Google update the Android platform distribution chart: Gingerbread still king, Jelly Bean catching up!

   Everyone loves Android updates... If they have a Nexus phone, if not then you'll probably be a little bit frustrated and you'll likely end up a few versions behind unless you have the latest and greatest flagship phone. 

   So as things stand Android 2.3 Gingerbread is still the most used version of the OS, it's probably something to do with the flood of budget handsets which rock that OS instead of something more recent. But, Jelly Bean numbers are slowing eating into that with versions 4.1 and 4.2 combining to make up 28.4% of regular users and that has beat out Android 4.0 ICS for the first time which sits at 27.5%. 

   The interesting thing is that the amount of people running Gingerbread, Froyo and Eclair dropped 1.7%, whereas people running ICS dropped by 1.8%. We expect the people on Gingerbread or earlier were probably upgrading, whereas the phones running Android 4.0 ICS were probably getting their updates to Jelly Bean. Motorola, LG and Sony in particular have just been catching up to the first version of Jelly Bean on handsets like the Optimus 4XHD lately!

   We expect to see Jelly Bean numbers continue to increase and hopefully Samsung and HTC will roll out updates to Android 4.2 in the near future for the Galaxy S3 and One X and continued sales of the Galaxy S4 and HTC One should bump people up Jelly Bean's percentages, just in time for 4.3 to arrive!

Via Engadget.

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06/09/2012

OEM's have barely opened the Jelly Bean packet!

   Android; the world's most popular smartphone operating system and quite probably the world's most frustrating when it comes to updates. They seem to take absolutely forever to arrive and when they do manufacturers have issues ironing out the bugs. 

   At the moment the news isn't so good; yes there are over 1.3million daily Android activations, but not all of them ship with an up to date OS. Instead it seems like it's only Nexus devices that're rocking Jelly Bean at the moment with slightly more than 1/100 devices are running Jelly Bean.

   It's worth remembering that most devices are still on Gingerbread and most of these probably will stay there until their owners upgrade. It's a frustrating situation all round but hopefully we'll see a lot more users rocking Jelly bean when Samsung gets round to updating the Galaxy S2 and S3!

In other news:

• Facebook has officially completed the Instagram buy-out today, completing the $1 billion deal.

• Nokia's Windows Phone 8 devices will reportedly be constructed in house buy Nokia and the company will be dropping the price of the Lumia 800 and 900 by $150 in a bid to shift them and make way for the newer models.

• If you're holding out for a new TV from Apple you may very well be waiting a while because their talks with TV companies have reportedly been stalling of late.

• Samsung has updated us on the amount of Galaxy S3's shipped and so far in 100 days of the phones availability they've sold 20million of the phones!

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Editorial: HTC please reconsider!

HTC please reconsider your policy on Beats headphone bundling.

   HTC announced this week that they don't plan to bundle Beats headphones with their upcoming phones from now on. I know they have had a rough couple of quarters but they need something distinctive to encourage people to buy their phones and I'm going to tell you why the company should reconsider.

   Let me explain; if you walk into a phone shop to buy a new phone and you know you have £35 a month to spend on your contract, but you're undecided on which phone to buy... All you know is that you don't want an iPhone. This is why HTC needs to bundle headphones; if you get a choice of two phones, lets say for the sake of argument they are the HTC One X and the unannounced Samsung Galaxy S3. They both have comparable specs, they both have pointless launchers added on top of Android (Touchwiz and Sense) and they are both stunning in appearance. What will help you decide?! HTC are offering a free pair of Beats headphones and that is the deciding factor right there. This is exactly why I can't understand HTC's decision at all.

   The company's official line is this;

"An accessory like the headphone doesn't factor in when someone is buying a smartphone... If they want a Beats headphone, they'll buy it directly."

   I couldn't disagree more. Everyone knows Beats are £50 upwards here in the UK, which in reality is a substantial amount of money, so if the headphones are bundled in the box it is a genuinely attractive proposition to potential customers. After all HTC needs to sell some phones to get themselves back on track.

   The thing is the headphones don't cost HTC a lot to produce and bundle and giving them away with phones helps people choose HTC over other companies. HTC please wake up and see what you're doing, reconsider or soon you'll be quietly brilliant broke!!!

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