Android and Me » android fragmentation

New chart visualizes Android fragmentation

Anthony Domanico — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:20:20 +0000

Michael DeGusta has painted a painful picture of the ongoing Android vs. iOS war. Mr. DeGusta looked back at all US-available Android devices as of mid-2010 and compared their update cycles to that of Apple’s iPhone. Frankly, when it comes to OS fragmentation, it doesn’t look good for Android.

Though the picture certainly would look different if Mr. DeGusta were to look at phones released after June 2010, it highlights an issue many have with the Android platform. People routinely comment on posts here at Android and Me expressing their frustration with not limited functionality or inability to download certain applications because they’re not on the latest version of Android.

Of course, comparing Android to Apple in this regard is like comparing apples and oranges. It’s easy to update the iPhone, since Apple owns both the hardware and software market for their device. Since Android devices are made by multiple manufacturers who all insist on customizing their devices as a means of differentiating their products, it adds a layer of complexity to updating the core Android software. Perhaps this will become less of an issue if we ever hear anything out of the Android Update Alliance.

What do you guys think? Is fragmentation still a big issue? Are you hopeful that the update alliance will come through in the end? Sound off in the comments.

Is Sprint ID the short-term answer to Android fragmentation?

Taylor Wimberly — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:17:04 +0000

What is Sprint ID? It is Sprint’s custom version of Android that is coming to “most all of” their products next year, but I’m still having a hard time figuring out exactly what Sprint is doing with it long-term.

Sprint explains the ID platform to their customers as follows: “Make your phone a reflection of who you are. Sprint ID lets you cut through the clutter by selecting mobile ID Packs featuring apps, ringers, wallpapers, widgets and more. It’s all about you and the things you love to do.”

Basically from what I have gathered (and I’m sure a few Sprint execs will cringe at this), Sprint ID is a theming system for Android that comes with its own segmented market. Customers can download “ID Packs” from the Sprint ID Store, which are a collection of apps you can mostly find in the Android Market.

We briefly previewed Sprint ID during CTIA, but have not really given it that much coverage because it was limited to three low-end Android phones so far. That’s going to change soon because Sprint ID is coming to the Epic 4G, Galaxy Tab, and most of Sprint’s other Android devices.

In an interview on The Engadget Show, Sprint product chief Fared Adib detailed the future of Sprint ID. “We have launched it on three phones today. We are actually going to be porting it to most all of our products”. When questioned if that included the popular HTC EVO 4G, his response was “No”.

As we saw in the comments of the last Sprint ID story, some users were upset about having another custom UI forced onto their phone. Sprint’s response is that the default Spint ID pack offers a blank desktop and this is their “stock Android experience” for users who do not wish to download any ID Packs.

I haven’t heard them specifically say it, but part of me thinks that Sprint ID will become Sprint’s own app store, just like Verizon recently launched V Cast Apps. If the Sprint ID store can distribute apps and it comes on every Sprint phone, what else do you think they will do with it?

The big U.S. carriers have final say about the products they launch and the operating systems that ship with them, so if Sprint wants to do away with HTC’s Sense UI, Motorola’s Motoblur, and Samsung’s TouchWiz, then they have every right to do so.

Sprint has to deal with the growing pains of Android (fragmentation) just like every other carrier, and it sounds like Sprint ID could be the solution to get all their Android products in line and make it cheaper to provide software updates and service them.

If you are curious what Spint ID will do to your Android phone, this is what it will look like.

What do you think of Sprint ID? Is this the solution to Android fragmentation?

Oldest Android firmware still the most popular

Taylor Wimberly — Tue, 04 May 2010 02:31:02 +0000

Its growth appears to have stalled, but Android 1.5 is still the most widely used firmware version for devices that access the Android Market. Google’s latest platform version breakdown comes only weeks after the latest report which was their first since the Droid received Android 2.1.

The newest firmware Android 2.1 jumps up to 32.4% of devices, while Android 1.6 dropped to 29.4%, and Android 1.5 was down to 37.2%. Even though Android 2.1 might not be the leader, it was the only version to increase while the others fell.

This report should look drastically different next month as many first generation phones upgrade to Android 2.1. It looks like Android 2.2 will be coming as well, so we might return to four major versions for a period of time.

Finally, it is interesting to note that only 0.6% of devices remain on Android 2.0.1. These are Droids that have not been upgraded to Android 2.1, but Motorola should be proud they achieved such a high rate updates. A recent leaked document from Sprint revealed that up to 90% of their Samsung Moment’s were running a non-current software version.

Android 2.x continues to grow.

And then there were 3: Google updates Android fragmentation numbers

Taylor Wimberly — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 03:22:10 +0000

After a three month hiatus Google has updated the platform version breakdown for their Android operating system. The latest numbers come just weeks after Verizon updated their Motorola Droid to Android 2.1. The data comes from the number of Android devices that have accessed Android Market and it was collected during the two weeks ending on 4/12/2010.

Android platform versions breakdown.

Android 1.5 now accounts for the most devices with 38%, followed by Android 1.6 at 31.6% and Android 2.1 at 30%.

