“The latest installment of Google’s Developers Dashboard revealed that Android 4.4 KitKat was spotted on 13.6 percent of all the devices that visited the Google Play store during the seven-day period ending Wednesday,” Lance Whitney reports for CNET.
“That’s a solid increase over the 8.5 percent recorded just a month ago, helping KitKat inch past Ice Cream Sandwich this month with its 12.3 percent share,” Whitney reports. “Jelly Bean is still tops with 58.4 percent of all devices, followed by Gingerbread with 14.9 percent.”
“Android remains a highly fragmented platform with every major and minor version from Froyo 2.2 to KitKat 4.4 still found on various devices. Fragmentation poses a problem not just for users but for developers who have to contend with different supported screen sizes, hardware capabilities, and other factors when designing their Android apps,” Whitney reports. “On Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, CEO Tim Cook took a potshot at Android’s fragmentation with a slide showing KitKat at a then 9 percent install base compared with iOS 7’s 89 percent. Cook does make a valid point.”
MacDailyNews Take: In other words, Android’s current version (KitKat) isn’t even past Gingerbread, which was released on February 9, 2011, well over 3 years ago. Have fun, Android developers and enjoy your lowest common denominator apps, Android settlers!
Android fragmentation visualized. (Source: OpenSignal – July 2013)
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dialtone” for the heads up.]
(For those who find the above image looks familiar, or who would like to see how their hard drive looks like using the same interface, check out the freeware ‘GrandPerspective‘. Highly recommended).
The chart represents the share each Android device has of the devices out in wild. I find it odd that no one has created charts by available resources (e.g. camera, gyro, radiation sensor, etc.). Now if Apple had a similar chart, I agree that it would be a lot less fragmented due to the number of devices in the iDevice family but it would be useful to show how much share of the iOS family each device holds.
While fragmentation may be a problem for Developers targeting multiple versions of Android, for enterprises that have standardized on a few devices and the average consumer it really makes little difference. The flipside is there is that much more freedom of choice with associated pros/cons in the Android camp. Seems to me with iOS8 iOS devices will be gaining more of the pros and cons of the Android OS.
I’m just saying that if let’s say Company A decides that it will only distribute Samsung Galaxy 5 and Note 8 devices to their employees for use they have at most a fragmentation of 2 and only for features that are not shared by both devices AND used by the App in use. As for the average consumer it will be at most the number of Android devices the own that do not share the resources that an App in use requires.
Fragmentation as a problem is not really directly relevant for consumers (or the enterprise): they are buying the device that meets their needs. For that device, they will then buy apps that do what they need.
Fragmentation is a major problem for the developers, though. If you are in the business of developing and selling software for mobile devices, your business depends on the size of your addressable market (how many people out there have devices that can run your software). In order to make that addressable market as big as possible, you have to develop your app so that it runs on a myriad of different existing versions of the OS you’re developing for. In the case of Android, that means about several dozen testing environments, with different types of hardware, screen size and OS versions.
However, fragmentation does affect consumers (and enterprise) indirectly. In their purchase decision-making process, both of these groups want, among other things, to future-proof their device(s) as much as possible by getting the latest hardware with the latest OS. However, this doesn’t help them much, when there are almost no apps out there that leverage that latest hardware and latest OS, because the developers can’t afford to develop for just a very small sub-set of the market (just the 8% who have the most recent OS). So, even though you may have the best hardware and latest OS, none of your 3rd-party apps will be taking advantage of any of that.
“Seems to me with iOS8 iOS devices will be gaining more of the pros and cons of the Android OS.”
Care to explicitly delineate what those “cons” are?
The ones that seem likely off the top of my head: 1) More open APIs into core iOS functions allowing 3rd party access 2) More supported screen resolutions for future devices 3)Inter-App sharing of filesystem relaxing the sandboxing present till now.
As with all technology it can be misused and part of the security of iOS comes from how rigidly it was compartmentalized. With the changes in iOS8 there are a few more areas that have to be watched for abuse. Till now visual resources used in iOS were optimized to 1 or 2 resolutions/screen proportions. With the new development tools target devices resolution and proportions can be arbitrarily set making it flexible for future devices Apple may release. If the new dev environment (and developer) do not adjust to relative sizing as opposed to the till now absolute sizing of screen elements iOS Apps will continue to get bloated with excess resource files to support several modes. Of course this can be mitigated by Apple keeping it’s product lines restricted to a handful of resolutions/screen proportions.
