Android Rules Smartphones, But Which Version? 298
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google Android's dominance of the smartphone space has been reinforced by a new IDC study that places its market-share at 68.3 percent, well ahead of iOS at 18.8 percent. But which version of Android is most preferred by users? A new set of graphs on the Android Developers Website offers the answer to that question: 'Gingerbread,' or Android versions 2.3 through 2.3.7, dominates with 50.8 percent of the Android pie. 'Ice Cream Sandwich,' or versions 4.0.3 through 4.0.4, is second with 27.5 percent, with the latest 'Jelly Bean' build at 6.7 percent. As demonstrated by that graph on the Android Developers Website, there are a lot of devices running a lot of different versions of Android out there in the ecosystem, all with different capabilities. In turn, that could make it difficult for Google to deliver 'the latest and greatest' to any customer that wants it, and potentially irritates those customers who buy a smartphone (particularly a high-end one) expecting regular upgrades."
Here's how Slashdot readers using Android break down: 31.0% Jelly Bean, 31.5% Ice Cream Sandwich, 0.7% Honeycomb, 22.8% Gingerbread, 4.3% Froyo, 1.1% Eclair, 0.05% Donut, 0.02% Cupcake, 8.5% unknown. Looks like you folks are ahead of the curve. iOS breaks down like this: 67% iOS 6, 28.6% iOS 5, 3.2% iOS 4, 0.5% iOS 3, 0.7% unknown. (These numbers include more than just phones, of course.) Overall, our iOS traffic (8.74%) is higher than our Android traffic (6.75%). Windows Phone and BlackBerry both clock in at about 0.2%.
Preference (Score:5, Insightful)
"But which version of Android is most preferred by users?"
I don't think it's about which version users prefer but rather what version they are stuck with.
Re:Preference (Score:5, Insightful)
"But which version of Android is most preferred by users?"
The newest.
Re:Preference (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm running Jelly Bean on an original Galaxy S using CyanogenMod and it's pretty damned quick. It probably depends on the phone and the added bloat from the carrier.
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I had a Galaxy S until I recently lost it. It had the default app layout (which basically meant google apps only, non of the OEM crud). I noticed a significant slowdown in many apps (especially the browser) moving from 2.3 to 4.0. It wasn't horrible, but it was feeling its age.
Re:Preference (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Preference (Score:4, Funny)
Is this where the people smart enough to not get it on Verizon laugh at you?
Re:Preference (Score:4, Funny)
AT&T has one thing that Verizon doesn't have and will never have.
AT&T's coverage map includes all circles of hell! That is because their secret shadow universal headquarters are located there.
You try getting a Verizon signal from in hell. Then we'll see who's laughing.
Verizon has 3G coverage in Hell, MI (Score:5, Funny)
You try getting a Verizon signal from in hell. Then we'll see who's laughing.
I looked up the ZIP code for Hell [google.com], went to Verizon's coverage map [verizonwireless.com], typed in ZIP code 48169, and I discovered that yes, Verizon has 3G coverage in Hell.
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I've been dithering on buying a tablet, and upgradability is one of the biggest sticking points. I know that if I buy an iOS tablet, I am going to get OS updates for at least 3 years. If I buy an Android device, there is a very strong likelyhood that there will be zero updates whatsoever, not even security fixes.
This wasn't an issue in the days of dumb (I mean feature) phones, because there was only so much you could do with them in the first place. But now we have phones and tablets which are basically
Re:Preference (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been dithering on buying a tablet, and upgradability is one of the biggest sticking points.
Then buy an Asus or a Nexus.
Vote with your wallet - show those lagging vendors who's boss.
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My experience with my Nexus 7 is that getting an Android tablet from Google means you get updates regularly. My Nexus 7 shipped with 4.0.4, and is now up to 4.2.1, in under a year. I expect the Google phones are similar.
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Is it really that hard to do what people have been doing on PCs for ages now? You don't even have to upgrade the baseband, just leave it
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It drives me crazy that folks like you have no idea how ARM SOCs work.
There can't be a reference install. ARM does not even have PCI or anything like it so you can't figure out what hardware it has to even load drivers at boot.
It is impossible to do what we have been doing with PCs.
