I guess there will be a celebration somewhere. The latest major version of Android, Marshmallow, has broken a psychological barrier and is now running on one percent of Google-powered devices.
The numbers, as always, come direct from Google's own Developer Dashboard. Updated monthly, it counts the number of devices that access Google Play Store services over the last week of a month to break down the operating systems versions in use. For the first time, Marshmallow has registered more than one percent (1.2% for January 2016 to be precise), up from 0.7 in December 2015.
For comparison, Android 5.0 is now sitting on 34.1 percent, sixteen months after it was first released. As always, Google's biggest issue with Android is the inability to roll out timely updates to its code. While smaller changes can be made through updating applications and the Google Play Service code (which is regarded as an application and can be updated over the air), the Android base remains relatively isolated by design.
Android 6 has been publicly available for four months, but that doesn't mean that it's easily available to download over the air to get the latest updates, security patches, and bug fixes. As noted previously, that process requires Google to distribute the new code to manufacturers, manufacturers check it works with their 'baseline' Android code and apps, then it needs device specific changes, then carrier demands are placed on each firmware... and only then can it be considered suitable for release to the public.
For many power users, the easiest way to get their hands on an Android 6.0 device is to buy a new device that runs 6.0 out of the box. There are a handful of these on show, but expect far more to be revealed at this month's Mobile World Congress.
Naturally Google is running ahead and is busy working on Android 7.0 (this would be the 'N' release, and there's no word with confectionary it will be named after. Android 6.0 is barely moving the needle, and the most popular version of Android is 4.4 KitKat on 35.5% - that would be the OS released in October 2013.
Recent studies have shown just how slow Android is to be updated, with an overall average of just 1.26 updates per year per device, and almost a year for one update to roll out to ninety-five percent of a single device line.
Is it any wonder that Android is seen as a less secure operating system than the competition?
