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Less than one in three Android users are up to date
GOOGLE'S STATISTICS show that less than 30 per cent of Android users are running the latest version of the operating system.
Google regularly releases information to developers in order to give them a glimpse of the potential audience depending on the features they incorporate in their programs. Data collected up until September show that while Android 1.5 and 1.6 usage is falling, only 28.7 per cent of users polled were running Android 2.2, the latest version of Google's Linux-based operating system.
Perhaps more disappointing was that more than nine months after its debut on the Nexus One, Android 2.1 is found on little more than 40 per cent of devices. One ray of light from Google's data is that Android 2.2 adoption is growing at a faster rate than ever before and above those of previous Android operating systems.
Given that handset manufacturers and operators are taking an inordinate amount of time to customise, brand and otherwise enhance the Android operating system, it's not surprising that consumers are suffering, lagging behind the cutting edge.
Google is currently preparing the third major version of Android, codenamed Gingerbread. It has recently made statements suggesting that Android 3.0 will be more conducive to tablet devices. However for the vast majority of Android users, getting Android 2.2 would be enough for now. µ
Tags: Google
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Am so glad I've dumped the hypnotic fruit-based phone for my Nexus. Open source OS with customized kernels and tweaks that don't result in a death sentence for my hardware issued by the manufacturer if not complied with. Keep those noses in the air.....
Thou shalt not deviate!
This is something the Android powers should have learnt from St Jobs. Allowing network operators to believe they are anything more than a dumb pipe just leads to pain.
In the UK Nokia have harvested this pain for several years. Operators were allowed to customise the firmware (invariably ruining it), and of course never customising later version, so they never got released to their customers.
The result is plenty of N95 owners cursed their phones until the day they went and bought an iphone from O2.
When in truth a bit of hacking to change the N95 to a generic Euro model, and not a UK country variant or network specific model gave you access to the latest firmware and resulted in a very good phone with all new features and bug fixes new firmware brings along.
Today the N97 is the latest victim of premature firmware release, something which seems to have affected Nokia since discovering the ability to update phones after they were sold. The early firmware versions were indeed dire. A few firmware revisions down the road and it's not actually a bad phone. Unfortunately most UK customers will never find this out, and as a result Nokia will fall from their shopping list come contract renewal time.
There was even a campaign on Nokia's own discussion forum to sort out this mess, but it came to nothing. They don't seem to care, which, if anything, insults the customers even more than the crappy initial firmware!
Hopefully the new CEO will have some idea of retaining customers before they have nobody left to retain.
I just hope the Android sort this out, as come renewal time I intend on jumping from the unsteered Nokia tanker and hope to be picked up by a far more manoeuvrable Android speed boat.
that's all
Seems pretty good to me, considering that the big 2.2 rollouts have only started a month or two ago. (I recently got 2.2 on my Droid Incredible, for example.)
And it seems like 70% of users have at least 2.1 now? Neat.
With all the tongue-in-cheek criticism of fanbois on this website, we now find out that Android users are sold lemons too. But it doesn't achieve the same ridicule here. Wonder why?
There are other considerations to this. What of the users that are happy with their Android phone just as it is?
OK, this is definitely not me but not everyone wants/needs the latest and greatest and so long as their phone does the job they bought it for, so what if there's a better version of the OS out there.
I have a couple of colleagues with older Android phones and neither of them are that fussed about apps so long as they have Internet and Email.
It would also be good to have some sort of analysis of the apps out there and the percentage of apps that need the later versions of the OS. If the vast majority of apps still work for v1.5 then what's the point fussing over it?
How open is a platform when you still need handset manufacturers and network operators to update the system?
Did they promise you prompt updates for five-plus years?
Even a PC with microsoft is more flexible, usually allowing upgrades without manufacturers or ISP support.