Since the data came towards the end of Droid 2.1 OTA update, a small percentage of devices still reported as Android 2.0.1. We believe all those devices should now be upgraded to Android 2.1 so I’m just lumping those two versions together in my chart.

History of platform versions.

Comparing the last three sets of data from Google reveals some interesting results. Android 2.1 made the biggest gains since January largely due to the strong sales of the Droid (and the addition of the Nexus One). Android 1.5 also saw gains thanks to Motorola’s trio of the CLIQ, CLIQ XT, and Backflip. Sprint’s Hero and Moment phones are also still on Android 1.5.

The only version that continues to shrink is Android 1.6. The Verizon Devour was the only new Android 1.6 device to launch in the U.S. since the last report and it joins the HTC Dream and Magic.

We expect the majority of first gen Android phones will be upgraded to Android 2.1 this quarter so look for some major changes next time Google updates the numbers.

Google shares Android fragmentation details

Taylor Wimberly — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:32:38 +0000

Google has followed our lead and decided to begin publishing the percent of devices that are running different versions of Android. The new device dashboard will be regularly updated to reflect deployment of new Android platforms. They also plan to expand the dashboard to include other information like devices per screen size and so on.

Data collected during two weeks ending on 12/09/2009. Click to enlarge.

The following points were published on the official Android developers blog:

At this point, there’s little incentive to make sure a new application is backward compatible with Android 1.0 and Android 1.1.
Close to 30% of the devices are running Android 1.5. To take advantage of this significant install base, you may consider support for Android 1.5.
Starting with Android 1.6, devices can have different screen densities & sizes. There are several devices out there that fall in this category, so make sure to adapt your application to support different screen sizes and take advantage of devices with small, low density (e.g QVGA) and normal, high density (e.g. WVGA) screens. Note that Android Market will not list your application on small screen devices unless its manifest explicitly indicates support for “small” screen sizes. Make sure you properly configure the emulator and test your application on different screen sizes before uploading to Market.
A new SDK for Android 2.0.1 was released two weeks ago. All Android 2.0 devices will be updated to 2.0.1 before the end of the year, so if your application uses features specific to Android 2.0, you are encouraged to update it to take advantage of the latest Android 2.0.1 API instead.

These numbers are pretty close to what we found with a slightly larger number of Android 1.6 devices. T-Mobile is the only United States carrier with phones running Android 1.6 (G1 and myTouch 3G) so we can see how important the 4th largest carrier is to Android. Verizon is the only U.S. carrier with a phone running Android 2.x so we can see they make up around 18% of devices.

Finally, we have Android 1.5, which is a combination of devices from Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Sprint has announced their two Android phones will receive Android 2.x sometime in 1H 2010 and Verizon has also promised to update the Droid Eris from Android 1.5.

We are still waiting to see what T-Mobile will do with four Android phones.

What does Android fragmentation look like?

Taylor Wimberly — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:56:33 +0000

Android fragmentation is real and it is not going away. Ask any developer and they will tell you about the difficulties of supporting multiple versions of Android and their different screen sizes.

So what exactly does Android fragmentation look like?

Android visitors to androidandme.com

The above data was generated by Google Analytics and it shows the number of visitors to our site using Android devices. This data was collected between November 6, 2009 (Droid launch) and November 21, 2009.

Nearly 50 percent of Android users are running version 1.6, 26 percent are on the new 2.0, and the remaining 24 percent have 1.5.

Android 1.6 leads the way because the HTC Dream (G1) and HTC Magic (myTouch 3G) phones have been out the longest and sold the most units. T-Mobile has updated both of these devices to Android 1.6 and HTC has made the 1.6 images available on their developer’s site.

I’m a little surprised to see Android 2.0 is the second highest used version. There is currently only one phone (Droid) with this build, but we have heard reports of over 250,000 units sold already. The Droid is being heavily marketed towards the hardcore geek and this site also leans towards the hardcore user so that might be the reason for the elevated numbers.

Android 1.5 has the highest number of devices available right now, but it is coming in 3rd in usage. There really is no excuse for the carriers and handset makers to be shipping phones with the outdated Android 1.5. I know some of these phones have custom UIs (Sense UI, Motoblur, TouchWiz) but they should be easily updated to Android 1.6.

The following is a break down of Android phones and their current versions (United States only).

Android 1.5 devices

Archos MIDs
Sprint HTC Hero
Sprint Samsung Moment
T-Mobile Motorola Cliq
T-Mobile Samsung Behold II
Verizon HTC Droid Eris

Android 1.6 devices

T-Mobile HTC G1
T-Mobile HTC myTouch 3G

Android 2.0 devices

Verizon Motorola Droid

Update (11/23): Added Admob information from their latest report which confirms our stats are pretty accurate.

Most recent Android handset distribution.

Handset breakdown for last seven months.

Admob market trends:

HTC has taken an early lead, thanks to availability of three different devices.
Motorola Droid launched on November 6 already represented 24 percent of all Android requests in AdMob’s network worldwide even though the device is available only in the US.
Worldwide requests from Android devices increased 5.8 times since April 2009 in the AdMob network.
In the US, Android has 20 percent share of smartphone traffic versus 7 percent in April 2009.
The Motorola CLIQ generated 6% of Android traffic worldwide as on November 18th 2009.