Re:Preference (Score:4, Interesting)
And that's because all the people involved are being actively stupid. It *IS* possible to have a few standard interfaces. They are just too damned lazy to do so.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/linus-torvalds-arm-has-lot-learn-pc [networkworld.com]
Re:Preference (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it is more that this is a new place for ARM to be in. They were not prepared for something like Android. They were used to be used on one off SOCs for embedded devices that never saw any updates and very little user interaction.
ARM needs something like PCI, it needs standards it needs something like BIOS/EFI. Sadly right now it lacks all that and it really destroys any chance of a standardized installer for the platform.
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Adding standard buses and auto-configuration like on PCs isn't free though, both in terms of cost and in terms of power consumption. When you are trying to make a really, really cheap all-in-one chip with associated driver support and trying to make it last as long as possible on small batteries that sort of thing matters.
Re:Preference (Score:5, Informative)
To be more correct, the PC is really just ONE platform, while ARM SoCs form many.
E.g., in a PC, the memory will ALWAYS be in the same location, the BIOS will ALWAYS be in the same location as well. Once you have those two basics out of the way, it's trivial to figure out where stuff like video adapters are (which happen to be in the same spot for a basic console, as well). PCI enumeration and assignment (which relies on the PCI bridge being in the same spot, as well as stuff like keyboard controllers and all that having the same I/O map).
When stuff's in the same location, it's easy.
With ARM, that's like everyone agreeing to use say, Samsung SoC's for the next 30 years and making sure Samsung's SoCs remain backwards compatible w.r.t. memory maps.
After all, you can still boot DOS on a modern PC these days, If the memory map changed, or even if the memory is not in the same spot as it was before, that won't work as the link addresses are all wrong.
Linux uses device trees for ARM, which is a hack to try to get the same thing on ARM SoCs, but the problem there is things like DMA controllers aren't the same, memory controllers vary, etc. And of course, where one chip can have memory starting at 0x80000000, others can have it at 0x40000000, or 0xC0000000...
Re:Preference (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to give credit to Apple that even users of the positively ancient iPhone 3GS still get first tier support. You would be hard pressed to find an Android phone from that era with official support for Jelly Bean. Maybe one of the Nexus phones?
Um, no, that's not entirely true.
Ask anyone who has installed IOS5 or IOS6 on an old iPhone 3G, or even a 3Gs. Its horrible.
Large portions of new and marvelous best-thing-ever features are just not present on the old phones [about.com], (even those features that do not technically require new hardware elements, or are so slow as to be unusable. Battery life goes to hell, even with after Apple attempts to fix it. Most people who do this immediately hop on the net looking for a way to revert, the rest give up and run out to buy the latest iPhone (which was the plan all along). There is a lot of advice to simply not upgrade [cnet.com] old phones.
Even iPhone 4 users are wary about updating to IOS6.
If anything the fact that you can install IOS6 on older devices speaks only to how little the iPhone has really progressed over time.
Re:Preference (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't speak for the 3GS, but I had an iPhone 4 up until very recently and all of the OS updates, all the way up to 6.0.1 worked just fine for me. I mean, it was incrementally slower past iOS 4, as you would expect with more features (bloat) added for the newer more capable devices, but it wasn't as slow to be annoying or unusable like other devices I've had the displeasure of using. Battery life was always good for the two years I had the 4, I was regularly able to make it 24-48hrs on a charge all the way up to the last day I had it on 6.0.1.
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He has a point about the iPhone 3G. It had too little memory and the upgrade to iOS 4.x went badly for many who tried it until Apple released a patch several months later. Of course, that was years ago and hasn't happened since, and the rest of what he says is inaccurate FUD. As is obvious from Slashdot's own public statistics, iPhone owners are not hesitant to upgrade, with almost 70% on the latest version. And the upgrade works quite well for 3GS and 4 owners.
Re:Preference (Score:4, Insightful)
It still drives me crazy that there isn't a "reference install" for Android that you can use
AOSP is the reference version. http://source.android.com/faqs.html [android.com]
Re:Preference (Score:5, Insightful)
"But which version of Android is most preferred by users?".
CyanogenMod
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You may be right about most cases, but not all cases.
