Amazon heads off app fragmentation on Kindle Fire, Android

Kevin C. Tofel, writing at GigaOM:

This could mean vastly better tablet apps for the higher resolution Kindle Fires similar to the improved iPad apps that iOS developers made instead of scaled-up iPhone software.

I think he’s right: assuming developers embrace this change, it can only bode well for the quality of app experiences for consumers.

But that’s not the only angle here, is it?

I’m not a developer, so I have some questions. My questions imply their own answers, so correct me if I’m wrong:

  1. How is encouraging the development and maintenance of multiple simultaneous versions of an app going to be helpful to developers?
  2. Doesn’t each version come with its own bugs, complaints, and quirks?
  3. Don’t developers want easier ways to incorporate device flexibility into a single binary?