Google just released the latest batch of numbers showing us how many devices are on on which version of Android.
The big picture didn't change much in April -- Froyo still dominates, growing to 65.9 percent, up from 63.9 percent a month ago. Gingerbread -- in this case Android 2.3 and 2.3.3 -- climbed a tad, to 1 percent and 3 percent, respectively. Honeycomb's up one-tenth of one percent, to 0.3 percent. The only version of Eclair -- Android 2.1 -- on the list is at 24.5 percent, down a few percentage points for last month.
Meanwhile, legacy versions Cupcake (Android 1.5) and Donut (Android 1.6) continue to wither, at 2.3 percent and 3 percent.
Reader comments
Android April version numbers stay relatively unchanged from the previous month
Um. When did Google release Gingerbread? It still only makes up a fraction of market, and most of those devices are probably running a leaked version or a custom ROM. These manufacturers and carriers that slow down updates are going to drive people to iOS, which makes updates available to all of its users directly and immediately upon release.
The real question you should be asking is how many devices are currently being sold with Gingerbread. That is the largest factor in the distribution of version numbers. Keep in mind that the amount of people who actually care about version numbers "makes up a fraction of market" as you said.
Well I care :) But only if there is real improvement from version to version. I'm still waiting for better tile manipulation (see iOS).
It is ridiculous that months after Gingerbread was released we still have brand new devices coming to market with Froyo and Eclair.
Good point, but the real factor that affects version distributions is updates. 2.2 didn't see significant numbers until the fall of 2010 when manufacturers started pushing updates out to popular phones (Evo 4g, HTC Incredible, Moto Droid). 2.2 had another huge jump around Feb after Samsung started updating their Galaxy S phones in Europe, Asia and eventually the US.
http://www.androidcentral.com/android-22-froyo-already-28-percent-androi...
When current popular phones (Evo 4g, DroidX, Incredible, Samsung Galaxy S phones) start seeing official updates to Gingerbread, then you'll see another huge shift in version distributions.
Froyo is much better than iOS 4.2. Why would someone upset with not getting Gingerbread want to downgrade to iOS 4.2? It doesn't make sense. Is knowing you have the latest version of an OS so important that you'd want to change to a different, lesser OS? It seems so for some people. I'm not one of those.