Some people might prefer older versions because Google from time to time disables an API thereby breaking some app important to them. For instance, in JB, Google made it impossible for non-root non-system apps to access system logs, which kills many apps that monitor the logs to check for system conditions like app launch (e.g., I have an open source app that lets you set CPU, orientation and other settings differently for different apps; on JB, alas, it
Which version is preferred? (Score:4, Insightful)
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My HTC Glacier/T-Mobile MyTouch 4G was originally running Froyo when I got it. I've been able to upgrade to Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich, and JellyBean with 3rd party roms from over at XDA Developers.
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HTC is pretty ROM-friendly.
Motorola, OTOH, has locked bootloaders on all its line unless you bought a developer phone. So the easy romming of HTC is a fantasy for Moto owners. The nearest you can get is a 2nd stage preloader that overlays the alternate ROM during the boot process, but I still don't really trust it.
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I miss version numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I'm not the only one but is this just age? Is there a real problem with the "code word" naming schemes?
And stay off my snow.
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Numbers are dry and technical. Real words, particularly words that have positive connotations (sweets as being tasty and desirable, big cats as being sleek and powerful) are memorable and evocative. It's a branding exercise more than anything else.
Did You Get a Voucher for Windows Lol? (Score:5, Funny)
No, no problem using words instead of numbers. Numbers are boring. Also, you can get it wrong - windows 3,95,98,2000,7. Lol!
So they just went ahead and changed "Windows 8" to "Windows Lol!"? Sounds about right ...
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What will 'K' be? Can they use a trademarked name, like Kitkat? Koolaid?
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Keylime Pie
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I'd like it to be Koeksister. Unfortunately, I'm told that they are planning to use Key Lime Pie. (It's not a biggie, but I'm not keen on that as a name).
Unanswerable question (Score:5, Insightful)
Which version of Android is most preferred by users?
How would anyone know? The decision is made by the service provider, not the user.
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Most people, that is... Some devices can be dragged into Jelly Bean land with a solid ROM and work without issue.
Other devices tend to be set aside at best thanks to locked bootloaders. For example, the Atrix 2 had promise, but the combination of a locked bootloader with the killing off of the laptop-esque dock made it just something to toss in a donate bin and write off taxes.
Android 2.3.7 (Score:2)
Android Dominance? (Score:3)
Android 68.3 percent, well ahead of iOS at 18.8
So there are over 3 times as many Android phones as iPhones, yet internet usage by Android is *lower*?
Something is fishy here.
Re:Android Dominance? (Score:5, Informative)
Not at all surprising (Score:2)
So there are over 3 times as many Android phones as iPhones, yet internet usage by Android is *lower*?
I own an Android device myself. But the only thing on it that's usable at all is Maps.
There are tons of super-cheap Android devices sold that don't have great touch screens and thus people don't use them much except for the basics like email and maps and texting.
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Android 68.3 percent, well ahead of iOS at 18.8
So there are over 3 times as many Android phones as iPhones, yet internet usage by Android is *lower*?
Something is fishy here.
Most Android phones are the low-cost, low-margin, free-after-subsidy variety that are used at texting phones. Most iPhones are actually used as smartphones.
I create Android and iOS apps for a living. At this point iOS apps have a much larger potential market, despite the fewer number of devices out there.
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That's the other issue with Android. Google can tout their numbers but 68.3% on its own doesn't mean anything unless y
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So there are over 3 times as many Android phones as iPhones, yet internet usage by Android is *lower*?
Something is fishy here.
I'm guessing android users are spoofing the user agent on their browser to iPhone because so many websites still look and work better on mobile when the web server thinks you have an iPhone.
Re:Android Dominance? (Score:5, Funny)
Or that people who did not have to pay for iDevices had enough money left to buy computers :)
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Does not fit (Score:2)
Many Android phones are also prepaid phones. People on tight budgets use less data.
And yet, most mobile users consume data primarily on WiFi where the budget does not matter...
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Don't always confuse the data consumed by the iPhone as any real indication of "doing more".
There are serious bugs [guardian.co.uk] in the IOS system, some of them long standing ones that cause huge cellular data usage [tidbits.com] that users can't explain and can't control [tidbits.com]. There are numerous HUGE threads on Apple support forums about high unexplained data useage [apple.com]. And SIRI is not the only data hog [zdnet.com].
