Android 4.x users increase, but Jelly Bean still suffers

Android 4.x (Ice Cream Sandwich) is now present on 25 per cent of all devices within Google’s mobile ecosystem. 

Android Jelly Bean, the latest version of Google’s mobile software, however, is still something of a non-entity and has not yet broken to two per cent penetration mark, despite launching several months ago. 

Gingerbread, launched way back in 2011, is still the most used version of Google’s Android software, running on 55.8 per cent of all devices. 

Bizarrely, there’s still more handsets running Éclair than Jelly Bean at present, indicating profoundly the fragmentation issues affecting Google’s Android platform – Éclair was launched in 2009. 

To put that into context, Apple’s recently launched iOS 6 was up and running on over 15 per cent of the company’s products within 24 hours of launching. 

Ouch.

One reason why the Android take up has been so shoddy could be because a much larger number of devices launched on Eclair, Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich. Only the Nexus 7 has launched on Android Jelly Bean and only a handful of devices have been updated to the firmware.

To compete with iOS, where people are likely to upgrade straight away, manufacturers and networks need to have the updates ready much sooner. Rather than waiting months to launch a new operating system, companies should have the update ready (and Google should release the update) to coincide with the launch, not after the launch.

Apple has a great advantage because there's either the iPhone manufactured by Apple, or the iPhone manufactured by Apple. Apple can test until their heart's content to make sure the latest update works before releasing it. Android updates have to go out to all Android manufacturers and networks and that must take up a whole lot of time, so Google decides to announce an update without the device support.

The joy of a single model ecosystem, huh?