Around here, the beginning of the month means paying the power bill, lifting another page on our Hello Kitty wall calendar, and checking the official Android distribution numbers from Google. The period ending on May 1st is a little rosier, with the various versions of Ice Cream Sandwich totaling 4.9% of all active Android devices. That’s more than double the previous increase, but it’s still just shy of one out of every twenty Android phones or tablets.
You can thank HTC’s release of the One series along with sporadic software updates from Samsung and Acer, among others, for the ICS rise. Android 2.3 Gingerbread still runs on the vast majority of Android devices at a whopping 64.3, but its progress is slowing: it’s risen just over half a percent from last month. Froyo is still holding on with a frustrating 20.9%.
As we predicted last month, Honeycomb has fallen below Ice Cream Sandwich at 3.3% of all Android devices. It’s neither gained nor lost in latest numbers – new tablets are being sold with Honeycomb, but others (like the Sony Tablet S and Acer’s original Iconias) are being updated. Say goodbye to Android 3.0, folks, it is not long for this world. It’ll be interesting to see how ICS grows this summer, with the release of the Galaxy S III and most other high-end phones running Android 4.0.
