My previous company had dozens of devices to approximate the hundreds (we had our own pictures of tables littered with android phones). They faced ridiculous issues like HTTP not being properly supported. Don't delude yourself into thinking testing android devices is something that it is not. It is a mess. You cannot guarantee your application will work without testing on a device and the devices vary, greatly.
That is all beside the point. My salient issue was that despite testing android devices being a mess, people are proclaiming testing android to be a fucking disaster because they compare it to what testing iOS devices entails. Everything in life is relative. If iOS didn't exist, everyone would be saying testing mobile is a lot like testing web. I'm not saying iOS is better, if that is what ruffled your feathers. I am saying it is a closed platform, specifically for hardware. That makes the story much simpler. Anecdotally, I don't know a QA that has to test for iOS and android that doesn't wish android didn't exist.
That is all beside the point. My salient issue was that despite testing android devices being a mess, people are proclaiming testing android to be a fucking disaster because they compare it to what testing iOS devices entails. Everything in life is relative. If iOS didn't exist, everyone would be saying testing mobile is a lot like testing web. I'm not saying iOS is better, if that is what ruffled your feathers. I am saying it is a closed platform, specifically for hardware. That makes the story much simpler. Anecdotally, I don't know a QA that has to test for iOS and android that doesn't wish android didn't exist.