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ICS penetration hits 10.9 percent

by on03 July 2012



Took just eight months


It is official, ICS penetration has gone double-digit. A total of 10.9 percent of all Android run Ice Cream Sandwich and all it took was eight and a half months.

Google’s failure to deliver timely Android is widely seen as a major issue and the fact that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is already here does not bode well for Google at all. The vast majority of devices, or about 64 percent, run Gingerbread, an OS version introduced in late 2010. The ancient Froyo flavor still powers 17.3 percent of all Android devices.

It gets worse. Many Gingerbread devices will never get an official ICS update and although tech savvy users will be able to manually install ICS thanks to custom ROMs, average consumers are pretty much stuck with Gingerbread. What’s more, the vast majority of ICS devices are high end phones and tablets launched over the past two quarters. The oldest device to get an official ICS update is Google’s Nexus S and it is also slated to get Jelly Bean later this month.

Most phone makers are still mum on their Jelly Bean upgrade plans and it is unlikely that many non-Nexus devices will get it over the next few months. Google claims that all ICS compatible devices will also be compatible with JB, but that is not the issue, as most Gingerbread phones are fully capable of running ICS but vendors and carriers don’t seem to care too much.

By the time Jelly Bean updates start appearing on current generation superphones, Apple will probably roll out the new iPhone. Still, every cloud has a silver lining and the entire update debacle could bode well for Google’s Nexus brand in the long run, as Nexus devices become more and more appealing with each Android update. 

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