PopCap Thinks That Developing For Android Is A Struggle

Android’s open source system has proved to be a curse and a blessing. A blessing to developers who love to fiddle around under the hood and a curse to users who discover that certain apps stop working properly or stop working entirely simply because the version of the app requires a newer version of Android to run on. Usually with iOS this is not an issue because when iOS updates are released they’re pushed through iTunes rather than users having to wait for phone manufacturers and carriers to push them out which can cause delays.

PopCap is such a developer that has found the Android open system quite a struggle to develop for. For those unfamiliar, PopCap is the developer that brought us games such as Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies and Peggle. Senior game designer David Bishop was quoted as saying:

“Though Android is one of three strategic mobile markets for PopCap, it’s been a challenge because of the breadth and variance of devices”

I guess this is one of the problems that Google is hoping to eliminate with their Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. It’s problems like these that turn some users off from Android devices and also may be what is causing the high attrition rate in the Android Market.