Latest Android version numbers show no sign of Lollipop, but Froyo is still kicking
Google has updated the version distribution numbers for Android by platform, a tool that helps developers figure out what most Android users are on to help them target development more efficiently. The story? Well, not much has changed.
The latest version of Android — Lollipop — is still nonexistent. We thought we might see it eek onto the chart after a few months of updates and more people buying the latest Nexus devices, but it’s still accounting for less than 0.1% of the overall market share.
It might sound bad, but there’s not much to worry about. The only devices which have received the upgrade to Lollipop on a wide-scale basis are the Moto X, Moto G, Google Play Edition and recent Nexus phones. That crowd of folks is a lot smaller than the millions more people with Galaxy S5s and LG G3s and the like. The upgrade has gone out to those handsets in some parts of the world, but only in very limited capacity.
You may recall that Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean and KitKat also got off to slow starts in their quests to break out, and now they combine to make up a vast majority of the overall Android user base. All of that is to say there’s nothing to worry about — Lollipop will be along shortly, and once the ball gets rolling it won’t stop.
One other interesting tidbit to take away here is that Froyo is still alive, even if only barely. It has 0.4% of the pie. Combined with Gingerbread’s 7.8%, legacy Android is still nearly 1/10th of Android’s overall install base. Good or bad? That depends on how you look at it, but as long as those numbers continue to fall with each passing day we can’t say it matters much.
Lastly, KitKat is growing, which is a good sign that more and more manufacturers are making it a point to get their users up to the latest version of Android possible. The problem? When they finally do get KitKat, they’re going to start wanting Lollipop. And the neverending cycle of update madness continues well into the new year. The full numbers can be found at the jump.
[via Android Developers]