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It’s the start of the month, and you know what that means: Google spills the (jelly) beans on how its Android operating system breaks down. And Jelly Bean has jumped a few per cent.
It now accounts for 45.1 per cent of all Android devices. That’s up 5 per cent on last month. Google counts Android 4.1 and 4.2, but strangely omits 4.3, which is the latest build. Maybe it’s too minimal to register.
Google also doesn’t count Cupcake and Donut, as they don’t use the Play store. But it does acknowledge they account for 1 per cent of devices. Seriously, who’s still stuck in the dark age?
Gingerbread is still the second most popular version of Android, making up 30.7 per cent of devices, while Ice Cream Sandwich stands at 21.7 per cent. Froyo stands at 2.4 per cent, while Honeycomb — the first version optimised for tablets — makes up just 0.1 per cent.
Fragmentation has been a big problem for Android, with so many different versions making it tricky for software to work across all. Some supposedly flagship devices have also been left out of software updates, so you could pay a ton of cash, only to be kept waiting for months for the latest build of the OS.
Google announced the next version of Android will be called KitKat, after the chocolate bar. It also could have accidentally leaked the Nexus 5 in a promo vid, though there’s not much info to be gleaned from it. The Nexus 4 is in a clearance sale over at Google Play, so we should see the Nexus 5 before too long, along with Android KitKat.
Is fragmentation still an issue with Android? Which version are you running? And what would you like to see from KitKat? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.
