TweetDeck beta highlights the 'shocking' level of Android fragmentation

TweetDeck, one of the most popular Twitter clients around, just closed a beta run on the Android platform and its results are staggering.
If Android users are curious why their friends and family get to enjoy so many more apps on their Apple Inc. (AAPL) iOS devices they need look no further — a pair of graphs provided by TweetDeck in this blog post tell the story.
It’s no secret that Google Inc.’s (GOOG) operating system condones and, in many cases, promotes fragmentation, but these numbers are astounding.
TweetDeck’s beta app for Android is not only running on 244 different Android-based devices, but also 108 variants of the OS. That’s enough to make most developers’ heads spin.
By contrast, Apple’s iOS-powered devices are strictly closed to whatever OS version the company allows its users to install and carriers play absolutely no role in that upgrade path. Of course, developers only have to deal with one manufacturer when it comes to Apple’s platform, but that also explains why Android is growing at such a break-neck speed. Apple simply can’t keep up the growing number of device manufacturers that Google has in its arsenal.
When developers, particularly those working at independent shops with limited resources, are faced with choosing a controlled (but incredibly popular) platform or one that appears to be in the throws of seemingly endless fragmentation, it’s understandable why they might side with Apple, even if it comes with reluctance.
“As we bring our initial Android TweetDeck beta period to a close, we wanted to quickly reflect on the Android ecosystem and what might be considered extreme fragmentation,” wrote Toby Padilla, VP of mobile at TweetDeck. “To date we’ve had 36,427 active beta testers and below you can see the massive variety of phones and Android OS versions everyone is running. We were really shocked to see the number of custom roms, crazy phones and general level of customization/hackalicious nature of Android.”
He also made sure to not outwardly blast Google for the fragmentation of its OS and ended with a rather positive note: “From our perspective it’s pretty cool to have our app work on such a wide variety of devices and Android OS variations.”