Market share of OS

Interesting data at www.netmarketshare.com
Some 'highlights'
- BlackBerry 10 holds 0.15%, not big but it is nearly triple the share of Android 8.0
- Most prevalent Android is actually 6.0 followed by 5.1. All added up, if you're coding to anything beyond 6.0, you are missing out a huge chunk of devices
- iOS 10.2, 10.3 hold a substantial chunk over 11, so same comment applies about targeting the leading edge
-. Who else beats Android 8.0? BBOS 6.0. Yup, imagine that. BBOS 7.x is just a tick behind Android 8.0
- Series 40 is over 15x the share of Android 8.0, that's the ancient Nokia feature phones

The latest and greatest gets all the press, but that isn't what most users are on. Even just looking at Android which is newer than 6.0 that is only something like 12%...

What's the surprise?

Oreo is JUST starting to appear on non-Pixel devices now. Give it 3 months.

The fact is, 80% of Android users are on Lollipop and above (3 years old and less).

In other news, only 7% of users are still on Android 4.3 and below. This is the version of the BB10 Android Runtime.

Originally Posted by conite

What's the surprise?

Orea is JUST starting to appear on non-Pixel devices now. Give it 3 months.

The fact is, 80% of Android users are on Lollipop and above (3 years old and less).

In other news, only 7% of users are still on Android 4.3 and below. This is the version of the BB10 Android Runtime.

7% still adds up to around 120 million though! It's dropping quickly however.

Posted via CB10

So android 7 is 25% and IOS 11 is 20% from this data. IOS 10.3 is a little over 5%. Not on the graph but Android 6 is the same 20% as 7 actually

And look at the IOS data. The previous version screams down as the newer version is released

Dang, 15%!

...of 1%.

If I was a software developer I know I'd be all over that platform.

Originally Posted by EFats

Interesting data at www.netmarketshare.com
Some 'highlights'
- BlackBerry 10 holds 0.15%, not big but it is nearly triple the share of Android 8.0
- Most prevalent Android is actually 6.0 followed by 5.1. All added up, if you're coding to anything beyond 6.0, you are missing out a huge chunk of devices
- iOS 10.2, 10.3 hold a substantial chunk over 11, so same comment applies about targeting the leading edge
-. Who else beats Android 8.0? BBOS 6.0. Yup, imagine that. BBOS 7.x is just a tick behind Android 8.0
- Series 40 is over 15x the share of Android 8.0, that's the ancient Nokia feature phones

Lovely write up, gave me a good morning smile.

Some reactions even made me smile more.


Posted via CB10

I believe S40 is still the basis for the new Nokia phones, although that is not what's weighting in there.

The desired target consumers, people that actually spend money on stuff, usually have newer versions of the operating systems. Sure there may be a lot of people out there using older ones but if you're a company writing an app to sell or for advertising you focus on the segment of users that have disposable income and are willing to part with it.

Originally Posted by co4nd

The desired target consumers, people that actually spend money on stuff, usually have newer versions of the operating systems. Sure there may be a lot of people out there using older ones but if you're a company writing an app to sell or for advertising you focus on the segment of users that have disposable income and are willing to part with it.

This is completely true. For banks, the vast majority of high income, high transactor, low credit risk customers are on current equipment.

What you wrote is true from an app dev perspective, but from a user perspective, even an Android 5.x device can run most of the apps which a large majority of users and consumers demand. So, being on an older version does not affect your access to apps, provided that you are at least on 5.x or maybe even 4.4.
The OS itself is another question (feature set, security, etc.)
I used Android 6.x for a long time before I went to iOS (from winter 2015- to this year) and feature wise 6.x is OK. The biggest problem is with the speed and frequency security updates, apart from Google and -to a large extent- BB Android and Samsung.
OP raises a valid point however, that fragmentation along with the time required for a new Android version to gain mainstream adoption is a serious problem of Android, and in my view this time actually increased with Nougat and Oreo

Originally Posted by brookie229

7% still adds up to around 120 million though! It's dropping quickly however.

Posted via CB10

True. But I wonder how many of these old devices are sitting in drawers?

Originally Posted by conite

True. But I wonder how many of these old devices are sitting in drawers?

Well according to Google official numbers, they count devices that actually accessed the playstore in the last 7 days:

https://developer.android.com/about/...rds/index.html

So, they are not devices that are just turned off and sitting in a drawer.

Originally Posted by Soulstream

Well according to Google official numbers, they count devices that actually accessed the playstore in the last 7 days:

https://developer.android.com/about/...rds/index.html

So, they are not devices that are just turned off and sitting in a drawer.

I understand that, but although I keep about half a dozen older devices around here constantly updated, I still consider them "sitting in drawers" - because that's essentially all I do with them.

Originally Posted by conite

I understand that, but although I keep about half a dozen older devices around here constantly updated, I still consider them "sitting in drawers" - because that's essentially all I do with them.

That is such a special and rare scenario that I don't think it actually has a real influence on the percentages. I think most of those old devices are from one of the following:
1. 3rd world countries where people but old devices
2. from people who use a smartphone as a dumb-phone so they don't really care about what OS it has; at best they have auto-update enabled and use the browser and 1-3 main apps
3. poor people from all over the world that were sold the worst and cheapest phone a carrier could offer them.