Android Rules Smartphones, But Which Version?

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%.

Comments

Preference

[Anonymous Coward]

"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

[Githaron]

"But which version of Android is most preferred by users?"

The newest.

Re:Preference

[ohnocitizen]

Exactly. I have a Samsung Galaxy S3. I've been waiting for the official over the update to Jelly Bean from Verizon, and there isn't even a publicized release date. (No idea if it will be 4.1 or 4.2 either).

Re:Preference

[h4rr4r]

Is this where the people smart enough to not get it on Verizon laugh at you?

Re:Preference

[h4rr4r]

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

[ZombieBraintrust]

Well it depends. The newest runs like crap on a two year old phone. Some of the early Android phones didn't have enough memory.

Re:Preference

[lister king of smeg]

"But which version of Android is most preferred by users?".

CyanogenMod

Re:Preference

[the_B0fh]

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

Re:Preference

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:Preference

[DickBreath]

> Is this where the people smart enough to not get it on Verizon laugh at you?

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.

Re:Preference

[AuMatar]

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

[icebike]

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, (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 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

[tlhIngan]

It is impossible to do what we have been doing with PCs.

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

[ozmanjusri]

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.

Re:Preference

[ozmanjusri]

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

Re:Preference

[Urban Garlic]

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.

Re:Preference

[pruss]

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 needs root as there is no non-root way to detect app launches). In at least some of the 4.2 builds, it seems that apps can no longer insert global sound effects, which kills global equalizer or audio boost apps, which again may be quite important to a user. Google may have good security reasons for introducing such changes (though I think they should let the user decide), but a user may also have good reasons for sticking with the older OS version.

There may also be low-level apps that do undocumented stuff and that are important to a user that are broken more innocently by newer OS versions. For instance, last I checked, ChainFire3D's night mode, which turns all screen colors to red-and-black on rooted devices, doesn't work on ICS. Yet if one does amateur astronomy, something like ChainFire3D's night mode is really important. (I wrote an open source alternative that works on rooted ICS, but it's only for some Samsung phones.)

There will also be minor convenience preferences. For instance, I hate what Google did with the recent apps list in ICS--I don't see the point of oversize previews of apps that you have to scroll through, as it's much faster to have a single window of icons like in earlier versions--one tap instead of slide and tap. No doubt many users like the recent apps list.

Finally, if an OS version is close to rock-solid on one's phone, and does almost everything one wants, it may not be worth the risk of new instabilities to upgrade.

In my own case, I am deliberately sticking to GB on my Galaxy S2. (My wife has ICS on hers. Her S2 is far less stable than mine, even though I have tons of apps on mine doing all sorts of custom stuff. It could be a hardware issue, though.)

Re:Preference

[EXrider]

Have you actually used an iOS device for any extended period of time, or is this just conjecture based upon accounts of others and ramblings on forums?

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.

Re:Preference

[samkass]

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

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Which version is preferred?

[stevez67]

That should read "which Android version is the one their device will run or has been allowed to upgrade to." It's not like anyone with an android phone running Froyo can arbitrarily decide to upgrade to Jelly Bean.

I miss version numbers

[H0p313ss]

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.

Unanswerable question

[Anonymous Coward]

Which version of Android is most preferred by users?

How would anyone know? The decision is made by the service provider, not the user.

Android Dominance?

[Spy Handler]

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?

[jandrese]

It's well documented that iOS users tend to use their phones a lot more than Android users. Same thing in tablet space.

Re:Android Dominance?

[h4rr4r]

Or that people who did not have to pay for iDevices had enough money left to buy computers :)

A little surprised

[Cinder6]

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.

Did You Get a Voucher for Windows Lol?

[eldavojohn]

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 ...

Worldwide, Gingerbread still rules the roost

[93 Escort Wagon]

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

Confusing Analogy

[SuperKendall]

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.

It won't be a smooth distribution of versions

[steveha]

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.

Bad Car Analogy Two: The Gurgling

[SuperKendall]

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?

Okay seriously, I don't get this

[Voyager529]

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?

Verizon has 3G coverage in Hell, MI

[tepples]

You try getting a Verizon signal from in hell. Then we'll see who's laughing.

I looked up the ZIP code for Hell, went to Verizon's coverage map, typed in ZIP code 48169, and I discovered that yes, Verizon has 3G coverage in Hell.

Re:Still a bad analogy

[LordLucless]

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 less, the same technical capacity, the only difference is one of form. And form is important. The difference between laptops and desktops is one of form. So is the difference between phones and tablets. We're already seeing the start of a convergence where the technical features of phones, tablets, laptops and desktops start becoming similar, and they only differ based on form.

Moreover, some elements of form are a combination of appearance and technical capacity - stuff like physical keyboards, the Transformer's integrated docklike thingy, larger screens, the use of a stylus, clamshell or slab, etc. The point is that the varied Android ecosystem allows customers choice. It's organic - it provides a wide variety of choices, the good ones find a niche, and the bad ones fail and drop off. iOS is much more static - it provides one choice.

That works as long as the people at Apple keep getting it right, and make sure that the single featureset they offer is the optimal for a large portion of their customer base. However, a series of screwups at Apple would kill off iOS; a series of screwups at Google would likely not kill off Android, as the manufacturers can adapt their products.

Anyone can make an APP. And we get variety because of it.

Well, anyone can make an app. They may or may not be allowed to sell it on iOS - but that's really the subject of another thread.

No SNI on Android 2

[tepples]

Try visiting Server Name Indication Test on your Gingerbread phone and see how much it works.

Android updates cost $$$

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought an Android tablet years ago with no phone contract - wifi only. I assumed I'd get updates from Google but no, I am supposed to get it from "my carrier". So, I've never been able to upgrade it and I just used it less and less. So I'll never buy Android again unless I'm confident I'll get free updates from Google. I already know 100% for sure that Apple will support their software so I'm looking at the new iPod Touch.

/. on Blackberry? Ha!

[OhHellWithIt]

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%.

One reason contributing to Blackberry's low numbers on /. might be that the mobile site tells the Blackberry user that his browser is incompatible, and the links don't work if the user acknowledges this and tries to use the site anyway. (Or, at least, that was my experience the two or three times I tried using the site.) Blackberry's browser is, of course, another hindrance, as any site that isn't heavily pared to accomodate small screens and slow download speeds is excruciating on a Blackberry, which is what drove me to buy an Android tablet.

Confused parent post.

[mjwx]

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 didn't understand, I suspect you don't know much about cars (not a flaw in itself, except when pretending to be an expert on cars). "openness" is very important to car buyers for maintenance reasons. If something breaks on a Honda Civic, you know you can take it to any mechanic who'll be able to source a part for you today, whether it be genuine Honda or aftermarket.

In other words, would you buy a car that has the bonnet (hood for the Yanks) welded shut that required a special key from the manufacturer just to open?

If Apple designed a car, in order to change a tyre you'd need to remove the drive train.