Android Nougat's market share hits 13.5 percent

midian182

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With the next version of Android on its way, Google has just updated distribution figures for its mobile operating system. And while the newest release, Nougat, continues to see its market share increase by around 2 percent each month, the number of Android 7.0 and 7.1 users is still behind leader Marshmallow, Lollipop, and even KitKat.

The data was collected from all devices visiting the Google Play Store during a 7-day period that ending on 8 August.

The breakdown of Nougat shows Android 7.0 has a 12.3 percent distribution share and 1.2 percent for Android 7.1, making a total of 13.5 percent for the OS, which first arrived on Nexus devices a year ago. Back in July, Nougat’s share finally reached double-digit distribution when it hit 11.5 percent.

The near two-year-old Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) still leads the pack. It’s found on 32.3 percent of Android devices, meaning its market share has actually increased 0.5 percent month-over-month. Meanwhile, Lollipop (29.2 percent) and KitKat (16 percent) both saw their figures fall by around one percent, but remain ahead of Nougat.

The three versions of Jelly Bean also saw a decline from the previous month, while Ice Cream Sandwich and Gingerbread both remained at 0.7 percent distribution.

Google launched its fourth and final developer preview of Android O (thought to be called Oreo) in July, with the final version expected to arrive by the end of this month. It’ll certainly be interesting to see what effect Android 8.0’s release has on the other versions of the OS.

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It's still way too fragmented. Surely there must be a way to get manufacturers to support all their devices with the latest version of the Android OS for at least 4 years. Not all consumers can afford to toss away their devices at least every 2nd year for something newer.
 
It's still way too fragmented. Surely there must be a way to get manufacturers to support all their devices with the latest version of the Android OS for at least 4 years. Not all consumers can afford to toss away their devices at least every 2nd year for something newer.

If you keep your phone for four years, you're not buying a new phone now. I think it's blatantly obvious why manufacturers are slow with updates. Money - and the shear number of cell providers and phone models and the different versions of those models that are on the market.

Want to keep your phone for four years and still get updates? Yup, get an iPhone.

Open source can be awesome, but with anyone being able to make an Android phone and sell it makes keeping them all updated extremely hard, time consuming and pretty much only updated while you are on contract. Again, this should be obvious.
 
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Want to keep your phone for four years and still get updates? Yup, get an iPhone.
Basic truth right here. It's the major reason why I switched to the iPhone and have never looked back.

Open source can be awesome
Don't get me wrong, I love open source as much as the next geek but if you ask me the one fatal mistake that Google made when they released Android to the world so many years ago was that they did not maintain control over their product. They did not keep hold of the leash on their OEM and carrier partners, if they had they would have been able to pull them back and say "Hey guys, *slaps face* Update your crap!" But no, they didn't do that and so now we have the mess that we have now. Granted, Google is trying to rectify that blunder but they need to tread lightly or they will incur the wrath of their Android partners.

This is in stark contrast to what Apple did when they released the iPhone. They basically told the carriers of the world that if they wanted the iPhone, Apple was the one in control. Hind-sight, being that it's 20/20, has shown that Apple's way was actually the better way since Apple has them all in line whereas the Android ecosystem is a circus. And we're not talking about the circus with elephants, tigers, etc.
 
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