The desire to develop and improve the Google Android has led to one of the key shortcomings of this platform. The most common mobile operating system is present in hundreds of millions of devices, which at the same time operate in many different versions of the operating system, which differ from each other not just the serial number, and capacity, functionality and compatibility with applications. According to analysts OpenSignal, this year Android fragmentation set a new record: on the system is currently working about 19 000 different models of gadgets.
Last year at this time, the figure was 11,868 units, that is, the range for the year increased by approximately 7 000 names. Fragmentation forces application developers to take care of testing and optimization of the code in the earlier versions and obsolete hardware and OS, to solve compatibility issues.
If you look at the distribution of the device by brand, the result is hardly surprising: 43% of all devices on which users set application OpenSignal, bear the logo of the Korean Samsung. In second place (with only 4.8% of devices) - LG, followed by Sony, Motorola, Huawei and other vendors.
Equally disparate looks and the picture in terms of operating system versions of Google. On this most recent "android», KitKat 4.4, 20.9% of all work involved in the study of gadgets. At the same time, the relatively recent version (4.0 or greater) using 86% of devices. For comparison, the latest version of OSes Apple (iOS 7.x) updated 91% iPhone and the iPad.
The data were obtained on the basis of statistics 682,000 application settings OpenSignal, which is used to monitor coverage of cellular networks.