Yeah, until the next tech refresh for the iPhone. So then you have iPod Touch 1st and 2nd gen, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and 3GS. Bear in mind the 3GS has a more advanced graphics card, and then you need to bear in mind some of these have compass, camera, GPS, etc. That's not a small target by any means.
I seriously wonder what will happen when Apple upgrades the screen resolution to 800x400 or attempts to fit in new functionality such as multitasking without altering the current applications' VMs.
I can run any application on my 1st gen touch. Some things run a bit more slowly for me, but they work. Most things work perfectly. Games sometimes exceed me, but they still look perfect on the screen.
Apple's not stupid. If they up the screen resolution, and I'm not so sure they will any time soon, they'll do it in a way that maintains aspect ratio and offer a way for older apps to adjust. As things stand right now, the resolution is brilliant. Not much reason yet to up it any further.
the point here is that the iPhone is a lot less 'fragmentable' than Android since it's controlled by one single manufacturer. Sure, it will eventually change features so much that apps made for the latest hardware will no longer work on previous ones - but it will probably be a lot easier to manage than having a thousand different versions of the hardware, all being released at once...
Plus, AAPL's "throw away and buy the shiny new one" ethos has kept the majority of users constantly updating their already new ipod/iphone/mac for quite some time, so this fragmentation might as well be yet another strong point on their evil marketing plot. "1st gen iphone? Sheesh, that's too old, go get a new one"
Is that really the ethos you see Apple emanating? Because I've always seen the opposite. One of the things that I thought coolest about Apple back when I was on Windows were the people who talked about installing Leopard on a Powerbook and having it still work perfectly. Ditto the iPhone now. In fact, the line I hear directly from Apple is "Because we have no physical controls, we're allowed to keep our 1st gen iPhones in line with our freshest models, so the iPhone will outlast many of the other phones its age." Certainly my iPod is showing no strain in its second year. I haven't even upgraded to 3.0 and it still feels great.
I seriously wonder what will happen when Apple upgrades the screen resolution to 800x400 or attempts to fit in new functionality such as multitasking without altering the current applications' VMs.