By 
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Gingerbread still accounts for almost a quarter of active Android devices still in the wild. This is something Vine has taken into consideration with their latest update, now available on Google Play. While Vine finally welcomes Gingerbread users into the fold, it comes with a pretty big caveat.
Apparently due to hardware limitations found in most Gingerbread devices, the app doesn’t actually allow users to record/upload their own content, merely view it from their devices for a good time. Something tells us — no matter how many disclaimers the put in the app — this isn’t going to go over very well with Android users still running Gingerbread hardware.
We can’t help but wonder if it would have been a better idea to continuing blocking Gingerbread users, or make a completely new app (titled Vine Viewer or something along those lines) rather than offer a severely handicapped experience. What do you guys think?
Download on Google Play: Vine for Android
Good, Vine will limit the fools still crazy enough to rock a Gingerbread device. Fine by me.
You cold as ice! :P
I show no love! As it should be.
You don’t have to sacrifice my love!
I think you’ll find more sanity among those still using gingerbread than among those using Vine..
I knew this was a Chris article as soon as I saw the girl lol
that’s his signature post
It’s his brand image (next to his hair and breaking-glass-backs-rants)
:P
Vine viewer would have been good. Most people will skip the description and disclaimers and go use the app, only to be disappointed and leave terrible reviews.
A Vine app that works only for reading would be like a walkie-talkie that you can’t talk into. Better to just call it a specialized “scanner” to listen to friends’ walkie-talkies — for whoever might want such a thing. Anything else is just asking for trouble.
You mean like a baby monitor?
Soooo… most Gingerbread devices don’t have cameras? All that’s required in my mind is camera with a mic, and we’ve had those on cell phones for the better part of a decade. Or am I missing something?
Disclaimer: not a Vine user, so excuse any ignorance on my part.
I think you can do more while recording a video in Vine. It may have something to do with that.
What I mean is when you’re recording, you can use the hardware to do more stuff. I’m not too sure on that. I used Vine once to record and got lost when I pressed “Record”. LoL!! I never took the time to learn.
You’re definitely missing something. Why should the Vine developers have to backport their work to Gingerbread? I’m sure it was written with ICS+ APIs and backporting not only takes time, but it would produce a worse product as well.
In summary: Gingerbread is garbage and if you’re still using Gingerbread, join the rest of us in the 21st century and get a new phone.
1. I’m no developer, but I imagine it can’t be too hard to put in code to utilize the camera.
2. The Vine developers should backport their work to at least Gingerbread because, as Chris points out in the article, a quarter of the total Android devices is still on Gingerbread. Granted, as time goes on, that number will indeed shrink, but that’s 24.1% of probably about a billion devices that do not have the ability to make a simple 6 second video. As I said before, we’ve had the ability to shoot videos from our cell phones for the better part of a decade. There is no excuse.
3. I’m pretty sure there’s a way to target which versions of Android get which version of a given app. For instance, Maps probably looks and acts somewhat different on a device with 4.4 vs a device with 2.3. Again, I’m no developer, but I imagine it can’t be too hard to do the same here.
It left out a girl in a bikini..
I really don’t understand. Hardware limitations? As far as I remember my HTC Desire had Camera and mic, and was able to record videos… so I really don’t get how they say this is a hardware limitation….
Considering that their are still many NEW devices still being sold every day with gingerbread on them I don’t see why any developer would dismiss them. While these devices may not be $600 iPhones I can find a few that are in the 200 to 250 range and still have gingerbread. Sadly they will probably never get anything higher. I will never believe that a 50 dollar phone can support ICS but a 200 dollar phone with better specks can’t. This hole thing pisses me off to the point that I will never buy another android. Google has destroyed the Android experiece and unless they get a hold of their manufacturers and start putting standards out for updates and hardware specs android will go down the tubes and something else will take it’s place. It this kind of additude that gives Apple such a large portion of the smart phone market. Gingerbread is not going to go anywhere any time soon. I see it being like IE 6. The version you wish would just die but it won’t.
Then again Google Chrome dismissed gingerbread for no real good reason so why should we expect any other developers not to.