Yesterday we posted the latest stats and figures showing the progress that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has made. Now let’s not forget it did take Gingerbread a while as well to make it to the heights its at now, but will we ever see Ice Cream Sandwich climb to such a market share percentage in similar time or like its predecessors? I think not and here is why.
When Android 2.3 was released upon us back in December 2010 Android was still in that booming escalating period that has made it shoot to the top of the world’s market share today, this was backed up and indicated recently by the IDC as shown below.
Now with the help of the amazing job done over at Android Police and with the charts and progress of Android’s history, we can see can and use some of the info to show more of this point to be made.
In the image above you see it document the progression of Android versions from 2.1 – Android 4.0 has taken. Now this is of course a slightly dated chart now but, it’s just an indication here of how quickly Ecalir, Froyo and Gingerbread progressed onto devices. As you can see it took Eclair Android 2.1 roughly 6 months to get to the 60% level, Froyo Android 2.2 roughly 9 months and Gingerbread Android version 2.3 roughly 13 months. Now we are at the next version Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, how long will it take to get to roughly 60 percent? well that is something if you go by progression charts should be roughly 3-6 months longer right? Well I think we could see it become a lot longer, maybe not even at all to that dominant level again in Android as it is right now.
The problem is that their is now many more Android devices on the market today then their was back when Eclair took 6 months, Froyo 9 months and Gingerbread 13 months to get adopted to the dominant Android version. Smartphones, tablets even, are getting released now even with a dated version of 2.3 Gingerbread. Smartphones that are also at the lower level from 2010, 2011, and 2012, will never see any ICS love as they simply cannot run it well or warrant the update by OEMs/Carriers. This was not the case back when their was less devices and less resources needed from devices to be upgraded from its previous platform version.
The progressive movement of Android version adoption has got longer since its inception, take into account the growth and mass of devices now and it becomes even more fragmented (yes I dislike using that word but it’s necessary) and split.
Ice Cream Sandwich’s growth in just over 6 months is now at 7.1% and compare that to its previous version Gingerbread and you see it was only at around the 10% mark, so there could be hope yet, but I still don’t see it myself. In another 3 months will we see a 20% hike in ICS adoption as Gingerbread did? I doubt it and with Jelly Bean seemingly on the horizon will we see it just become even more broke up and fragmented as well, I think that’s the future we are unfortunately looking at.
As good and nice as Ice Cream Sandwich is, and such an important step for Android as a platform overall, I think it’s just a small step for the future versions to come in Jelly Bean and the next version come December time that will be a dessert that’ll begin with a K. Will ICS become the dominant and most adopted Android version like its predecessors? No is the answer I think, and if it does, It will take in region of around 18 months to get there going by previous stats and figures, that’s nearly 2 years and not going to happen with it being possibly 3 versions behind by that point. The days of a dominant Android version are over, it’s now more split and broken then ever. So stop moaning and hating I say and start getting used to Android as it is right now. It’s only going to get worse if it carries on as it is with its growth and broad spec’d devices. I think we and you as the users better get used to it.
