By Let’s take a stroll down memory lane. Just a year ago Android 2.1 was sitting pretty as the king of platform versions, making up for 53 percent of all instances of Android installed on smartphones. In contrast, Android 2.2 had just earned its humble piece of the Android pie with a meager 1.8 percent share. In just a year, Android 2.2 has grown to become the dominant version of Android in the wild, but its reign is now coming to an end. In a platform versions chart that practically mirrors that of a year ago, Android 2.2 now holds a 59.4 percent share, though the number is declining thanks to an increase in Gingerbread installations. Instances of Android 2.3 tally up to 18.6 percent of OS installs, and the number is only growing. Android Honeycomb also continues to grow its share, but in comparison to other versions of Android it remains a tiny fragment of the total ecosystem at 0.9 percent.
The numbers show a pretty standard one-year life cycle for Android versions. We’d love to see a time when the latest version of the OS could claim as close to 100 percent of all devices as possible, but with constant updates being sent out by Google it seems like wishful thinking.
[via Android Developers]
Google needs to find a way to push out OS version updates to all devices themselves. I’m sure it would be a technical and logistical challenge, but when I’m looking to buy a new device, I don’t like having to guess which one is going to be best supported by the OEM/carrier.
Google also needs to give me a pony.
Give it up, it’s never going to happen. Welcome to the realities of an open ecosystem. If you don’t want to guess about OEM/carrier support, just stick to the Nexus line.
Proud owner since 1/5/2010.
Unlocked Nexus phones get updated no matter what country, carrier, or what type or signal you are getting on your phone.
…And Samsung still hasn’t given Vibrant users the 2.3.2 they promised MONTHS ago. They really suck with their updates. When they give us what they promised, it’ll already be 6 months out of date.
my gay ass Galaxy S has 2.2! Worst phone ever! broke my nexus 1 and then got this refurbished plastic junk as a replacement. Boo Samsung Galaxy everything!
I still can’t believe that android 1.5 and 1.6 are even blips on the pie chart
I still test with my G1. I know several people who still use their G1 for nostalgia purposes. Phones get passed down from one family member to the next when they upgrade. There are many reasons why there are phones rocking 1.x in the wild.
And some people will never upgrade…same reason why IE6 still gets 2.3% market share.
Google should push android updates to phones themselves. Down with this carrier/phone maker add-on bs. Give us all stock 2.3.4.
hahahaha. Stock android will never happen for all phone/carrier because stock is ugly. There is no wow factor for stock. I had a stock nexus s 4g and it was the most boring interface ever. I had to put on go launcher to make it look better. Stock is great for the people that is in tech. But for the everyday user stock suck. It is not user friend nor eye catching. Guess why Samsung and HTC do well. It has a lot to do with their interface and hardware.
But that is precisely why stock is superior. It is superior because *you can* put go launcher, or what ever you want to make it look better. You can add all the custom widgits you want. You are not stuck with someone else’s vision of what they think it should be like blur. You can make it as eye catching and individualized as you want.
You can already do that with sense and touchwiz. The first think the user see is the interface and how easy it is to use. Stock is not easy to use and many of the widget that we use have to get off the market and discourage people from buying the phone in the first place. Do people really wonder why the nexus s don’t sell too well. It was not the hardware but the interface. Custom UI help attract the customer in first play. Do you really think the average know the different between all the chipset or the different in benchmark score? Or different in 2.3.0 to 2.3.3? If everything was stock android will fail to have mass market appeal.
I understand what you are saying, and yet, take a look at the original droid and how well that sold. Somehow, that had stock android and people not only managed to use it, they actually liked it.
And sure, you can add other launchers and widgits when blur/wiz is on the device, but they bloat the device. Sure, joe and jane sixpack may not know the difference, but they NOTICE the lag.
Obviously small sample, but I know the reaction of people who have used blur/wiz and how much they like the stock android or cyanogenmod when they experience that over blur and wiz. And the reaction I have seen is that they like it much more. But again, small sample so who knows.
If you want to take a big chunk off the 2.2 pie slice, upgrade the OG droid to 2.3.4. I don’t buy any of the nonsense that the hardware can’t handle it or would degrade performance. There are plenty of developers with Gingerbread on the OG Droid. The only reason Veirzon/Moto won’t do it is money. Most OG owners are still under their 1st 2-year contract, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many, like myself, hang onto it and go month-to-month just to stay with the same data plan.
As one of those ppl that try to squeeze GB onto the D1, I can say there are definite hardware limitations. Yes, technically it can run on the D1, but it will not give the same fluidity and multitasking that most non-technical users demand. If you want to try different roms, it isn’t a big deal when your run into issues with lag or music player dies when you load browser, but to the typical end user, it does matter very much. Those that push GB on the D1 do all kinds of memory tweaks and use overclocked kernels that don’t work on everyone’s phone.
If Moto / Google tried to push GB on the D1, it would get the same result as Apple trying to push new software on outdated iphones. People would feel the sluggishness and cry foul, Motorola is just trying to make us buy new phones because they pushed an update that slowed things down.
And still the stock G2 doesnt have gingerbread
Why are 2.3 & 2.3.2 on a different piece of the pie chart from 2.3.3 & 2.3.4? Aren’t they all Gingerbread?
2.3 & 2.3.2 are API level 9 while 2.3.3 & 2.3.4 are API level 10