To hell with troll comments. BUT, this guy isn’t a total idiot. Therefore, here is some interesting related information:
All of the following are being addressed in iOS 8 as per Apple’s keynote and ‘Platforms State of the Union’ presentations at their ongoing World Wide Developers Conference:
1) More open APIs into core iOS functions allowing 3rd party access
2) More supported screen resolutions for future devices
3) Inter-App sharing of filesystem relaxing the sandboxing present till now.
It’s as if this troll was sitting in the audience at WWDC, providing us a list of his favorite new iOS 8 features. Marvelous stuff. And yes, Apple will be maintaining their strict, legendary security throughout. iOS has been proven to be the single most secure smartphone OS commercially available. But we already knew that.
I’m just happy as a developer that Apple has made more progress in easing new people into programming. But it is with a tradeoff of creating more entry points for abuse is all I’m saying. As long as Apple stays on top of curating Apps in their store and keeping the new entry points secure, I’m certain iOS will maintain their UX quality.
Not a dummy, that’s for sure.
Use your skills for good please, if you comprehend what goodness is.
“…for enterprises that have standardized on a few devices and the average consumer it really makes little difference.”
It makes an STAGGERING difference, since many capabilities are simply available to huge swathes of Android users.
Not many it is a over hyped point at least from a user perspective. I, as many others keeps phone for a maximum of two years and do not immediately upgrade as I have been burnt too many times upgrading immediately. So in effect I am as up-to-date on Android as I am IOS, Also if you compare fragmentation on high-end phones more comparable to the cost of an iPhone the fragmentation would be much less.
The fragmentation problem is big at the user community level in that it’s more work and development dollars to produce software for a wide set of buyers. The effect is that less good software gets developed for users than there would be were there little fragmentation. One of Apple’s strengths is controlling the SW and HW to minimize the problems, and help developers to control their development costs. Yes, the developers have to pay the Apple tax to be in their world, but the benefit is that the software they develop will work on a wider set of buyers’ machines. Now they are making it even easier for the developers. And the more good SW that is developed, the more HW gets purchased. Apple has a strategy, and is in a much better position to take advantage of it than other OEMs. With a huge lead in 64-bit HW/SW development, their recent announcements, Apple is in a much stronger position to advance quickly. The fragmented Android world will have a much harder time as machine and software complexity rises. The end result of that fragmentation is that Android users will not get an overall class-leading HW/SW set of devices. Apple users will.
Well, that’s what happens when you have the freedom to choose the place you get your Apps from. 😀 If the average user never turns on the option buried in Settings to use stores other than Google Play the risk for what those researchers consider malware is actually 0.02% lower than the Apple Appstore.
Oh dear. I was going to compliment you, then you blew it:
…the risk for what those researchers consider malware is actually 0.02% lower than the Apple Appstore.
You pulled that number directly out of your ass, didn’t you. You have NO reference to back up your bullshit, do you. Pathetic and sad.
There is NO malware in the Apple iTunes App Store. As I pointed out in this thread, the grand total of ACTUAL malware for iOS has been TWO (2). Both of them affect only jailbroken iOS devices and therefore are entirely ignorable. Neither of them were EVER at the Apple iTunes App Store.
And, as I also pointed out here, there have been TWO (2) proof-of-concept malware created to point out flaws in Apple’s app vetting system.
You are interesting, as a troll. You’re clearly well educated and comprehend technology. And yet you’re both a liar and a propagandist. That makes you a psychopath, from my superficial experience with your troll posts. You abuse others by mixing factual information with utter invented nonsense, and have no conscience about the ramifications of your actions.
Unmasked. I’d ask you to leave, but I suspect you’re an obsessive as well.
No, not pulling it out of my ass.. However, after searching again (been a few months since I recall reading the article I thought I read) I couldn’t find the one with the actual figures I quoted. I have however found a few recent articles that may be of interest to those that feel malware as defined by researchers is not comparable for Google Play and Apple App Store and that non-jailbroken iOS is absolutely secure. It could just be I found a mashup of the articles on the subject.
I believe there is a link in the Forbes article for the F-Secure report if you are interested in reading it.
Article #1 just tells you to buy only from Google. For sure this helps. But that’s not what Android is all about. The raves about it’s being open mean many users will buy from wherever. Plus, on the day the snapshot of their data was taken, 136 apps had malware content. Yes that was only 0.1%. But it means that that place is still dirty and vulnerable. Apple’s store 0.00 malware. When you do the math that is infinity % better.
Article #2 is just a rambling comment at Apple’s day is coming. The bigger the iOS world gets, the more likely it is to be a target. But the hackers have continuously tried and failed to break the iOS world. The premise that the dam will break is idiotic conjecture about the future.
And the third article isn’t about malware, it’s about apps asking for user data (popups that ask permission to use your contacts, and other personal info). Anyone dumb enough to allow that to happen is putting themselves in danger, but that’s no different than putting personal information out on web pages. And is no different than apps in the Android world, where just by their nature, the Android users were in general more likely to make a bad choice and allow their personal data to be used by an app. They did choose Android over IOS, so that puts them in the vulnerable class of users that make bad decisions.
So in summary, iOS malware resistance is infinitely better, but OMG our day is coming (with no supporting data with that claim), and iOS users are much less likely to release their personal info to apps.
So your case of Android being just as secure as iOS is hereby thrown out on the grounds that your supporting articles contain zero evidence for your case.
And yes, your comments did get pulled out of your ass. You read that crap, swallowed it, and out it came.
13.6 percent is just who visited the Google Play store in the last week. The actual number is most likely much smaller as the older ones are less likely to visit the store in a given week.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. The chart source data criteria was changed last year to be of benefit to DEVELOPERS targeting particular levels of ACTIVE users making purchases/downloading from Google Play over a one week period. It was never meant to represent the entirety of the Android ecosystem. As such the ‘in the wild’ percentage for KitKat IS smaller. It would be interesting if other Android marketplaces had similar pie-charts.
Dang, that’s what my hard drive looks like.
(For those who find the above image looks familiar, or who would like to see how their hard drive looks like using the same interface, check out the freeware ‘GrandPerspective‘. Highly recommended).
That fragmentation picture is truly worth a thousand words. That should shut up all but the most obtuse Android supporters.
The chart represents the share each Android device has of the devices out in wild. I find it odd that no one has created charts by available resources (e.g. camera, gyro, radiation sensor, etc.). Now if Apple had a similar chart, I agree that it would be a lot less fragmented due to the number of devices in the iDevice family but it would be useful to show how much share of the iOS family each device holds.
While fragmentation may be a problem for Developers targeting multiple versions of Android, for enterprises that have standardized on a few devices and the average consumer it really makes little difference. The flipside is there is that much more freedom of choice with associated pros/cons in the Android camp. Seems to me with iOS8 iOS devices will be gaining more of the pros and cons of the Android OS.
Seems to me you’re a shithead troll as Apple rules the enterprise.
I’m just saying that if let’s say Company A decides that it will only distribute Samsung Galaxy 5 and Note 8 devices to their employees for use they have at most a fragmentation of 2 and only for features that are not shared by both devices AND used by the App in use. As for the average consumer it will be at most the number of Android devices the own that do not share the resources that an App in use requires.
Fragmentation as a problem is not really directly relevant for consumers (or the enterprise): they are buying the device that meets their needs. For that device, they will then buy apps that do what they need.
Fragmentation is a major problem for the developers, though. If you are in the business of developing and selling software for mobile devices, your business depends on the size of your addressable market (how many people out there have devices that can run your software). In order to make that addressable market as big as possible, you have to develop your app so that it runs on a myriad of different existing versions of the OS you’re developing for. In the case of Android, that means about several dozen testing environments, with different types of hardware, screen size and OS versions.
However, fragmentation does affect consumers (and enterprise) indirectly. In their purchase decision-making process, both of these groups want, among other things, to future-proof their device(s) as much as possible by getting the latest hardware with the latest OS. However, this doesn’t help them much, when there are almost no apps out there that leverage that latest hardware and latest OS, because the developers can’t afford to develop for just a very small sub-set of the market (just the 8% who have the most recent OS). So, even though you may have the best hardware and latest OS, none of your 3rd-party apps will be taking advantage of any of that.
“Seems to me with iOS8 iOS devices will be gaining more of the pros and cons of the Android OS.”
Care to explicitly delineate what those “cons” are?
