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Is Kitkat Killing Lollipop Uptake?

BarbaraHudson writes Remember how Windows XP was "good enough" that people took forever to upgrade? The same might be happening with Kitkat vs Lollipop. "According to Google's latest Google Play Store results for early January 2015, less than 0.1 percent of all Android devices were using Lollipop. By comparison, the last major Android release 4.4, KitKat, reached 1.1 percent of its audience in its first month out. In January 2015, almost two months in for Lollipop, KitKat is still number one with 39.1 percent of the market. It's followed by the various Jelly Bean versions, 4.1.x with 19.2 percent; 4.2.x with 20.3 percent, and 4.3 with 6.5 percent. Trailing them is Ice Cream Sandwich, 4.03-04 with 7.8 percent, followed by antique Froyo, 2.2, with 0.4 percent."

12 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Just force them already by Cenan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah that is going to work well for people who don't replace their devices every six months.

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    ... whatever ...
  2. Manufacturers by smallmj · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or maybe the phone manufacturers are being dog slow at rolling out Lollipop upgrades for their recent phones. We don't all have a Nexus.

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    ------- Mark
  3. That's not quite how I remember it by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember how Windows XP was "good enough" that people took forever to upgrade?

    No, but I do remember that Vista was found to be so wanting that many people went back to XP, and those that had waited heard the horror stories and stayed put.

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    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  4. Re:Why do I want to upgrade? by bluegutang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course! Look at the bottom of the screenshot. Does the circle take you to the home screen? Or the square? Better try both and see!

  5. Re: Why do I want to upgrade? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't it include performance and power management improvements? That's useful on its own. Having said that, most people are probably limited by the vendor-provided update offers anyway.

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    Ezekiel 23:20
  6. Re:Competition by Monoman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Didn't they make the same claim in the past only to leave customers with certain phones behind? Why believe them this time?

    MS can say all they want but their past behavior tells us their mobile OS updates are slow to come and they are still playing catch up on features.

    It would probably be more realistic if vendors and carriers guaranteed all OS updates the first year after a phone is released and after that just security updates until the phone is no longer sold.

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    Keep the Classic Slashdot.
  7. Re:Competition by bickerdyke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The easiest way to guarantee that is NOT to provide any updates after launch and instead of "upgrades" start completly new lines of mobile OS. Remember? Windows CE, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile.... I have a GPS with CE lying in a drawer somewhere. It STILL has the most recent version of WinCE.

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    bickerdyke
  8. Re:No. Fragmentation is. by amalcolm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One man's fragmetation is another man's product differentiation/branding

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    Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
  9. Re: Competition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I switched to WP and hated it..

    The apps either didn't exist or were featureless, including Microsoft's own ones. Needless to say, I was happy to go back to Android

  10. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ironically, Apple fanboys don't have to buy a new device just to get a software upgrade.

  11. Re:No by BitZtream · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apart from Apple fanboys, I don't think anybody is stupid enough to buy a new device just to get a software upgrade.

    Then you are in denial, naive or just plain stupid. I work at a phone company that also happens to sell mobile phones, I assure you, plenty of people say they would buy a new phone just for a new version of the OS.

    The real question is WHY SHOULD I UPGRADE to the next version. Apple spews new features all over in press info and even TV commercials. You don't have to go looking for it, they tell you.

    Android on the other hand uses silly code names so it takes normal (i.e. non-fanboys) a long time before they even know WTF lollipop is, and the real kicker is ... unless you go digging, no one anywhere has given any reason WHY you would want to bother upgrading. The people rushing to upgrade to lollipop are the same ones that run beta OS releases, and thats why it has an non-existent user base. No one else cares.

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    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  12. Re: Competition by khellendros1984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've observed the following on my wife's Windows phone:
    - The Line app doesn't do emote pop-ups like it does on my Android phone. If you want to use emotes, you have to look them up manually
    - Her phone lacks turn-by-turn navigation, and won't narrate directions. It's useless as a car navigation device for those reasons.
    - As far as I'm aware, Tubecast is the only Windows app that'll stream to Chromecast, and I think it's Youtube-only
    - Daily reminders to reboot the phone, with the statement that they don't recommend continuing to operate the phone without restarts
    - All the games advertised on TV: No Windows Phone version.
    - No emulators
    - No on-device scripting environments
    - No on-device command-line
    - I like having my ssh +ftp clients+servers available on my phone, because they're easier than connecting a cable
    - No Dropbox app

    I am overjoyed that you don't care about any of the things I've listed...but I do. Most of the items aren't critical requirements on their own, but the combination of all of them together means that using a Windows Phone would be a serious reduction in what my phone could do, for me.

    My certainty is that the Windows app store lacks most of the software that I want.

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