Google's Android Now Powers More Than 2 Billion Devices (cnet.com)

At Google's developer conference IO 2017, CEO Sundar Pichai said Android is now running on more than two billion active devices. The milestone, Pichai said, Google achieved this month. CNET adds: It took three years for Android to double its user base, having disclosed that it had 1 billion active devices at its developer conference in 2014. In 2015, Google said that it had 1.4 billion active users on Android. While phones make up a bulk of its devices, it's starting to see a proliferation of other gadgets running on the software.

Comments

Google IO 2017 Keynote

[UnknownSoldier]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Google needs to step it up on the updates

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

Now is the time not just for modularization, but for the big Android players to tell the carriers that the era of them deciding when OS updates get to devices is over. It would be really, really bad PR for Verizon or AT&T to be seen fighting a party composed of Google, Samsung, LG and Motorola over what amounts to "we demand the right to help our users maintain the phones you sell them." They'd fold pretty quickly because T-Mobile would immediately declare itself on the side of the Android vendors because John Legere would never miss such a golden PR moment to stick his boot up the ass of his competition.

Re:Google needs to step it up on the updates

[TheRaven64]

It's convenient to blame the carriers, but I've owned three android devices (two phones, one tablet), all of which I've bought directly from the manufacturer. All three were different manufacturers (Motorola, HTC, and Asus) and not a single one of them received security updates either in a timely fashion or for anything approaching the lifetime of the device.

The problem is that there are no incentives. If you buy an iPhone, the same company responsible for pushing the updates takes a cut of all app store revenue. If a phone stops being able to run the latests apps, then their revenue from that user drops. If you buy an Android phone, the company that has to pay the cost of providing the updates just makes it easier for Google to make money from that customer. Worse, if your Android device stops getting updates then you'll probably buy a new Android device, so they have an incentive not to provide updates.

Java still has them beat

[MonteCarloMethod]

Java has been running on 3 billion devices seemingly since its inception. Android finally got to 2B?