Google’s war on fragmentation seems to be working as now over half of all Android devices have Jelly Bean installed. Jelly Bean is the nickname for Android 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3, which features the same underlying operating system with various tweaks and new features.
Google had a history of having devices running outdated versions of the Android operating system, since many mobile carriers skin older versions of Android on their phones and don’t update the operating system in a timely manner. The search giant knew this was a problem since Android’s best features weren’t available to a majority of Android users so they decided to separate the company’s apps from the operating system.
Additionally, Google Play Services was also introduced, which allowed Google to silently update Android phones without having to pressure carriers to update the phones for them. For more information about Google Play Services, read our article about how it works.
Although Jelly Bean is now on over half of Android devices, Gingerbread (Android 2.3) still makes up 26% of the Android market share. That means over a quarter of Android devices are running an operating system that’s three years old. Hopefully Google will continue chipping away at older versions of Android until all users are using the same operating system.
What version of Android are you running? Let us know in the comments.
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[Source: Android Developers]
