Jelly Bean continues slow climb as Android OS balance shifts

Jelly Bean continues its slow growth among Android devices, with Android 4.1 now to be found on 1.8-percent of active gadgets using Google's platform according to the official stats. The new figures – comprising all Android devices accessing Google Play within a two week period up to October 1, 2012 – show that Gingerbread remains the dominant platform among Android phones and tablets, despite being several generations behind Google's latest version.A month ago, Jelly Bean was at 1.2-percent, while Ice Cream Sandwich, the previous version, was at 20.9-percent. ICS has now crept up to 23.7-percent, a minor increase, though it's at the cost of Gingerbread and Honeycomb, rather than any of the older versions of Android.

In fact, with Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, and Froyo all unchanged from the last batch of stats, it seems those devices – and their users – are resolutely fixed on the OS they're currently running. The only shuffling now is among more recent phones and tablets.

Google's numbers stand in stark contrast to those of Apple, which saw 15-percent of iOS devices upgrade to iOS 6 within 24 hours of its release. Android fragmentation continues to be an issue in the mobile market, especially given manufacturers – such as HTC, with today's AT&T One VX – release devices running old software out of the box.

[via Android Community]