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With Android M becoming official last week — and available now as a Developer Preview — you may have lost sight of the most recent Android firmware version yet to hit your device: Android 5.0 Lollipop. It’s been more than 7 months since Lollipop was released, and you’d think with that with that length of time under OEM’s belts a modest number of Android devices are running the most recent firmware. Well, not so much. Anyone curious to chart Lollipop’s progress across the Android globe need look no further than Google’s newly updated Platform Version numbers for the month of June.
According to the updated numbers, only 11.6% of active Android devices (those that have recently accessed the Google Play Store) are running Android 5.0, followed by Android 5.1 at .8%. That brings the grand total of devices running Lollipop up to 12.4% (up from last month’s 9.7%). It’s not a terrible number, especially considering all of this year’s flagships are running Lollipop in some capacity. Of course, it’s 5.1 — which significantly polished up Lollipop from a usability standpoint — that Android fans are really looking forward to (at least until Android M launches at the end of the year).
There’s a bunch of other numbers you’re likely not to give a hoot about. Not unless you’re a developer looking to support older versions of Android in your apps. We always look at these Platform Distribution numbers as more of an Android report card which really isn’t so bad considering all the varying amount of hardware and carrier meddling that goes into issuing software updates on our smartphones. With the LG G4 and Samsung Galaxy S6 picking up steam, we should see these numbers jump drastically in the coming months.
Terrible. Already talking about M coming out in fall. Fall is not far away.
Winter is coming.
It came last night on GOT.
So did I.
I’m a 1%er! Yay! ¯_(ツ)_/¯
still on froyo? :-P
5.1.
Got the update to 5.1.1 couple of days ago. It’s better than 5.1 but the battery life is still worse than it was on kitkat. The only reason why installed lollipop was the promised battery life improvement
I agree. I’ve gone back to Kit Kat because Lollipop battery life is intolerable on my N5.
I feel bad. I turned on my old Evo (running Froyo) the other day.
can you still run anything good on Froyo?
I turned on my 1st gen EVO when I traded up to get my wifes Note 4 and the screen hurt my eyes. (Not really but it was that bad)
I love Android but I don’t understand just 12% on lollipop and already talking about M…More than 3/4 of the device will never see M for awhile cause lots of people still have old device.
I value a stable device when I have it and so don’t opt to update and still roll with 4.0.2 – until my new LG G54 comes tomorrow and then I have no choice. I always put off updates in OS. Always.
You may want to say from “will never see M for awhile” to “NEVER SEE”.
What don’t you understand? KitKat was at the same point a year ago.
To all the people complaining, what do you want Google to do? Wait till all handsets are at 5.1.1. Then continue to innovate?! Tech moves at a rapid pace, you want fast updates get a Nexus.
No thanks since the inception of time nexus has had crappy battery, poor camera, and putrid storage options plus nobody needs a boring featureless day to day smartphone experience .
Have fun with bloatwiz and long waits to update. Yea def need all that Samsung ‘innovation’ lol
Samsung has really great apps…their notification bar and features are better than anything out there (including stock) have you tried using a S5 note 4 or s6?
Says the guy who only had the Galaxy Nexus, the only Nexus device he’s ever owned, for less than 7 months.
Verizon’s got my S4 on L 5.0. BUGGY AS HELL!
I’m on the same with no problems at all. Try a reinstall.
He probably doesn’t need to reinstall, a factory reset should do the trick.
its not bad now that Zenfone 2 is taking market share out of left field.
got a big scare last night on my N9, thought i bricked it going to 5.1.1. went into recovery and cleared all the cobwebs out, now it runs like a hot knife through butter.
Is there a Project Butter joke there? ;)
Google should only release new android version(other than bug fixes) until current version has penetration of say 40-50%. Otherwise, ugly android fragmentation story continues. Coming out with new android version every year only incentives android phone/tablet manufactures to release new android with only new phones and leave behind not so old phones without new updates. We all know Apple IOS has no such problem.
Lol! An iPhone say 4s running current iOS ver 8 or 9 whatever it is on, is not the same as a 6+ on the same ver. The older models just get a reskin, that’s why iOS numbers are skewed. They do the same thing, they don’t want you on older phones, they want you to buy new ones.
Google isn’t going to stop innovating because people are stubborn and keep phones for 2 years or more. Technology moves at a crazy pace, if you want the most advanced stuff, you have to keep buying stuff every year.
Google shouldn’t stop improving Android just because some manufacturers can’t keep up. Apple doesn’t have that problem because they make both the hardware and software, they don’t have other manufacturers that have to keep up.
As for “fragmentation”, it’s a red herring. For one thing, even if you don’t have the latest version of Android, you get most of the new features through updates to the Play Services app and other Google apps. Second, there’s less fragmentation now than there ever has been before. Lollipop is rolling out faster than KitKat or Jelly Bean did. And Lollipop and KitKat combined are already over 50% of the market. I cannot remember a time when the latest two versions had over 50% this quickly.