Yes, you read that right. Not app crazy or crazy for apps, but just plain old crazy. With the latest Android release, Google now has at least 4 different versions of the Android in the wild. With a variety of versions must come a variety of app releases. With each version, developers have to change/modify/adjust their apps accordingly, which is making everyone crazy.
How can Google fix this? Well they have some ideas in the future, but as for now they have created a site for developers where they show statistics about what version has visited the Android Market the most within the last 14 days. This is a good short term solution, but how can they fix the long term implications of having so many different versions? Turn everything into browser based web apps and rid themselves of apps all together. Browser based apps work cross platform, cross version, and cross handset. No longer would developers need to support each version, but one update to a version’s browser would support a bunch of new feature rich tools.
Another way Google plans on keeping all of their users up-to-date is by changing the way they update their proprietary apps – mail, contacts, etc. By adding those to the Android Market, Google can add new features and have them pushed out to all users regardless of their version – thus allowing developers one base feature list to work with.
All in all, it seems like a big headache. At least Apple has kept things consistent. Let’s just hope Google follows suit and makes all of our lives easier.