Device fragmentation is a big issue, even for Amazon

Last week Amazon introduced a new feature called “device targeting”. This feature enables customers to find specific applications which are optimized for their individual devices.

With the ever increasing number of Android devices (like the Kindle), it's becoming more and more difficult for app developers to offer a single app binary for the wide variety of devices.

Device targeting gives app developers a way to publish multiple device-specific variants of their app. Amazons app store handles the install process and selects a specific app variation based on the device targeting settings.

Here’s how Amazon explains it:

“While it is easy to support optional APIs and device capabilities within a single binary, you may decide that it is easiest for your apps to generate different binaries for the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD. For each title, you can now offer separate APKs for Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD 7″, Kindle Fire HD 8.9″, and general Android (all non-Amazon) devices.“

Please see the Gigaom article for further details.

Once again, this feature illustrates the issue of raising fragmentation in the android market. Even “device targeting” will eventually increase the need for automated App testing to ensure that each customized app works correctly.