Also, none of these web data usage studies takes into account the number of old iphones used only on wifi as the users have moved on to to
A little surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
Yada yada, "preference" is the wrong word here. Anyway...
I know there are many articles saying that iOS has more overall web usage, but I'm still surprised to see that it's even the case with a demographic like Slashdot. Of course, it doesn't mean there are more iOS Slashdot users, but it's still interesting.
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Why fiddle with UA strings at all (Score:2)
You can get to the desktop Slashdot just fine in mobile browsers. I forget how as I switched long ago but look for a link that says "full version".
I really doubt that accounts for any difference at all.
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most browser for android have an option "request the desktop version of the site"
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I believe it does, its just hidden away in the advanced section of the settings as I recall. I could be wrong though, been awhile since I was using gingerbread.
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I do agree it doesn't account for much difference on most sites, i was just saying Slashdot is one of the few places where it _might_ be a measurable factor given the audience.
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If google doesn't do it already they need to release hardware stats too so people know if they target a certain level and OS version then how many people will they could potentially have. This is why developers still prefer iOS because I suspect the actual
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Doesn't matter which version (Score:2, Interesting)
It rules for the same reason that when you look in the parking lot you see no two cars alike. They all have different versions of equipment, or different model years. Nobody cares. What does matter is that, like Android phones, they come in every size, shape, color, style, feature combination and price that one could want.
Openness. It a
Confusing Analogy (Score:5, Funny)
It rules for the same reason that when you look in the parking lot you see no two cars alike. They all have different versions of equipment, or different model years. Nobody cares....they come in every size, shape, color, style, feature combination and price that one could want. Openness. It appears that it may always win in the long run.
What is "open" about cars at all? I can't generally use parts between them, often not even within the same model line between years.
About as close as a car gets to being "open" is that I can buy a floor-mat that fits badly in ALMOST any car.
Cars are "open" in the same way that Android and iOS and WP8 and every other Smart phone are "open" already. I can buy a tank of gas anywhere and use it in my car (well, not Diesel....). I can also use a number of carriers from any smart phone (well, not any smart phone, some are carrier locked). I can browse the web anywhere, well, except for web sites that use Flash or SIlverlight because those plugins don't exist anymore on most mobile smartphones.
I guess they are alike in that I can use the same cleaning products for any car, and can find cleaning products that also work for any smart phone?
In the end your analogy just seems really bad, even considering it's based on cars which are foolproof in the analogy department.
But perhaps it's just you trying to claim something the opposite of what is being demonstrated; cars after all are a prime example of how proprietary and closed wins over the hearts and minds of consumers.
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I've had a couple different generations of Android phone. All my apps worked across all. I am under the impression that Kindle Fire runs Android apps. It certainly uses the Amazon App store -- which I can and have used to get apps for my Samsung Android phone. So I'll stick with my point: Android phones are more alike than they are different.
(If I am wrong about Kindle Fire running Android apps, I would appreciate being corrected on that point.)
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To answer your question, the Kindle Fire can run Android apps.
It gets a rough time and limited content from the Play Store because it doesn't have some 'normal' features that many app manifests ask for, but don't need. However, most .apks can be sideloaded and run quite happily.
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I'm not so sure. Many minor assemblies such as Brembo brake callipers are common across many vehicles. Also, many manufacturers share common chassis designs with a cosmetically different body.
Take a look at these three:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/VW_Sharan.jpg [wikimedia.org]
http://www.albacars.com/image/seat_alhambra.jpg [albacars.com]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Ford_Galaxy_-_first_generation.jpg [wikimedia.org]
Same chassis, three different makers.
However, I do dislike the car analogy. Invariably the iProdu
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I'm not sure I would use the word "open," either. It's more about "choice."
My roomate's nephew got himself an iPhone 4. But he secretly lusts after the Galaxy S3. He loves the big screen.
Personally, I like the size of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5--I like that narrowness that I can grab comfortably. The Galaxy S3 feels a little too big and light and I feel like I'd drop it. But, again, that's me.
