Though more recent versions of Android have made tremendous strides in catching up to, and in some eyes surpassing, iOS in terms of overall usability, most Android users today are still unable to enjoy the latest and greatest features available on Google’s mobile platform.
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According to data released by Google earlier this week, 71.6% of all Android devices are running still running versions of the OS that precede Lollipop. Specifically, 36.6% of devices are still running Android 4.4 KitKat, an OS that first dropped more than two years ago. What’s more, a whopping 26.9% of users are still running various incarnations of Jelly Bean, an OS that was released in July of 2012 and hasn’t even seen an update since October of 2013.
By way of contrast, 70% of iOS users are now running iOS 9 which only released this past September. If we factor iOS 8 into the equation, we see that an impressive 92% of iOS devices in use are running an OS that, at the earliest, was released about 16 months ago.
While there’s undeniably a whole lot to like with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, most users will likely have to wait another year or two before they can start enjoying it.
One of the more interesting things to glean from all this data is that the very thing that makes Android so attractive to many — options, options and more options — is also what helps keep the vast majority of Android devices running antiquated software.
