21% of Android devices are now running ICS | Hacker News Reader

21% of Android devices are now running ICS

developer.android.com

41 pointsesolyt74 comments

So one year after ICS came out and about three months after ICS' successor came out, there's finally 21% of the devices running a now outdated version of Android?

And we are celebrating that?

Google really needs to find a solution to get these devices updated independently from the manufacturers which are only interested in selling new devices.

It's very frustrating for developers to see more and more features being added to the platform that are out of reach for years or require a lot of work to implement in a backwards compatible way (which then also isn't worth the effort because nobody is running the newer versions)

We've recently put out 2 Android apps for our local market, one for the business market, one for the medical professionals market, and I guess it's because of that our stats (from the Play Developer console) are significantly different than these.

Business app: ICS 53%, GB 37%

Medical app: ICS 46 %, 40 %

So while it's not all rosy, the actual impact of the fragmentation is significantly dependant on who your target market is.

Also as a tip to all developers struggling with fragmentation:

- https://github.com/JakeWharton/ActionBarSherlock/ (ActionBar library for pre-ICS devices)

- https://github.com/ChristopheVersieux/HoloEverywhere (Holo Theme library for pre-ICS devices)

They're both well known, but doesn't hurt to repeat, these will make your life a lot easier.

"Google really needs to find a solution to get these devices updated independently from the manufacturers which are only interested in selling new devices."

Why? I mean I'm sure Google would love faster updates from their partners and I think going forward they've decided to share their roadmaps with more then the current nexus partner which should help but:

(1) At the end of the day Android is doing gangbusters even with slow updates.

(2) There's a distinct line of devices that should get fast updates if that's a killer feature for you.

(3) The whole point of Android is they don't all have to do anything.

As Google moves more and more into the market of being a (the?) content provider for Android devices, they will sooner or later find themselves in the same spot as third-party developers do now: Hurting because they can't use the features that newer platforms would provide.

I'm sure Google is already the developer of the most-downloaded, most-popular Android applications, by a large margin. To date, that seems to have motivated them to establish a good foundation for introspection and dynamic dispatch early on and then produce compatibility libraries as needed. I suspect they find the current situation an acceptable trade-off.

Why ? Because most Android users don't like the fact that their devices are basically abandoned the minute they are purchased.

It is by far the number one problem with the platform at the moment. And frankly the idea that Google should do nothing about addressing Android's biggest flaw is pretty dumb.

Actually, most Android users (scratch that, most cellphone users) do not care about updates at all. I've seen "normal users" with notification icon about update available and what they do? Ignore it. (To add, in Sony Ericsson's case, the notification is non-dismissable. Their biggest concern was, how to make it disappear. They didn't want to run the update; "the current software is fine").

Your argument is simply not true. iOS users regularly update as we've seen time and time again. Windows users regularly update. OSX users regularly update.

What makes Android users so different ?

Apple makes it difficult for iOS users to not update (consider all of the effort in the jailbreaking community to keep devices on old OS versions).

Android OEMs and carriers, on the other hand, often make it easy to not update even when an update is available. For instance, they might deliberately not push an OTA update and instead require users to use a manufacturer-proprietary desktop application if they want the update. And, unlike iTunes for iOS users, most Android users aren't in the habit of using these applications since they're almost never necessary and usually less convenient than doing things directly on the device.

Only iOS users regularly update. Windows Phone was also sold only to enthusiasts, who had to update to Mango, as the platform matured. Other cellphone platforms users do not update, even if they can. In some cases, they cannot and they are used to that (e.g. Symbian).

Windows and OSX are desktop systems, and not all of their owners update. Witness the prevalence of XP and 10.5 in the wild.

If memory serves me correctly there's a decent sized pool of iOS users that never hooked up their phone to the computer and so haven't gotten any updates since they bought pre-OTA.

Going by wikipedia's usage share of web browsers maybe I'll say 15%+?

You are right, when taking anectodes into account, I have such users around me.

Even those, who are capable of OTA updates, they often don't (if your monthly limit is 1GB of data, you are not going to burn it on update).

It may be difficult to accept on HN, but really, mainstream users do not care about firmware updates. It is actually net negative for them. They have a device they are using and the update changes the behavior, that they are used to.

"most Android users"

I'm guessing most actually don't care. That's the point of Android -- if "most" really cared the market would respond in a bigger way to that. The Galaxy Nexus has done well in sales but ultimately it's losing head to head against ICS phones.

I'd say "don't care" is a pretty accurate reading.