The ones that seem likely off the top of my head: 1) More open APIs into core iOS functions allowing 3rd party access 2) More supported screen resolutions for future devices 3)Inter-App sharing of filesystem relaxing the sandboxing present till now.
As with all technology it can be misused and part of the security of iOS comes from how rigidly it was compartmentalized. With the changes in iOS8 there are a few more areas that have to be watched for abuse. Till now visual resources used in iOS were optimized to 1 or 2 resolutions/screen proportions. With the new development tools target devices resolution and proportions can be arbitrarily set making it flexible for future devices Apple may release. If the new dev environment (and developer) do not adjust to relative sizing as opposed to the till now absolute sizing of screen elements iOS Apps will continue to get bloated with excess resource files to support several modes. Of course this can be mitigated by Apple keeping it’s product lines restricted to a handful of resolutions/screen proportions.
To hell with troll comments. BUT, this guy isn’t a total idiot. Therefore, here is some interesting related information:
All of the following are being addressed in iOS 8 as per Apple’s keynote and ‘Platforms State of the Union’ presentations at their ongoing World Wide Developers Conference:
1) More open APIs into core iOS functions allowing 3rd party access
2) More supported screen resolutions for future devices
3) Inter-App sharing of filesystem relaxing the sandboxing present till now.
It’s as if this troll was sitting in the audience at WWDC, providing us a list of his favorite new iOS 8 features. Marvelous stuff. And yes, Apple will be maintaining their strict, legendary security throughout. iOS has been proven to be the single most secure smartphone OS commercially available. But we already knew that.
I’m just happy as a developer that Apple has made more progress in easing new people into programming. But it is with a tradeoff of creating more entry points for abuse is all I’m saying. As long as Apple stays on top of curating Apps in their store and keeping the new entry points secure, I’m certain iOS will maintain their UX quality.
Not a dummy, that’s for sure.
Use your skills for good please, if you comprehend what goodness is.
“…for enterprises that have standardized on a few devices and the average consumer it really makes little difference.”
It makes an STAGGERING difference, since many capabilities are simply available to huge swathes of Android users.
Ok, how many people do you know that have a huge number of Android devices and actually are bothered with fragmentation?
Not many it is a over hyped point at least from a user perspective. I, as many others keeps phone for a maximum of two years and do not immediately upgrade as I have been burnt too many times upgrading immediately. So in effect I am as up-to-date on Android as I am IOS, Also if you compare fragmentation on high-end phones more comparable to the cost of an iPhone the fragmentation would be much less.
The fragmentation problem is big at the user community level in that it’s more work and development dollars to produce software for a wide set of buyers. The effect is that less good software gets developed for users than there would be were there little fragmentation. One of Apple’s strengths is controlling the SW and HW to minimize the problems, and help developers to control their development costs. Yes, the developers have to pay the Apple tax to be in their world, but the benefit is that the software they develop will work on a wider set of buyers’ machines. Now they are making it even easier for the developers. And the more good SW that is developed, the more HW gets purchased. Apple has a strategy, and is in a much better position to take advantage of it than other OEMs. With a huge lead in 64-bit HW/SW development, their recent announcements, Apple is in a much stronger position to advance quickly. The fragmented Android world will have a much harder time as machine and software complexity rises. The end result of that fragmentation is that Android users will not get an overall class-leading HW/SW set of devices. Apple users will.
‘Freedom Of Choice’ of Android malware too!
http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2014/Number-of-the-week-list-of-malicious-Android-apps-hits-10-million
By late January 2014 Kaspersky Lab had accumulated about 200,000 unique samples of mobile malware, up 34% from November 2013
IOW: The exponential growth of Android malware in-the-wild continues. THAT’s CHOICE! 😆
Well, that’s what happens when you have the freedom to choose the place you get your Apps from. 😀 If the average user never turns on the option buried in Settings to use stores other than Google Play the risk for what those researchers consider malware is actually 0.02% lower than the Apple Appstore.
Oh dear. I was going to compliment you, then you blew it:
…the risk for what those researchers consider malware is actually 0.02% lower than the Apple Appstore.
You pulled that number directly out of your ass, didn’t you. You have NO reference to back up your bullshit, do you. Pathetic and sad.
There is NO malware in the Apple iTunes App Store. As I pointed out in this thread, the grand total of ACTUAL malware for iOS has been TWO (2). Both of them affect only jailbroken iOS devices and therefore are entirely ignorable. Neither of them were EVER at the Apple iTunes App Store.
