Gingerbread Finally Reaches 50% Of Android Smartphones

According to the stats published by Google, Gingerbread versions 2.3 - 2.3.7 account for 50.6% of all the Android smartphones out there. This is the first time that Gingerbread has been the dominant version of Android on Google smartphones.

Android 2.2 Froyo fell to second place, with a still-too-large 35.3% share of Android phones. Android 2.1 Eclair is on 9.6% of Android phones, and, shockingly, Android 1.6 Donut is on 1.6% of Android phones. What about Android 3.0 Honeycomb? According to Google, all versions of Honeycomb combined (3.0, 3.1, and 3.2) are running on just 2.4% of all Android devices, which says something about how many (or, really, how few) Android tablets have been sold.

While it is good that half of all Android smartphones now run Gingerbread, it is also rather pathetic. The software was released by Google a year ago. While it takes time to bake new operating systems into hardware, it should be easier for users to get the latest software from Google. The way the system works, tons of phones ship with Froyo or Eclair and are updated slowly to Gingerbread by the network operators, after the phones are in the hands of consumers. The updates often come months after the phone ships.

[ Add-ons and tools make Android smartphones more vulnerable to attack, say researchers. See Android Bloatware's Dark Side Emerges. ]

Looking at how Google's competitors handle device updates shows you just how ridiculous this model is.

When Apple readies an update to iOS, it pushes it out to all versions of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch at once. Sure, sometimes Apple's servers melt down, but within a few hours or few days, anyone who cares to update can. About 40% of iPhone users had updated to iOS 5 by mid-November. (Why the other 60% hadn't updated is beyond me, as iOS 5 works on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS.)

Microsoft began delivering Mango to Windows Phone devices in September. While its update process has to include specific carrier builds for each phone, it has still provided the most recent operating system to all its customers within a couple of months from it becoming available. Microsoft hasn't provided metrics on how quickly Mango has been adopted by Windows Phone users.

Throwing a wrench into the whole thing for Google and its partners, however, is Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The newest--and best--version of Android will arrive in mere weeks on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It automatically makes all the earlier versions of Android obsolete. You can be sure that Android smartphones buyers will want access to Android 4.0 as soon as possible. (Here's a look at some of the devices that will definitely be updated to Android 4.0.)

For now, however, you're going to be stuck with Gingerbread or Froyo for a while longer.

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