With all the Android phones and users with different tastes to use them, you always hear, “This phone is the best because….” and “No, mine is the best because….” One thing Android owners can always see eye to eye on and unite with one voice, is the need for better battery life and timely OS updates. This following graph shows just how many are still stuck with the older OS.
This months report is in for what percentage of devices are on each version of Android, and it is still dismal. It has been over 9 months since Android 2.3 Gingerbread was introduced, and as of August 1, it is only on 24.3%. Last month it was at 18.6% so it has shown growth, but not enough.
Meanwhile Honeycomb is only on 1.3% of devices (all tablets) which is up 0.4% from last month.
I am not sure how we are supposed to get excited for Ice Cream Sandwich if it is going to take this long for devices to get the latest versions. My recommendation is that if you really want Ice Cream Sandwich, do not buy a phone until it is released on a particular phone. If you have to buy a phone in the near future, then make it the Nexus S because that will have the best shot at getting the upgrade when it does come out. You can grab today only for FREE at Best Buy.
[via android developer]
Another alternative is getting a phone that you know can be easily rooted with plenty of support for custom roms. Though I don’t get in to the finer details of rooting and roms, because I prefer to leave that business to the real professionals over at XDA.
with the help of XDA, a lot of people are able to grab the latest and greatest updates, without being at the mercy of the carrier. That being said, I do extend a word of caution, as mistakes made while rooting can result in turning your phone in to a real nice paper weight. So I recommend uneducated rooters to go study up at XDA, as they are very good at helping people learn and offer an enormous amount of how to guides.
Want to get additional information, or chat with Tom Gray? You can find him on his Google+ page.
Link to Tom Gray’s Google+ Page.