When ICS arrived for my wife's SGS2, she was probably more irritated by the update clearing her home screens than she was about most of the improvements in ICS. IIRC, the only feature that qualified for actual excitement rather than mild interest (or even less) was the ability to kill Vlingo dead, dead, dead.

I've bought an android phone last week. I'd say that about 75% of all models sold are running Gingerbread. Some of them can be upgraded OTA to ICS; but a significant part have to be painfully upgraded using a PC, and another significant part can't be upgraded at all. So maybe JB is the state of the art, but at this moment exactly one device is available with it through European biggest carriers (the Nexus). It's more reasonable to say that ICS is the state of the art and GB will remain the basic system for many phones for a long, long time.

My view of the situation is that the period between the Android version launch and the launch of the first non-Nexus device is Android's equivalent of iOS's public beta. Note, in particular, the large volume of changes between Android 4.0 and 4.0.3, many of which were about adapting ICS to devices other than the Galaxy Nexus. I guess Google doesn't want to talk about it that way because, among other things, you're buying the device with beta software, but, functionally, that seems to be what is happening.

"My view of the situation is that the period between the Android version launch and the launch of the first non-Nexus device is Android's equivalent of iOS's public beta. "

I would say this is straining for equivalence. The day iOS 6 went into public beta you could run it on a 2009 3GS.

Fundamentally Google has little power over phones that have already been sold so even if it wanted to it can't change the fact that many phones sold won't get official updates. So Google's focus has to be on tomorrow's phones. It puts the source out there for old phones and customers can complain to Samsung or use Cyanogen or not care.

OTOH Apple does have that control over older phones and coupled with the few models available this means it can afford to deliver an experience that's slightly more developer and customer friendly (in this respect). The fundamentals of this don't seem likely to change anytime soon.

The bottom line is if timely and regular updates are your killer feature then you're taking your chances with anything that isn't a nexus or iOS device. And while nexus devices are a clear 2nd place, iOS is Secretariat at the Belmont.

The irony I guess is we'd expect Windows Phone to fall between iOS and Android here and yet they've basically been the biggest joke. I guess they get points for honesty? We'll see how many checks those points cash at nokia's bankruptcy proceedings.

I'm not saying they're exactly equivalent, but let me make the my reasoning more concrete so you see what I'm talking about.

With respect to a new OS release:

(a) When can people outside of the OS developer / OEMs and relevant carriers first use the new OS version?

Android: When the Nexus device launches

iOS: With the iOS public beta

(b) When do developers get the SDK for the new release?

Android: Shortly before or around the Nexus device release

iOS: With the iOS public beta

Android: Some number of x.x.x releases after the initial Nexus launch (probably 4.0.3 for ICS). For example, at least one core Android developer said that they didn't get ICS working on anything with less than 1GB RAM (or a 720p screen is a logical inference given the possible devices) until 4.0.3 on the Nexus S! I don't know what to call Android 4.0, but I'm sure "done" doesn't fit.

iOS: When the OS is released

I'm only buying nexus devices from now on unless a manufacturer gives a guarantee on update delay and life of phone (or at least establishes a good track record)

As much as I love my Samsung devices, really got burned by those updates

Virtually all the Galaxy S/2/III phones are supported by cyanogenmod. Reflashing a phone is scary and weird when you do it the first time, but it's really not hard and the community support is quite good.

If you're at the point, as a technical user, where OS flexibility is more important to you than the device choice, then it's probably worth your time to puzzle out the process.

Reflashing a phone is scary and weird when you do it the first time, but it's really not hard and the community support is quite good.

You're right -- it's not hard. Just annoying and possibly risky. A lot of these ROMs are alpha/beta quality and not fully tested. For example I installed a JB ROM on my Galaxy Nexus 4G that broke my GPS. I didn't even realize it until I was lost and needed GPS to find my way back to the highway. Most of these ROMs (none yet?) have OTA updating so once you flash you are committing yourself to maintaining it going forward. So for example if there's some horrible security problem you may never get patched unless you seek it out yourself. This brings up the issue of installing software from untrusted sources. Cyanogenmod is fine but what about all the others? Call me old fashion but I don't enjoy flashing random ROMS I find on web forums. Seems like that could end really poorly.

The final annoyance that gets me every time is these different ROM releases often require you to wipe system data. So you have to use something like Titanium Backup, which has a UI similar to the cockpit of a 747, to back things up yourself. On my first attempt to do this I accidentally restored 'system data' or something like that which borked my phone up really well. I had to repeat the whole process of wiping and starting over. The other gripe is when TB reinstalls apps you have to sit there and hit install/done about a million times.

Even as a technical user I just don't want to deal with it but I still do want the latest OS release. I even foolishly bought a Galaxy Nexus thinking I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore but I didn't buy the right Galaxy Nexus that gets updates from Google. Silly me.

>Cyanogenmod is fine Yes it is. > but what about all the others? You don't need to venture beyond CM if you don't want to, but really, CM brings the whole "land of milk and honey" thing to the table.

If you get kicks out of flashing "edge" ROM's (I do) then you can go nuts, but if you're looking for fast, reliable and full-featured (of which stock ROM's are almost universally are not), then just flash CM and enjoy the phone as it was meant to be before marketing and lawyers fucked it up.

> I didn't buy the right Galaxy Nexus that gets updates from Google. Silly me.

You can fix that: http://webtrickz.com/easiest-way-to-change-galaxy-nexus-from...

If he's getting a nexus only (like me) I suppose that means he always wants the latest version of the OS. Cyanogenmod doesn't solve the problem because they're always behind. By the time CM has stable builds for J, my phone will be on K.

If you want a phone with the latest version of the OS, then CM is a bandage, not a solution. The only solution is buying only nexuses.

> Cyanogenmod doesn't solve the problem because they're always behind. By the time CM has stable builds for J, my phone will be on K.

That depends on how you look at it. It's only an issue for me if the phone is never updated. It's fine if I'm lagging behind by a version, as long as I receive an update before I end up 2 versions behind.

>By the time CM has stable builds for J, my phone will be on K.

Going to take issue with this as well. I'm on a SGS3 and CM10 (JB), and they just changed the status of the rom from "EXPERIMENTAL" to "NIGHTLY", yet I have not seen a single problem so far. Everything works except for TV-out, which I couldn't get to work with either of my TV's with the stock rom anyway.

I would still use Cyanogenmod with a Nexus. Besides, Cyanogenmod isn't lagging behind that much. It took a little too long from Gingerbread to ICS but we probably will have Stable Cyanogenmod 10 very soon.

> Virtually all the Galaxy S/2/III phones are supported by cyanogenmod.

Since when was the S2 supported by Cyanogenmod?

And by supported, I don't mean "do not use, phone calls do not work" or "stable to come soon (last non-stable release three months ago).

There are a frighteningly large number of distinct pieces of hardware that live inside a case marked "Galaxy S2". Literally there are three whole families of SoC's represented: Exynos 4, Snapdragon S3 and OMAP4; plus all the variant radios carriers demand. Some of these have have working builds, some don't. My use of "virutally all" may have been hyperbole, I don't have numbers handy of what works and doesn't.

I'm not saying that this is a clean process. It's not (and frankly can't be). I was simply saying that if you were going to rule out purchasing a phone you would otherwise prefer, it would be a better idea to do some research first.

And to be clear: I have a Galaxy Nexus in my pocket. But I wouldn't fear a OEM phone if I really wanted it.

I agree. Last November, when I bought a Nexus S on AT&T. They said ICS was coming in January. Then March. Then Jelly Bean came out in June and an upgrade was slated for July. Then "late August". I'm still running Ginger Bread

I am tired of waiting for updates. I'm not sure if it's AT&T or Google or what, but my faith has been shaken in the Nexus line. In 14 months I think I will be getting an iPhone.

</rant>

Jelly Bean was released for the AT&T Nexus S in the middle of July. I have the exact same phone and I got the OTA update the day it was released.

I'm not quite sure why exactly you're not seeing any updates available, but if you're interested Google does provide factory images for all Nexus devices: https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#sojuajro0...

Thanks, but I'd rather not root my device quite yet.

You have a Nexus S on AT&T? Not 4g or anything? I called up Samsung customer service just now and they said no AT&T phones have the update yet.

It's difficult to know who to blame.

Google should force ability to update system without manufacturer caring into Android ecosystem. It's probably hard with all these custom modifications done by OEMs but something should be doable. By the way, I think that HTC allows users to "root" their phones.

And I'm running 2.2 on my less than a year old Motorola Defy. No further updates expected.

HTC allows users to unlock the bootloader:

http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader

In my experience, HTC is pretty good (although a bit slow) with updating Android on their older models.

As someone who considers an s2 because htc fucked up on their commitment to update my desire to 2.3, I am very interested in how have samsung screwed you over?

