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  • What happens when the people with the old gingerbread handsets upgrade to a new phone with jelly bean or kit kat? Does the percentage of gingerbread go down?

  • Not sure if this has been said already, but the distribution rate for KitKat is absolutely pathetic, and I blame the OEMs (Samsung, LG, HTC, etc.) for this. Because of their bloated piece of crap android skins, it takes them 100 years to update them when a new version of Android comes out. Look at the Moto X, almost stock android with some cool tweaks, updated almost immediately after Nexus devices. This coming from a G2 owner (Moto X as backup)

  • Anyone know of a site where I can look up what version of Android all the phones have launched with? It’s a snow day over here in Jersey and got some time to burn this morning.

    • wikipedia is a good start, or if it’s a verizon phone you can search the DL archives for a specific phone.

  • Nice. Keep moving! Without doing the exact math it looks like nearly 80% are 4.0 and above. That is a very good thing.

  • Been using Gingerbread for the last couple of years .. just 3months ago i upgraded to icecream sandwich .. had a rocky adventure in installing a cyanogenmod rom but now am happy with it .. am settled

  • I remember when I felt special because I had Honeycomb. That moto tablet was awesome though. Maybe I’ll buy it back from the girl ibsold it too. That’s a heavy beast though.

  • Why do I feel like Jellybean will be the new gingerbread. Sticking around for a long long time.

  • I can see 4.1.1 is becoming the next Gingerbread. OEMs need to hurry up and start releasing KitKat updates!

    • Except 4.1. is when Android actually became become good design wise and smooth thanks to Project Butter. Not much in terms of the baseline has changed from 4.1 to KitKat except for Play Services. If you’re on 4.1 you’re not missing out as much as you think.

    • This is exactly why Google needs to keep detaching features from stock Android and shuffle them into the Play Store and Play Services.

      They need to make base Android drop dead easy to update.

    • Don’t forget anything that has access to the Play Store is counted. It also includes phones that have custom roms.

        • …or converted to them. (One of the hottest topics in xda HTC One International forum is a full GPe conversion from Sense and the number of GPe ROMS is surprising)

          • Well, that would be one opinion.

            I’m guessing the number of modders exceeds the current KitKat population, and likely by a wide margin; thus my opinion would differ from yours slightly. 🙂

            I suppose we could argue about something neither of us have any way of verifying. Doesn’t sound like much fun though. *shrug*

          • I was referring to phones that have a GPE counterpart, not all phones that people have modded to Kit Kat. Even then though, we are talking about every android device (with Play access) on the planet, over 900 million. I have met maybe 2 people in my life that have modded their phone with a ROM (outside of the internet). I still maintain rommers are meaningless to these numbers.

          • Arguing about the number of GPe devices (sold or converted) is useless as those numbers aren’t being released, not that we’d have anything to compare them to. I guarantee its more than one though. 😉

            Restating your opinion won’t change mine. See the first and last part of my last comment. What else is there to say..?

  • I expected KitKat to climb higher than that. It’s better than nothing at least. Hopefully KitKat takes over JellyBean soon to reduce the fragmentation. Especially with the fact that it only requires 512 RAM to run smoothly so no phone OEM should have any excuse to use any older version of Android from now on.

    And how the hell are Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich still here? It’s 2014 for petes sake.

    • Some people are still using their 2010 and 2011 phones…..

      and updates are up to OEMs and the carriers.

        • I’m sure those who still use it are the “average joe” type who will keep using it till it breaks or dies on them. I have someone like that in my family who said she’ll use her GS3 till it no longer works.

          • yeah and you can include the people who unknowingly buy the free phone that’s been out for 1.5 years and get stuck with a 2 yr contract, meaning it’s almost 4 yrs old by the time they can upgrade, not even considering the fact that they might just want to keep it.

          • I coworker recently bought a “new” phone. I was a GS3 on contract.
            If the phone is still for sale then the OEMs should be forced to keep the phone updated.

        • Narrow-view, much?

          We should throw away our alarms, clocks and media players because you’re uppity about it?

