It’s that time of the month again when Google reports on what percentage of Android devices is running what version of Android. Last month, Android 2.3x Gingerbread was on 24.3% of phones, and one month later it has jumped to 31.3%. Although it is nice to see an upward trend, it’s very disappointing. Gingerbread has been around for over 9 months so the figure should be above 75% in my opinion.
Honeycomb continues to move up slowly. It went from 1.3% to 1.4% in the same one month period.
In last month’s report I stressed that if you are in the market for a new phone, and really care about having the latest version of Android, you better wait. We know that Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) is coming in quarter 4. Any phones that you purchase from now until then (that includes the Bionic) could be stuck on Gingerbread for a long time. Verizon is rumored to have a hold on the first ICS phone as either a Nexus Prime or a variant. We also know that the Nexus Prime will makes its way to other carriers. Other phones that may have ICS are unknown. If you want ICS, I suggest you buy a phone with it already installed.
It is obvious the manufacturers cannot handle the upgrades because of their custom UI’s that nobody cares about.
[via android developer]