Six months ago, Google pushed its latest Android 13 update to its fleet of Pixel phones, ticking the clocks on everyone’s desk as they wonder when this update would hit their phones. Fast forward to this month and, unsurprisingly, many still continue to wonder when they will finally taste Google’s latest flavor of Android. Of course, at this point, an iPhone user will probably chuckle a bit before feeling kinda sorry for his friends with a non-Pixel Android phone in their pockets. For years, fragmentation has been the stick to beat Android with. Despite Google’s numerous endeavors to cut down on slow updates, there is no sign that it will cease to exist. However, Google’s latest OS distribution stats paint a slightly brighter picture.
Courtesy of Android Studio’s latest update — its first one since August 2022 — we can get a clearer picture of the Android distribution stats so far. Rather bewildering, Google decided that the only place to get such info should be Android Studio, rather than their monthly-updated official page. As for how these stats were collected, according to 9to5Google, these stats are primarily based on the Android devices accessing the Google Play Store during a period of one week, which might not sound like the most precise method. Still, this should be accurate enough to give us a general overview of the distribution of Android’s version
As we can see, Google’s latest OS version, Android 13, is now powering 5.2% of all Android devices, with its predecessors, Android 12 and 12L, seeing their adoption rise to 18.9%. On the other end of the spectrum, older Android versions are slowly fading out of the picture. Most notably, Android Oreo has finally dropped below the 10% threshold, with the archaic Android Jelly Bean completely phased out, leaving KitKat as the oldest version listed, coming in at a minuscule 0.7%.
Seeing such a hike in adoption rates of newer Android versions is a hugely positive sign, to say the least. It is not like fragmentation has suddenly disappeared, but at least it is good to know that Google is on the correct trajectory and that its efforts are surely starting to bear fruit. It is also important to note that this relatively quick adoption process is, in huge part, courtesy of the efforts of Android phone makers, namely OnePlus, Sony and Samsung. The latter, especially, has flattered many of its users with how quickly its Android 13-based OneUI 5.0 update has rolled out to compatible devices. In fact, Samsung has gone on to declare that OneUI 5.0 has been its fastest major Android version update process yet. Kudos Samsung! Here’s hoping that other Android manufacturers follow suit.
Source: Android Authority
Featured-Image: The Verge
