We knew that Android 2.3.x Gingerbread would eventually become the largest version used and Google’s latest stats prove just that. Gingerbread is now running on slightly more than 50% of all devices that have accessed the Android Market in the past two weeks and has no signs of slowing down.
Introduced almost exactly a year ago, Gingerbread was a small update but added some very nice tweaks and aesthetic changes to the Android OS. We saw better application, power, and download management, as well as a better keyboard, text selection options, official support for NFC, and more. The most notable change, while still subtle, was the new black notification bar an other UI refinements found throughout the freshly baked Android version.
The UI refinements in Gingerbread may lack the aesthetic appeal found in Ice Cream Sandwich but it is one of the most usable version to date and now it dominates the chart you see above.
Of course, Android 2.2 Froyo is still holding on to more than a quarter of all devices at 35.3% and we likely won’t see it disappear for a long time. The real stragglers of the bunch, Eclair, Donut, and Cupcake are all taking their sweet ass time to leave the Android party, collectively holding on to 11.7%.
Unsurprisingly, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich hasn’t made an official appearance on the chart. Given that’s it’s only available on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (officially, at least) and hasn’t even been released in the US yet, we’ll likely have to wait until next month before Android 4.0 hits the chart. Because Ice Cream Sandwich can run on across phones and tablets, it stands to grow faster than any other version found on the chart today. While this remains to be seen, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ice Cream Sandwich began to pop up on more tablets than phones in the beginning, as most Honeycomb tablets today come with minimal aesthetic tweaks. If only that was the case for phones.
For now, Gingerbread will be the Android king for now and we’ll just have to wait and see how long Ice Cream Sandwich takes to catch up.
[Via: AndroidDevelopers]