Google has once again updated its ‘Platform Versions’ chat showing the current distribution of Android versions across devices accessing the Google Play store. There are a few notable changes in this latest edition.
Android Jelly Bean (versions 4.1.x and 4.2.x) has jumped forward again, increasing its share from 40.5% last month to 45.1%. Missing is the latest version of Jelly Bean, Android 4.3, but it should not be much longer before numbers climb high enough to push it onto the chart.
On the other end of the chart, both Android Eclair (1.6) and Donut (2.1) have finally dropped off. The explanation has more to do with how Google calculates these numbers than a sudden shift to newer devices. The latest version of the Google Play store only supports Android 2.2 and higher. This effectively excludes older versions from the monthly Android distribution chart. But Google recognizes that “versions older than Android 2.2 accounted for about 1% of devices that checked in to Google servers (not those that actually visited Google Play Store).”
Google can now effectively claim that it is really dealing with only three versions of Android. Sadly, one of those, the aging Gingerbread, still accounts for about a third of the Android ecosystem and leaving many users cut off from more recent software. While Android 4.3 will get lumped into the Jelly Bean bucket, the new Android 4.4 KitKat version should also start to appear on the charts later this year.
Source : Google Developers