I am sure that it helps developers of Android apps immensely to know what the most common version of the OS is when they are designing their games and apps. Android Developers has offered up just such details for devs to gander at. The new details offer up the current distribution noting the percentage of a specific version installed and historical distribution levels.
The idea of the info is to offer devs an idea of how many devices their apps will be compatible with. The data in the first chart was collected over two weeks ending on March 15. According to the info the most common version of Android right now is 2.2 with 61.3% of devices on the market running 2.2. The next most common is 2.1 with 29% of devices using that version.
Android 1.5 has 3%, 1.6 has 4.8%, 2.3 has 0.7%, and 2.3.3 has 1% of the market. The least common Android flavor today is Android 3.0 at a mere 0.2% of the market. A second chart offers similar version details in a historical distribution chart with stacked line graphs. Its details range from September 2010 to March 2011.
Well it’s good news. Devs only need concentrate on 2.1+ comparability.
This is really no different than Windows however, the rate or iteration is 2x/year where windows is 1/3 years lol.
Seriously, after Ice Cream which should unite Honeycomb with the rest of the platform Google should really go to a yearly release cycle. This 2x/year Linux thing is clearly a bit much for hardware companies and carriers to deal with. It shouldn’t be but it is. Release what they can via the app market for asap features otherwise concentrate on putting out one hell of an upgrade each year and making sure it is bullet proof! Well, that’s my two cents 😉
Did no one stop to think of doing the math for Honeycomb/tablets?
I expect there is probably ~100M Android devices in the wild.
100M X 0.2% = 20M devices running Honeycomb? Wonder how many are tablets–that puts it ahead of the iPad. Maybe there’s a whole lot of Nook Color tablets being hacked?
Sorry. . .basic math skills error!
= 200K
Sorry. . .basic math skills error!
= 200K
Sorry. . .basic math skills error!
= 200K