Android Nougat reaches double-digit distribution

[Shawn Knight]

Nougat, the latest stable release of Google’s Android mobile operating system, is now installed on more than 10 percent of devices according to the latest information from the Android Developer Dashboard.

Data reveals that 10.6 percent of devices that visited the Google Play Store during the seven-day period ending July 6, 2017, were running Android Nougat 7.0 while 0.9 percent of devices had Nougat 7.1 installed. That brings the total distribution for Nougat to 11.5 percent, up from just 9.5 percent a month ago.

Android 6.0 Marshmallow remains the most popular version with a market share of 31.8 percent followed closely by Lollipop at 30.1 percent and KitKat at 17.1 percent. No other version has double-digit distribution.

Google last month ended support for the Android Market, the app store that predated Google Play for devices running Android 2.1 Éclair and earlier.

Adoption of Android Nougat has been slow, to say the least. The OS reached general availability on August 22, 2016, and just now broke into double-digit adoption. In comparison, Apple launched iOS 10 on September 13, 2016, and as of July 5, 2017, a whopping 86 percent of iDevices are running it.

Aside from not having access to the latest and greatest features Android has to offer, users running dated versions of Android are more vulnerable to security threats. Unfortunately, the issue is out of Google’s hands as manufacturers and carriers are largely to blame for dropping the ball and not rolling out updates in a timely manner.

Lead image via AndroidPIT

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https://www.techspot.com/news/70039-android-nougat-reaches-double-digit-distribution.html

 

[VitalyT]

Those nougat sweets are my favorites, though they ruined my teeth, so I'm staying away from them, same goes for Android. Sticking with apples for now )))

 

[oldikes]

I hate these android version names that are completely irrelevant to it, numbers are so much easier to follow

 

[Nobina]

It's still a giant cluster****. Most of the people that don't buy new phones every year usually have older versions of Android. I had to install custom ROM to have Android 7.1.2. This is one place where being open-source isn't really a good thing.

 

[Reehahs]

It's still a giant cluster****. Most of the people that don't buy new phones every year usually have older versions of Android. I had to install custom ROM to have Android 7.1.2. This is one place where being open-source isn't really a good thing.

The problem isn't open source, it is with the relying on carriers to upgrade. If Apple did the same thing then iOS would experience similar spread of versions. The control of OS updates should have never been delegated to the carriers in first place so Android could update properly like Linux on desktops.

 

[m-tec]

I would wager that a large (irony) part of the 11.5% are down to new devices that come with 7 as standard, ie pixel devices. Take these away and 7 would be no where to be seen.

 

[Raoul Duke]

The problem in a nutshell from the end of the article:
"....as manufacturers and carriers are largely to blame for dropping the ball and not rolling out updates in a timely manner." and you could add "if at all" 'cause that costs money you know and might eat into the bottom line. As a consumer what the heck are you supposed to do...oh, I know, buy a new device every single year.

 

[captaincranky]

OK, it's Sunday, so I freely confess my sin of being a parishioner of the Church of Luddite. That said, will someone kindly tell what me WTF it is, that Android is supposed to do, other than connect to Google on the internet?

(OK, I know you can download "the Candy Crush Saga", as well as an app to piss your money away at Starbucks, or perhaps hail an Uber ride if you're in the mood to be sexually assaulted). But other than those things, wut the heck duz it do? Maybe contribute to one's mastery of poor grammar and spelling?