          Please…

    • My Moto X was upgraded to Kitkat. Besides a few cosmetic tweaks and my contacts list now being a jumbled mess (Android seems to add random people whenever it wants to), I barely noticed. My Nexus 4 is still running a rooted 4.3 ROM, and I am in no hurry to upgrade it.

    • I think carriers are dragging their feet on KitKat because it will open up Google Wallet for most users.

      • That explains why Verizon, the biggest hater of Google Wallet, was the first carrier to get a device updated to Kitkat (other than the Nexus)

        • Exceptions do not disprove a rule. Verizon only has KitKat on the Moto X (and the NFC-less Moto G).

          So far only Sprint (the only big 4 carrier that is Google Wallet friendly) has a 2013 or 2012 Smasung, HTC or LG device that has been updated to KitKat.

    • What difference between KK and JB causes “fragmentation”, as you put it? Would anyone but you care about that “fragmentation”?

      GB is there because some of us didn’t throw away our old devices and still use them as alarms, clocks, and media players. Sue us.

      ICS is still around because it really isn’t all that old, ffs. 4.0+ makes up over 78% of this chart, which relative to the history of this chart, is quite an accomplishment when taken in terms of API level and support.

  • How are there still people using phones with Gingerbread or for the love of all that is holy Froyo?

    • My Droid Incredible is still running Gingerbread happily, and serves as my alarm clock. It connects to Google Play every once in awhile, so I’m sure it’s counted. If I were still on VZW, I think it would still work quite nicely as a phone, and if I weren’t such a geek, would probably still be using it 🙂

      • My DINC serves as my Security Systems DVR. Its on Ice Cream Sandwich but I’m sure its still counted as I update the apps on it once in a while. Still runs like a champ.

    • People who can’t afford new phones
      People who got new phones then broke or lost them and couldn’t afford the $600+ for a replacement and were forced to go back to their old phones
      Kids with hand-me-down phones

      There are a lot of phones that are 2-3 years old that never got updates past Gingerbread

    • Why does it matter?

      It’s not like they are holding anything back.

      Most devs are most likely coding to ICS and above, considering the 78%+ usage.

      As for why: What would you have us folks who’ve been using Android since … forever do with our older, still-working devices? Throw them away? They work just fine for playing media, as alarms, clocks, etcetera; and have no need for the latest OS.

    • The thing is, these aren’t just phones, this is all Android devices, so it contains tons of cheapo knock off tablets, and old retired phones that people still use as media players and alarm clocks. If they could show a list of just active phones with actual cell service, I bet that the numbers would look a lot better. I personally have 2 KitKat devices (Moto X and Nexus 7), I also have 3 powered up that aren’t (Droid 2, Droid 4, and TF101) that I use as dedicated media players connected to stereos.

      • Those cheap knockoffs are sad to look at. 512mb ram. 1ghz processor, 4gb memory, android 2.2, i cry every time lol

        • I still use my Droid 1with froyo as a back up phone and is still registered and running as “My Devices” in my account in the Google store, if only connected by wifi.

          The speaker is the loudest of any phone and still use it as an alarm clock and music player.

          • I do the same. I have three old devices, all running GB in my household that operate as alarms, clocks, media players, etcetera; all still connected to WiFi and Google accounts; all undoubtedly showing up on these charts.

            Good to know I’m not the only one putting old devices to good use. For what it’s worth, these work just fine for what they are currently doing, no OS updates needed.

    • Thankfully it’s not hideous looking like gingerbread. I feel bad for those still rockin GB though

  • 20% of people using Gingerbread is just plain sad. This is why Android has a bad name in some places.

    • i know someone that is still on Gingerbread and that is cause he doenst want to lose his unlimited data from Verizon and doesnt have the money to buy a phone at full price

      • Yeah well that only effects a small number of people. I assume he wouldn’t keep that phone forever.

      • How much does he have to spend? You can get a decent phone on Swappa for a good price. The RAZR M is going kind of cheap.

    • I just sold my Samsung Fascinate on Swappa with the stock GB firmware. People will still go for cheap old phones and experience janky Android unfortunately.

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