Last Updated on April 12, 2017 by Mathew Diekhake
It’s easy to get the Android landscape confused when you report on the latest news all of the time because for most of this year it seems all we have been writing about is the chocolate OS called KitKat. However, the fact remains that a huge portion of people is running anything but, so what are the actual figures behind all of this.
The KitKat variety is now being used on 13.6% of Android-based operating systems, 58.4% are on Jelly Bean, 14.9% on Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread respectively, Honeycomb is not on the list and Froyo has a measly 0.8%.
It is important to remember that it isn’t always a lack of software awareness that has people refusing to upgrade to something new. Take my Dad and has Motorola Atrix, for example, that hasn’t seen any more OTA updates since Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Suffice to say that he is one of the 14.9% still using Gingerbread, and he hates it too because the software always sticks quite on his screen.
Although people don’t always have the opportunity to update if carriers and manufacturers stop releasing software and firmware people do have a chance to do some research on what they are buying so they don’t get stuck in these situations before they would hope. Often it does go by price with the top-end handsets getting new builds sooner and support for new distributions lasting longer after the years go past. Always take a look at the OS ecosystem your smartphone or tablet is in so you can try and predict what will happen for the mobile device you are about to buy.
I am assuming Kitkat to rise swiftly because we are now starting to see Android 4.4.3 KitKat released for the Google Nexus 4, 5, 7 and 10, Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition, HTC One M7 and the M8 and more will soon follow. It is getting to the final stages now before we see a big change to the letter “L.” Many are expecting it to be called Lollipop but I have my doubts. Recent history tells us that the name people have expected to come never been the one the Mountain View company decide. Is this because they just had something different in mind all along, or they made it so that we were surprised? My guess is the latter, and that’s why I highly doubt it will be Lollipop like everyone is expecting.