The example of the parking lot of cars is a good analogy--not so much for openness but for choice. Check out t
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His point wasn't phrased the best. Look at the cars in the carpark. You see huge variety in size, shapes, colours, functions, etc. You don't see a monoculture of same size, same shape, same features. Apple's tight corporate control enforces that sameness; Android's openness allows companies to produce the sort of variety you see in cars.
Car's are only "open" inasmuch as the key patents have expired, and the basic engineering principles are well known. Anyone can make a car, and we get variety because of it.
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You have an iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad mini... However.
All of which share certain design elements, and, even so, constitute a very narrow spectrum of variation. Most Android manufacturer show more variation in just their products than iOSes entire line-up. Note that this isn't judging whether variation is good or bad - Apple obviously thinks that such consistency is good for their product image - it's just observing the degree of variation.
The thing is that with any computer device, the TRUE measure of variety is what you can do with it, not superficial appearance.
Not really. If that were true, then why would Apple put out an iPhone, an iPad, and an iPad mini? They all have, more or le
Confused parent post. (Score:3)
It rules for the same reason that when you look in the parking lot you see no two cars alike. They all have different versions of equipment, or different model years. Nobody cares....they come in every size, shape, color, style, feature combination and price that one could want. Openness. It appears that it may always win in the long run.
What is "open" about cars at all? I can't generally use parts between them, often not even within the same model line between years.
I have NGK spark plugs in my Honda.
I can choose between Firelli, Toyo or Khumo tyres. Hell, if I really wanted to I could take the K20 engine out and replace it with a 357 Chevy... not that it would work very well but I can. I'm not forced to use Honda oil, Honda petrol, Honda tyres, Honda Brake pads, Honda clutches, Honda seats, I can use any brand I can get.
Hell, next week I'm putting in an Apexi intake... Sure as shit not a Honda approved part but she's going in.
But perhaps it's just you trying to claim something the opposite of what is being demonstrated
Nope, the GP is right. You simply di
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I also didn't like that everyone that has an Android phone that remains relatively up to date and cool also uses cyanogenmod. As someone
Worldwide, Gingerbread still rules the roost (Score:3)
As with so many things, Slashdot users are not typical of the wider world. According to android.com, the marketshare for Android versions 3 and up isn't at 40% yet...
http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html [android.com]
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Someone should pass a law or something.
Bad Car Analogy Two: The Gurgling (Score:3)
when I look in the parking lot, I notice that most people are not driving the very latest model car!
Wouldn't you rather expect them to if they could have the newest model with only a five-minute download?
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The answer, at a place like Slashdot, seems like it has an obvious answer.
But in reality (not Slashdot), the obvious answer is the opposite.
No.
Most people, your mom, the school cheerleader, a doctor, the car dealer, etc, will NOT have the latest phone OS even if it were a five minute download. And the reality is that in some cases it is more trouble than a five minute download. So I sup
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It's a new thing I'm trying out. Not reading the articles has worked so well, I figured I'd save a bit more time skipping the summaries too.
Well, unlike IOS versions (Score:2)
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which becomes useless if you don't upgrade. Android OS versions each have their unique abilities and are all worthy in-themselves. I can still use an Android 2.2 device to its full extent, same can't be said about Apple products.
iOS6 has support all the way back to the iPhone 3GS. Apple supports previous hardware as well as anyone.
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Actually, Apple supports previous hardware *better* than pretty much everyone else. The only one that does better, is Microsoft. Well, for PCs at least. Their mobile devices... not so much.
The vast majority of devices receive either minimal updates, or most likely no updates at all.
Older iOS versions work just fine (Score:2)
Well, unlike IOS versions which becomes useless if you don't upgrade.
That is totally false. Lots of people wait a long time before upgrading. Almost all iOS developers support iOS 5.1, most of them even support back to 4.1.
And even if you never upgraded you could just keep using the device and the apps you had installed as long as you wanted. It would simply be the case that over time you'd be able to use fewer new applications and some updates to apps you had.
iOS users don't upgrade because they NEED
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They upgrade because Apple pesters you until you do [...]
FTFY.
Re-Fix (Score:2)
They upgrade because Apple ASKS YOU ONCE and then doesn't care if you proceed without upgrading.
