Android 4.0 reaches its highest distribution level yet - about 5%

Android 4.0 reaches its highest distribution level yet – about 5% – as Gingerbread rises

May 2, 2012 | by Andrew Kameka

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich hasn’t caught on with many devices. Unless you have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Asus Transformer Prime, or taken matters into your own hands and uploaded a ICS-based custom ROM, there’s a good chance you’ve yet to see how much better is the latest version of Android. However, more people are joining that elite club based on the latest Android Developer Platform Chart.

In the two weeks ending May 1, 2012, 4.9 percent of devices accessing the Android Market were running Android 4.0 or higher. That’s a bump from the 2.9 percent reported in April. Progress is painfully slow, but movement is better than standing still. With recent developments like Google selling the Galaxy Nexus directly, and HTC, Samsung, and Sony starting to fulfill their promise to roll-out Ice Cream Sandwich, dare I say we could go as high as 6 percent next month?

The platform version continuing to dominate the Android bakery is Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The number of 2.3-based devices climbed from 63.7 percent last month to 64.4 percent in May. Believe it or not, companies are still selling Gingerbread phones, and most consumers don’t seem to know or care that their phone is running outdated software. That should put things in perspective for Android enthusiasts.

Another interesting note is that Honeycomb has a 3.3 percent share of devices, which is exactly how much it had last month. Some tablets were upgraded to Android 4.0, but the number of 3.0-based devices held strong for some reason. We expect that to change next month.

Android 4.0, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0 upgrade, Android Ice Cream Sandwich Update, Android statistics, Android stats, statistics, stats

3 Comments

Randy said: On May 2, 2012

Google or Samsung need to stop dragging there asses. I hope they do better with Jelly Bean. I moved to Android because it was better not slower. They Just should of said it would come out August 2013.

Tony M said: On May 2, 2012

Think its safe to say that many more people would be using ICE CREAM SANDWICH if the phone makers weren’t so slow to roll out the update…Its the only reason that an IPHONE may be in my future. I do not like apple but at least the majority of iphones regardless of build get updated at the same time…only the very oldest dont get the newest OS. Unlike ANDROID where after a phone is 1yr old its all but forgotten about in the upgrade cycle

Sweet James Jones said: On May 3, 2012

I’ve got official ICS updates on both my phone (HTC Vivid) and tablet(Iconia A500).

I can confidently say that you aren’t missing anything. The only real noticeable enhancement is folders. It runs a little more fluid, but there isn’t really any other difference.

In fact, you may be better off with Gingerbread because some apps haven’t been updated. HBOGo and MaxGo now do not work on my phone which is really kind of frustrating.

If you haven’t gotten the update, I wouldn’t complain. It’s not dramatically different or better. That’s likely why phone manufacturers aren’t in a rush.

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