I'm an Android advocate, but I'm also a glass-half-empty-you're-going-to-die-of-thirst kinda guy at times. For example at times like this, when I read that 21% have ICS, I want to shit all over Google's Android team for not having the sense to know this was going to be a problem. I mean ICS is still a release behind state of the art. I know Google has business PhDs, can't they lend them to the Android team for a bit. "Root and load your own rom" is not an acceptable answer for the user who has to be explained both what a rom is and what rooting is.

As pissed as I am about my phone not getting an ICS update, I can't really fault google too much for this. They made an open mobile OS, and released it to the world. What makes it attractive to the handset manufacturers and the carriers is that they don't have a software vendor trying to exert control over the product.

You can make a direct comparison to windows phone: Microsoft has all kinds of restrictions for handset manufacturers and carriers about what they can do with it: device makers can't bundle shitty bloatware, tight hardware requirements, updates are controlled, etc. All things that produce a good experience for the end user. And look how the vendors reacted: the OEMs don't really want to build them, the carriers don't push them, the salespeople recommend android over it, and usage is minimal. Maybe if google took the same route and forced all the OEMs to upgrade to the latest firmware, those 21% of android phones that are on ICS would be android's total market share.

> Maybe if google took the same route and forced all the OEMs to upgrade to the latest firmware, those 21% of android phones that are on ICS would be android's total market share.

Judging from the Nexus phone sales, I'd say it'd be a lot lower than that.

Of course this is Google's fault.

Do you really think they are the first company who has had to deal with building a core platform that third parties can add on top of (carriers, OEMs) ?

This isn't a complex problem to solve.

What would you suggest as a solution? This isn't to suggest it isn't a problem, just that not all problems have viable solutions.

I don't think Google has used their might as a company well enough to convince the carriers it is their best interests to be more current with their phones' software or in general to do what is best for the customer in order to ensure they keep coming back. Or for example, does Google know that the Verizon store employees in the midwest will try to sell you an iPhone even when you explicitly walk in and say you want the Galaxy Nexus? To use a cliche, that's the situation on the ground.

The solution is to take some control back from the carriers and OEMs but Google won't do that because it's Android's main selling point to carriers and OEMs.

Google is waiting for consumer outrage before twisting the carriers' arms.

Simple. Look at Linux. Look at Windows.

You centralize updates of the core OS and build ABIs/APIs for all of the parts of the system that are needed to be extensible e.g. drivers, libraries, shells etc. This model is proven to work and work well. It just needs Google to show some leadership.

I'm sorry, but that's just bullshit.

The Linux / Windows update situation that is most analogous to the carrier-gated smartphone updates is updating OSes inside large companies. It's the same update process - a third party has to certify your update and then the update is incrementally rolled out to a large number of computers.

So how do corporations do with their Windows and Linux updates? Well, I'm using XP and RHEL 5 these days and I don't think my experience is at all atypical...

I think the market will shake this out in the long run. Vendors that kneecap themselves with overzealous mods and fall behind in updates are going to get a bad reputation eventually. This has already happened to Samsung who in many ways is the flagship vendor.

Also, as enviable as Apple's uptake of OS updates is, I don't think it's essential for the viability of a mobile platform. If people upgrade their phones on two-year cycles you can just ride that wave instead of trying to get people to update their software. Since both iOS and Android are pretty mature at this point major updates are less critical.

> Vendors that kneecap themselves with overzealous mods and fall behind in updates are going to get a bad reputation eventually. This has already happened to Samsung who in many ways is the flagship vendor.

In what way exactly? Given that the Galaxy S3 is selling like hotcakes, it doesn't seem that having a bad reputation is bad for business.

Sadly, I don't see skinning hurting Samsung, especially since, judging by the volume of build leaks, the Galaxy S3 is very likely going to be both:

1. The first non-Nexus phone updated to Jelly Bean.

2. The first device using a non-Nexus chipset updated to Jelly Bean.

The thing is, Samsung is getting a lot of other things right, so even though a lot of people feel burned by their lack of updates it hasn't tipped the balance away from them yet. But I do read a lot of complaints from users claiming they plan to buy from somebody else the next time around.

I think Samsung is really nailing distribution. Here in Vietnam I see their stuff in every single phone shop but have to look a lot harder to find HTC and I can't find the Asus tablets anywhere.

Very true. The competition always seems to have bigger self-inflicted wounds.

For example, last year I'm pretty sure HTC and Sony hurt themselves by skimping on internal storage and Motorola had some high-profile late devices. This year I think HTC made a mistake on microSD and removable batteries in the One series, Sony launched too many devices on Gingerbread and both Motorola and Sony were too slow with their ICS updates (even though Sony probably has the best update coverage of any phone manufacturer). And so on.

I'm also an Android-lover, but this sample is all kinds of skewed -

"based on the number of Android devices that have accessed Google Play within a 14-day period ending on the data collection date " (September 4, 2012)

14-day period? That's a pretty decent way of making sure that the people who have had their phones for a long time (like this guy here with the Droid X) are underrepresented.

Why exactly? Maybe you misread it? It's data from people who accessed the store in 14 days, not people who have bought devices in 14 days. If you have an old device but is actively updating apps, then you'll be represented.

They're getting data from devices which accessed the play store, because that's all the data that google has.

And even then, I'm pretty sure it's accessing the store in the background without the user opening it up.

Otherwise, how would it know to pop up a notification that app updates are available?

then it's still skewed. i have froyo and turn off background stuff to conserve battery. i'm pretty sure many people do this for the same reason.

Do you update your apps once a month? Once every few months?

This statistic is published for developers to get an idea of which OS versions they should be supporting based off market share. If you aren't opening the play store to buy apps in the 14-day period, then these developers probably aren't looking to sell to you.

Besides, I doubt most people know how to turn off background activities.

I think the argument here is: the longer you have your phone, the less often you open the Play Store.

Seems somewhat plausible to me.

You don't have to open the Play Store. It checks in background for app updates.

Ah, good point. I stand corrected!

Well in reality the only people whom this data is useful for is app developers, so accessing the play store is a useful / fair metric.

I'm actually quite amazed by the adoption rate of iOS. Before iOS 5.0, it was very very hard for users to upgrade their OS. Android on the other hand is supposed to be easier to upgrade.

There was some statistics last year that shows only 50% of iOS users sync their iOS devices regularly, which means those people went out of their way to go and get the OS update. I still can't believe this fact.

Now that iOS does update over the air, of course more iOS users will update quicker. Especially when the update comes straight from Apple, but the fact that iOS users upgrade their OS very quickly before 5.0 still impressed me.

Samsung do their best to ensure that all the hard work google has put in to make android smooth to update is useless. My dad has a galaxy S (I've got a nexus s), he has to connect his phone to that POS kies crapware, I got OTA jelly bean about a month (if not longer) ago. I think he's just on 2.3.

Carriers and Samsung are poison.

For reference, iOS 5 adoption was 80% at WWDC

What percentage was iOS6? Between iOS 5/iOS 6 I would hope that it would be north of 90% at WWDC.

I'm sorry for poor phrasing, what I meant to say was that at the time of WWDC, iOS 5 adoption of the population at large was 80%.

iOS 6 is still in beta, it will probably be out to general public sometime this month.

Right - I recall reading an article/blog/comment/pundit (Gruber? Marco?) that suggested that their were was a greater percentage of people using IOS 6 than there were Jellybean in the general population, right around the time of WWDC. At WWDC proper - I would expect a sizable percentage of developers were running IOS 6 on their devices.

The slow rate of Android updates is not caused by Android being hard for consumers to upgrade but by carriers/manufacturers not providing upgrades at all or too late.

Some Android device owners simply have not choice. Their devices aren't support/capable of running ICS.

I'm jealous of all the non-verizon Jelly Bean Galaxy Nexuses out there. I had the first official ICS phone in the USA but Verizon has really hindered its potential.

You can read this stat in two ways: 1. wow how tech savvy android users are OR 2. totally skewed stat, user never upgraded, they maynot even know.

Given that yesterday Google said Android had reached 480 million devices, we have the following (overestimates because some devices are no longer in service, but still):

Cupcake: ~ 1 million

Donut: ~ 2 million

Eclair: ~ 18 million

Froyo: ~ 67 million

Gingerbread: ~ 276 million

Honeycomb: ~ 10 million

Ice Cream Sandwich: ~ 100 million

Jelly Bean: ~ 6 million

That is probably not accurate, as someone else mentioned the data represents only a 14-day slice of devices that accessed the app store. Newer devices will be over represented in this sample, when compared to all devices out there (some used as feature phones)

So we have 100 million ICS devices out there? Suddenly, it doesn't sound so bad.

Yeah. AFAIK, ICS + Jelly Bean by themselves are bigger than every mobile platform out there except for:

- Symbian

- Gingerbread by itself

- iOS as a whole

- Android as a whole

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