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Android 5.0 Lollipop is now on 3.3% of Android devices

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android version numbers march 2nd

Google’s back with another platform update, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect considering many developers are converging at Mobile World Congress and the Game Developers Conference. The latest update shows us that Android 5.0 Lollipop is now loaded up on 3.3% of all Android phones with access to Google Play. This is a decent jump from the 1.6% Lollipop had when it first found its way onto the list last month.

That number may seem small, but considering the sheer amount of Android devices roaming about that’s a sizable portion of the user base. Jelly Bean is dying a slow death, but it’s still commanding a combined 42.6%, which is sadly a bit more than KitKat’s 40.9%. Ice Cream Sandwich is also still hanging in there at a respectable 5.9%.

Despite the world’s leading device manufacturers racing to get their devices upgraded to the newest versions of Android, the fast pace at which the operating system evolves means no one version will ever fade off soon enough. Take Gingerbread, for instance, which still has 6.9% of the pie.

The sad truth is that there are just as many — if not more — devices that will get left behind as there are devices that will get the latest versions of Android. The good part? Manufacturers are starting to take the idea of budget devices seriously and are releasing great low-cost options that come with the latest versions of Android. You might as well upgrade to a new smartphone if you’re one of the unlucky few who are stuck on archaic software.

[via Google]

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

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21 Comments

  1. Great, except I’m not in that 3.3%. When does my Dell Venue 8 get it? Dell support refers customers back to Android developers.

  2. Note 4, where art thou lollipop?

  3. Froyo holding on!

  4. so what you are really saying is there are only 3.3% of us without silent mode?

    1. Whoa whoa, there’s no silent mode?!

      1. eff no. so few of us have it so I’m guessing google decided to work slowly at getting 5.1 out so we can get some of these bugs fixed. I think 3.3% is inflated!

        1. Hah it feels inflated, maybe to make it almost compare to how many people still run 2.x. Seems like a pretty big oversight though…

  5. my device has lollipop and thats all that matters!

  6. Fragmentation at its finest.

    1. “fragmentation” What a silly term. How many types of PC’s are there? What are we all drones that all have to have the same thing?

      1. Have to have same thing? No, as this pie chart breakdown shows us. Want the same thing? Ofcourse, we all want the latest 5.0 software. My flagship phone of 2013, the S4 is still a very nice device. Why it hasn’t gotten Lollipop yet is due to fragmentation. It certainly can support it from a hardware perspective. What some new OEM needs to say about their new flagship is “so advanced you wont want or need to upgrade it for 3 years minimum”. So funny to watch the “hands on videos” of new flagship phones and they say “OMG its so fast and snappy unbelievable”. As if the Galaxy S4, S5 they didnt say the same thing about during the first hands on, or as if they still are not fast and snappy, which they are. When an OEM feature is “you wont feel obligated to buy our next years release phone”, the game will be changed.

    2. http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

      Normalized to get just Windows versions:
      Windows XP – 21%
      Windows Vista – 2%
      Windows 7 – 61%
      Windows 8 – 4%
      Windows 8.1 – 11%

      So… Fragmentation? An issue just about anywhere. It’s only an “issue” because Apple made it one with iOS. OSX isn’t even immune, despite their upgrades having been free lately.

      1. True but in Apple’s defense, Microsoft is going to sell Windows 10 to fix the travesty that was Windows 8 and 8.1.

        1. No, they aren’t. Windows 10 is a free upgrade from 7-8.1. Only XP and Vista stragglers have to pay.

          1. If Win10 is a free upgrade (which I haven’t heard) then that’s great.

          2. Official announcement happened on Jan 21, and just about everyone covered it.

  7. Not loading Lollipop on my S5 because I dont want to loose root, and access to my SD card, again. That crazy concept that wont let me copy a file from my network to my phone onto MY SD card has me beyond upset. So I rooted my phone twice and enjoy the use of my SD card. To have to hop through that hoop every time I upgrade makes upgrading NOT WORTH my time. Since my phone works and I enjoy using it, I dont think I will every upgrade ever.

  8. Fragmentation, fragmentation everywhere

  9. Note to the complainers, Lollipop is rolling out faster than KitKat did. At this time last year, KitKat had only 2.5%.

  10. I still don’t have it on my Moto G 4G 2013

  11. That’s around 36 million devices (based on an estimate of 1.1 billion active users).

    I’m not even sure which phones have updated. HTC One M8 (most regions), Galaxy S5 (most regions?), LG G3, all the Nexuses, Moto X 2014 (not sure about 2013). What else?

    36 million doesn’t seem much! Is that right?

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