The new version of Google's open-source Android operating system, called Ice Cream Sandwich, was recently unveiled. But unlike with Apple's iPhone, where every device that can run a new operating system version is upgraded immediately, the new Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be the only smartphone to run Ice Cream Sandwich for some time. Even the Verizon Droid RAZR, unveiled hours before Google's Ice Cream Sandwich event, won't see an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade until early 2012.
The reasons why are varied, but they basically amount to that Android devices aren't as big a priority for their manufacturers and carriers as the iPhone is to Apple and its partners. Moreover, Android device owners are used to only getting a new operating system version when they get a new phone. So even the Nexus One, Google's first flagship smartphone, has finally stopped receiving OS updates, fewer than two years after it launched.
In fact, as Michael DeGusta's "Android Orphans" infographic shows, the Android smartphone world is heavily fragmented between operating system versions, and phones quickly get stuck with out-of-date software. Here's a rundown of the facts:
11: Months it took from the release of Android 2.3 Gingerbread for it to have more users than the next-latest version, Android 2.2 Froyo. That's as of "the two-week period ending Nov. 3." Gingerbread was released in December 2010.
44.4: Percent of Android devices in use that are running Gingerbread. This includes not just smartphones, but tablets that use the smartphone OS instead of the newer Honeycomb version of Android, which was designed for tablets.
1.9: Percent of Android devices in use that are running Honeycomb, according to Google's statistics, reinforcing the reports Android tablets are selling poorly. More than half of Honeycomb devices are running Android 3.1 or earlier instead of the latest version of Honeycomb, Android 3.2.
13: Percent of Android devices running the Eclair version of Android or earlier. Eclair 2.1 was released in January 2010, making it almost 2 years old.
1: Year before the T-Mobile G1, Google and HTC's first Android handset was running an out-of-date version of Android.
5: Android smartphones DeGusta tracked that were at least one version out of date when they were sold in the first half of 2010.
0: IPhones Apple is selling, and has probably ever sold, that ran an out-of-date version of iOS at the time of their sale, including the iPhone 3GS, which is currently "free" on a new two-year contract.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
jonah hill neutrinos neutrinos autumnal equinox rob bell jaycee dugard meg whitman
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন