New figures from Android Developers suggest that in 2 weeks (preceding 1st Dec) 43.4% of Android Market activity was by devices running Froyo (Android 2.2) and 39.6% from Android 2.1. This takes the total Android 2.x activity to a respectable 83%. A good part of this should have been from 2.2 updates being outed by some manufactures recently and ofcourse people buying new Android devices would surely be jumping to Android Market more than the average user thus pushing the stats in favor of latest firmwares.
While the figures can’t really be an actual representation of how many Android handsets are running which version, it still is a good enough indicator of what is buzzing.
Google’s Android platform has been under super fire for fragmentation. Dozens of Android loaded smartphones run various Android versions (1.6, 2.1 ans 2.2 mainly) and the trouble begins when a lot of these don’t get updated on time. Manufacturers release a new device with newer firmware and customers owning the older devices are left with a bad taste, leaving Android with bad press.
Do mass users really understand what 2.1 Eclair and a 2.2 Froyo are, is a different debate (remember Sony Ericsson doesn’t even say Android in its promotions for Xperia series). What needs to be seen now is the road ahead, Gingerbread aka Android 2.3 is due out anytime now and how will that affect the above chart is the Q in our minds!
