This month’s latest distribution charts is definitely a good sign for the Android platform. Not only has the latest Android 4.4 version jumped by more than 4 percent, yet another legacy version, Android 2.2 Froyo, is almost on its way out, further cementing the road towards Android version defragmentation.
As of July 7, 2014, Froyo has descended to 0.1 percent of the market pie, down from last month’s 0.2 percent. Considering how very little devices are left running this ancient version, the trend is likely to continue. But since Google removes versions with numbers lower than 0.1 percent from the chart, Froyo will most likely be edged out by next month. The most recent to get the boot was Android 3.0 Honeycomb last month. Given the criticism that Honeycomb earned when it was launched, no one will probably miss it.
Of course, Android 4.4 KitKat’s rise is nigh unstoppable. As of this week, KitKat’s penetration reaches 17.9 percent, a remarkable 4.3 percent increase from last month. That said, it was in June that KitKat saw the biggest increase, jumping by 5.1 percent from May’s 8.5 to 13.6 percent. We are now starting to see newer devices carrying the latest Android version, even budget smartphones, like Samsung’s latest quartet. Years old devices are also getting updated to KitKat, sometimes jumping straight from Android 4.2. Hopefully the trend will continue even with Android L looming over the horizon.
It is somewhat interesting to note that Android Jelly Bean, which coveres Android 4.1 to 4.3, continues to flip-flop among themselves. Although Android 4.1 continues to decline steadily, Android 4.2 is increasing. Android 4.3, on the other hand, fluctuates from increasing to decreasing depending on the month, which could mean that manufacturers upgrading to Jelly Bean are sometimes choosing the slightly older 4.2 over the more recent 4.3.
SOURCE: Google
