G+_Marlon Thompson Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Some good analysis here Jason Howell? so you guys can actually have something to say about the dashboard numbers Originally shared by Jean-Baptiste “JBQ” Quéru Is 4.2 the forgotten child of the Android upgrade cycles? The Android world is abuzz with Google's release of the latest numbers for the Android version spread, as measured by Google. As I happen to also have historical data about those versions, I can slice and dice the numbers in different directions. Here's a direction I find interesting: how long it took a version from its original release data to reach its peak installed base. 12 months for Froyo (May 2010 to May 2011). 18 months for Gingerbread (Dec 2010 to Jun 2012). 12 months for Honeycomb (Feb 2011 to Feb 2012). 14 months for Ice Cream Sandwich (Nov 2011 to Jan 2013) 17 months for Jelly Bean 4.1 (Jul 2012 to Dec 2013) 24 months for Jelly Bean 4.2 (Nov 2012 to Nov 2014) 11 months for Jelly Bean 4.3 (Jul 2013 to Jun 2014) Another way to look at those numbers is to look at the time between the release of a replacement and the peak of a given version. For this, I don't consider Honeycomb as a replacement for Gingerbread. 5 months for Gingerbread to make Froyo decline (Dec 2010 to May 2011) 7 months for Ice Cream Sandwich to make Gingerbread decline (Nov 2011 to Jun 2012) 2 months for Ice Cream Sandwich to make Honeycomb decline (Nov 2011 to Feb 2012) 6 months for Jelly Bean 4.1 to make Ice Cream Sandwich decline (Jul 2012 to Jan 2013) 13 months for Jelly Bean 4.2 to make Jelly Bean 4.1 decline (Nov 2012 to Dec 2013) 16 months for Jelly Bean 4.3 to make Jelly Bean 4.2 decline (Jul 2013 to Nov 2014) 8 months for KitKat to make Jelly Bean 4.3 decline (Oct 2013 to Jun 2014) On both of those metrics, 4.2 stands out as being the worst. Specifically, on the second metric, 4.2 does far worse than Gingerbread, long notorious for sticking around for a while. The gap between the two metrics suggests that the real reason why Gingerbread ruled for so long it that it took almost a year for its replacement to get released. If that second metric is to be trusted, 4.2 is going to be around for a very long time, and 4.1 might also share the same fate. It's probably not advisable for developers to only rely at the moment on APIs that didn't already exist in 4.1 or 4.2. https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Jason Howell (raygun01) Posted December 2, 2014 Share Posted December 2, 2014 Good stuff! Thanks as always! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G+_Marlon Thompson Posted December 2, 2014 Author Share Posted December 2, 2014 Jason Howell check out Chris Lacy? post on it as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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