I've
been coding android apps on my free time for over 3 years now and
I've never had any special issue on any specific device (i.e. what
people call android device fragmentation) ... until some days ago.
I
released a new feature in my app that was build with opengles 2.0
graphic engine. Everything was working fine on my dev devices:
samsung s4 & s3 mini and a htc x one, android version 4.2.
I
happily released the new package to googleplay and after just a day
errors related to opengles 2.0 started to pop up in my developer
administration console. And all the devices had android version >
4.3.
So
what to do?! At home I only had my android 4.2 devices and after
checking program updates I realized that I would not be able to
increase the android version number. I phoned to my local Samsung
representative and they informed me that there was no plan today to
release any upgrade to the Samsung s4 mini. Google the HTC x one I
realized I could just forgot about any upgrade on that one...
So
what to do? Without testing possibilities you can't solve a bug...
Enter
my national phone operator! Normally you can't do much with the
phones in the stores. Usually they're locked and lack internet
connectivity. But I found this store that do allow browser with
internet connectivity. So I create a couple of apk packages send them
to an email account and go to the store. I found a suitable phone
with android version > 4.2 and start to test my packages. First
one fails, second one succeeds!! Happy with this positive result I
start to test on more devices... until I manage to drag one of the phones
anti theft cable a little too much triggering the alarm!! A
little embarrassing and it might be difficult to come back
for more testing...
The
technicalities of and the solution to the bug can be found here:
