. OpenSignal points out that the 10 most popular devices last year covered 21 percent of the market. That number has since declined to 15 percent, so even testing an app effectively is harder than it used to be.