It's funny how Slashdot geeks would hold back commenting on any other topic where they had no knowledge, but with Apple many are genius-level administrators even though they don't use the product or have not for years.
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It won't be a smooth distribution of versions (Score:3)
Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" was the newest phone OS for a long time, because it was followed by Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" which was only for tablets. A whole bunch of phones shipped with Gingerbread.
After a long time Google released Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" and then, after a much shorter time, Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean". ICS was a big enough change that the phone companies were a bit slow to roll it out, with many phones shipping with Gingerbread and a promise that ICS would be provided as an update. Early adopters made an effort to get new phones, but most people kept on using their existing phones (which after all still worked).
Thus I would expect Gingerbread to still be a large chunk of the Android phones in current use, with ICS or Jelly Bean as an ever-growing segment. I've seen articles claiming that the large amount of Gingerbread still in use is a "problem" or a "failure" but I don't see it that way.
At this point, new phones no longer come with Gingerbread so over time the old phones will be replaced with ICS or Jelly Bean.
I don't think we can learn anything useful about the merits or weaknesses of Android 2.x versus Android 4.x by looking at market share. It's almost purely related to what was available and when. Early adopters always want the newest, other users mostly just buy a new phone when they need one and take whatever system the phone is running.
But I will say that there is no way the Galaxy SIII would be as popular as it is if it were saddled with Gingerbread.
No carrier updates (Score:2)
Perhaps this is telling in how little support is given to phones after they are sold. Mine runs Gingerbread (2.3.3). It is 2 years old, yet was released 2 years, 4 months ago. No updates were provided past 2.3. Sure, I can install CM on it or another flavor, but most consumers will not do that. I expect the numbers to reach Froyo levels in 2013 as users start swapping carrier-subsidized phones for ICS or JB. One thing Apple does get right...phones get new versions of the OS long into the future. The Android
Android version fragmentation is google's fault (Score:2, Insightful)
If Google would have made it so that OS upgrade directly came from them and not the scumbag carrier, most phones would be running v4.0 or better.
Instead if the carrier thinks it will benefit them (the carrier, not their custmers), then they will crapify the OS and impose it on their captive customers. Most times they wont do this because the new OS is what will sell a new phone.
Okay seriously, I don't get this (Score:3, Informative)
People on tech forums always complain about how fragmented Android is. "ZoMg iM sTuCk On TiArAmAsU!!!!!111 WhEn WiLl i GeT wHiTe ChOcOlAtE MoChA??? WAAAAHHHHHhhh!!!!!1111 $MY_CARRIER iS tEh SuXoRz!!!"
In my experience, it's more version number bragging contests than anything else. The only apps that don't run on every version of Android I've used since 2.2 (now a three year old release that counts for less than 3% of devices combined with all of those below it) are LBE Privacy Guard (doesn't run on Jelly Bean but runs on anything else; XDA-Devs has a translation of the Chinese variant that works fine), 4EXT Recovery (which is more hardware specific than OS specific since it's actually a recovery environment), and a few power widgets since ICS and up don't allow widgets to directly toggle GPS and the baseband. Everything else, from Amazon daily free apps (usually games) to Netflix, to media players, to Root Explorer...it all works flawlessly on every Android device I've owned.
Yes, Jellybean gives us Google Now and pseudo-Swype. Yes, ICS gave us a somewhat different UI (I prefer the vertically scrolling app drawer myself...and yes I know about the third party launcher apps; that's not the point) and MTP instead of USB Mass Storage (another change I somewhat-understand but can't stand). If your hardware supports NFC, ICS can also utilize that, although its utility is still in the "because I can" / "the iPhone doesn't have it" stage. Beyond those changes, I have to Wikipedia the rest.
Really, the bigger differences tend to follow the OEMs. I personally really like HTC Sense, though I know plenty of people (especially here) disagree with me. Touchwiz doesn't completely suck like Motoblur does, and the bone-stock nexus/cyanogen UI seems a bit too minimalist for me. For end users, the differences in those skins is going to be a bigger change than between different android versions, especially since, once again, they all run the same apps.
