Ice Cream Sandwich devices nearly double, Unfortunately ‘nobody’ has one

It’s the beginning of the month which means Google released distribution numbers. I have to give them credit for releasing these figures because it’s quite embarrassing. Forgot about Gingergread and Froyo because what’s really important here is the percentage of devices on Ice Cream Sandwich. It was nearly 6 months ago that Ice Cream Sandwich was introduced along with the SDK. As of right now only 2.9% of Android devices have it. That’s up from 1.6% last month. In my opinion this is atrocious. I understand it takes time for the companies to code these updates to their particular hardware along with carrier’s radios. I also understand that no one wants an update full of bugs. Unfortunately non of that makes it okay.

I don’t have the solution here, but Google has to figure this out. When Microsoft releases a major Windows update, its available to any PC with the exception of hardware limitations. This present issue doesn’t have anything to do with hardware limitations because there are plenty of devices that have the hardware capabilities, but no Ice Cream Sandwich. I also understand that PCs and mobile products are different. Again, I’m just a consumer and it’s hard to get excited anymore about Android updates when after 6 months, barely 3% of devices have it.

It amazes me that people actually want to hear about Jelly Bean. Why? Who wants to see all the latest and greatest, but you can’t get it. I think when Google introduces Jelly Bean, they should say “available in one year” because that’s pretty much how it works.