Target Operating System Version for Apps under Android Fragmentation: Apps’ Dilemma and Platform’s Strategies

Abstract: Mobile platforms, such as iOS and Android, interconnect device manufacturers, mobile apps, and users over operating systems (OS). To provide better services to the users, the platforms continuously introduce new OS versions with more advanced features. However, the adoption of OS updates among device manufacturers is slow on the Android platform due to its nature of openness, leading multiple Android versions to coexist among devices. This phenomenon is referred to as Android fragmentation. It hampers consistent user experiences, poses security risks, and most importantly, makes app development more expensive. How app developers and the platform deal with this challenge has not been rigorously modeled and analyzed. In this work, we construct an analytical model to examine the challenges of mobile app developers and the platform under the fragmentation problem. We find that not all apps are updated to a new OS version, due to a tradeoff between additional revenues and increased development costs for backward compatibility. Under competitive pressure, some apps update the target OS version but gain less profit. Further, a larger installed base or a lower development cost does not always make apps more profitable in updating to a higher OS version. We also investigate the effectiveness of several measures that the platform adopts to alleviate the fragmentation issue. Crucially, we find that the platform often takes advantage of the fragmentation for greater profitability at the expense of app developers’ welfare. Also, the apps’ outdated target OS version sometimes benefits both the platform and app developers. Our results provide practical insights for both mobile app developers and the platform on how to deal with the OS fragmentation problem.

Keywords: Android fragmentation, mobile platform, software development, platform, game-theoretic model