Everyone complains about how fragmented Android is, but literally every OS that's ever had more than one version will have that. Windows? XP/Vista/7/8, to say nothing about the asymptotic number of 2000/9x users clinging to their 15 year old desktops that still work perfectly and refuse to die. No one complains that Windows is fragmented. OSX? Tiger/Leopard/Snow Leopard/Lion/Mountain Lion all exist, all happily running Final Cut Pro, Logic, Photoshop, and iLife. Linux? There's an extensive SVG-formatted family tree of flavors over on Wiki, all doing something. iOS? Perhaps the closest to a unified platform, but there are still plenty of 3GS devices and older-gen iPod Touch units running iOS 5.x (including every first-gen iPad), 4.x, and likely still a handful on 3.x.
No matter what you compare Android to, you'll be comparing it to something with plenty of fragmentation of its own. Fragmentation has never stopped a computing platform from adoption, and just because there is a version of $WHATEVER_OS newer than yours doesn't instantly prevent all the existing applications from running unless the OS maker royally messes with stuff or involves a completely different flavor of hardware or something equally drastic. So why is it that Androidland always has their knickers in a twist over the fact that their hardware isn't running THE LATEST version? If it was really that big of a deal, most phones have fairly simple rooting instructions over at xda-devs or sdx-devs.
Mobile OS updates were RARE before the iPhone; I remember my HTC Dash getting exactly one (official) update. Desktop Windows never gave free updates, and neither did OSX - that was always something the Linux community prided itself on, but the Linux community isn't attempting to perpetuate a business model.
I'll conclude with posing the question again: Why does Android get the 'fragmented' label as a derogatory stigma and a 'problem' in need of 'solving', when literally every operating system ever can also wear that badge just as well and no one cares?
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Panzers? No no no. We're sending in the M67s.
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But especially after.
One answer is that Apple wanted, and felt entitled to an absolute monopoly, despite that nobody had copied any of their source code, and others had done all of their own hard implementation work.
But another possible answer is that other equipment manufacturers would have made phones in sizes, shapes, styles, and features that would have offended Apple's (o
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Why couldn't they license IOS after they saw Android approaching. If with higher profit margins for apple, if the smartphone war copies the pc war, their market share will eventually dwindle to a point where they struggle to stay afloat.
It will?
I'm not seeing how they're going to struggle to stay afloat. Apple will do what it has always done - sell the products it wants to and keep tight control of the vertical integration.
Licensing their OS nearly killed them back in the day, so I doubt they'll ever do that again.
They're one of the few PC vendors who are actually growing in a stagnant/shrinking space (looking exclusively at PCs and not iOS devices) despite their small market share in that segment.
They sell iPhones as fast as they can make
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I truly and sincerely hope they do just that. Make a premium product that (some) people want and are willing to pay for. Compete in the market, and leave everyone else alone. Give up the monopolist wannabe fascination. . . . and . . . I truly hope they are successful at making a product that some people want.
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Yes, I am implying that. But I'll state it right out.
From my POV, it certainly appears that Apple is concerned about having any competition in smartphones. They pick the most successful smartphones, at any moment in time, and sue. Back in 2009, HTC was clearly the one to sue. At present, it's Samsung.
If you assume for a moment, as I do, that Apple feels entitled to a monopoly, then this view makes sense. Apple could see what w
Why throw yourself down a well (Score:2)
Why couldn't they license IOS after they saw Android approaching.
Why would they? Even now, they are second in sales only to Samsung, and even then they are ahead of Samsung in U.S smartphone sales....
So you would want them to throw away the success they have had and start to emulate Google who makes nothing on Android but lets device makers gain all the profit. Why does that make any sense for Apple?
As things stand Apple is much better off where they are, building systems that lots of people like to buy,
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Thank you for your articulate, well-considered and thoughtful insight. It has convinced me to repent of my Android sins, join the cult and embrace the one true and only way.
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Why should the consumer worry which version as long as it works?
Only certain versions will work due to incompetent devs. I was looking at that MS app for android phones that connects to an xbox, basic front end, pretty much like the roku front end, the mythtv remote front end, and the plex front end I already have working. Needless to say the devs made it require very advanced hardware to do a very minimal software job.
No SNI on Android 2 (Score:3)