And, as I also pointed out here, there have been TWO (2) proof-of-concept malware created to point out flaws in Apple’s app vetting system.
You are interesting, as a troll. You’re clearly well educated and comprehend technology. And yet you’re both a liar and a propagandist. That makes you a psychopath, from my superficial experience with your troll posts. You abuse others by mixing factual information with utter invented nonsense, and have no conscience about the ramifications of your actions.
Unmasked. I’d ask you to leave, but I suspect you’re an obsessive as well.
No, not pulling it out of my ass.. However, after searching again (been a few months since I recall reading the article I thought I read) I couldn’t find the one with the actual figures I quoted. I have however found a few recent articles that may be of interest to those that feel malware as defined by researchers is not comparable for Google Play and Apple App Store and that non-jailbroken iOS is absolutely secure. It could just be I found a mashup of the articles on the subject.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/03/24/report-97-of-mobile-malware-is-on-android-this-is-the-easy-way-you-stay-safe/
http://readwrite.com/2013/09/05/kaspersky-the-ios-malware-dam-will-break#awesm=~oGmE7NcJGDfUOR
http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/android-malware-ios-apps-pose-greater-risk-leaking-user-data-says-study-219746.html
I believe there is a link in the Forbes article for the F-Secure report if you are interested in reading it.
Article #1 just tells you to buy only from Google. For sure this helps. But that’s not what Android is all about. The raves about it’s being open mean many users will buy from wherever. Plus, on the day the snapshot of their data was taken, 136 apps had malware content. Yes that was only 0.1%. But it means that that place is still dirty and vulnerable. Apple’s store 0.00 malware. When you do the math that is infinity % better.
Article #2 is just a rambling comment at Apple’s day is coming. The bigger the iOS world gets, the more likely it is to be a target. But the hackers have continuously tried and failed to break the iOS world. The premise that the dam will break is idiotic conjecture about the future.
And the third article isn’t about malware, it’s about apps asking for user data (popups that ask permission to use your contacts, and other personal info). Anyone dumb enough to allow that to happen is putting themselves in danger, but that’s no different than putting personal information out on web pages. And is no different than apps in the Android world, where just by their nature, the Android users were in general more likely to make a bad choice and allow their personal data to be used by an app. They did choose Android over IOS, so that puts them in the vulnerable class of users that make bad decisions.
So in summary, iOS malware resistance is infinitely better, but OMG our day is coming (with no supporting data with that claim), and iOS users are much less likely to release their personal info to apps.
So your case of Android being just as secure as iOS is hereby thrown out on the grounds that your supporting articles contain zero evidence for your case.
And yes, your comments did get pulled out of your ass. You read that crap, swallowed it, and out it came.
Go Derek !!!!
“…[M]uch more freedom of choice…”
Yeah. That’s the ticket. Uhh huhhhh…
The mobile malware market share isn’t too fragmented. It’s all android.
Agreed.. But only 0.05% are found in Google Play.
The next Android version should be called Baby Ruth, named after what Bill Murray pulls from the bottom of the pool in Caddyshack.
Their current convention is like Ubuntu and progresses alphabetically.. Any candy starting with “L”?
Licorice? Lollipop?
Laudanum?
“Appears to be a fecal remnant….”
How about “payday” aka as stuck to Herbies back side from cheech & chong? 🙂
Maybe for Android v16 after all the others starting with “L” to “O”. 😀
So if you buy a Android Toilet that counts right? lol
😀 Yes, in the chart shown an Android toilet would be yet another piece since it is attempting to show ALL Android devices.
13.6 percent is just who visited the Google Play store in the last week. The actual number is most likely much smaller as the older ones are less likely to visit the store in a given week.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. The chart source data criteria was changed last year to be of benefit to DEVELOPERS targeting particular levels of ACTIVE users making purchases/downloading from Google Play over a one week period. It was never meant to represent the entirety of the Android ecosystem. As such the ‘in the wild’ percentage for KitKat IS smaller. It would be interesting if other Android marketplaces had similar pie-charts.
See, I told you this troll wasn’t a total idiot.
Yeah, just a minor idiot.. 😀
Never get tired of the MDN takes!
Yes, they’re quite funny sometimes. Especially when they keep cutting and pasting the same response across multiple posts.
Android->runDefrag(FULL_CPU);