Google’s developer site has just published some new statistics based on the number of Android devices that have accessed the Android Market within a two week period that ended on October 3, 2011. Which version of Android is the most popular? No surprise here, it’s FroYo, better known as 2.2, that made up 45.3% of all the devices Google collected data on. Gingerbread, the latest and greatest version of the smartphone version of Android, comes in second place with an impressive 38.7% of all those devices. What about Honeycomb? Google’s tablet optimized version of Android is on a whopping 1.8% of all Android devices. To give you some idea as to how low that figure is, 1.4% of all Android devices run Android 1.6 and 1.1% run Android 1.5, which means more people are out there are using ancient smartphones than brand new tablets. We’re not really shocked by that figure since today’s Android tablets are all … how should we put this gently, a massive waste of money.
So what’s next for Android? Next week we expect to hear more about Ice Cream Sandwich, the first version of Android to merge both the smartphone and tablet variants that are currently on the market. The first device to run Ice Cream Sandwich will likely be the Nexus Prime. We know it’s made by Samsung, it’s going to have a 720p resolution screen that’s likely larger than 4.3 inches across, and of course it’ll feature a dual core processor. With Ice Cream Sandwich, it’s believed that Google will forgo the use of front facing buttons and enable device makers to make handsets that are nothing but screen, with a power button on top and a headphone jack right next to it.
Like we said, next week is when all of this is supposed to be unveiled, so just ignore the rumors for a tiny while longer. If you don’t, you may just go insane.