It’s no secret that Google has struggled to get people to upgrade the software on its phones (but perhaps more accurately, the software on other companies’ phones). It’s one of the most blatant examples of an area that Google and its OEMs are just so far behind, especially compared to the adoption rates of iOS on Apple’s devices. And with every passing month, it just doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
It’s been about 8 months since its release, and the latest Android distribution numbers reveal that the newest version of Google’s mobile OS, Marshmallow, has just now passed 10% adoption. Google’s most popular version of Android at this point, Lollipop, lost 0.2 percentage points this month and KitKat, which was announced in 2013, still holds more than a 30% share…
It’s the top of the month, and that means it’s time for another update from Google on Android’s adoption numbers. Lollipop, the latest release, has just in the last 30 days crept up to pass 12% adoption, following an overall market share of 9.7% that 5.0 and later had at the beginning of last month. Specifically, Android Lollipop now has 12.4% of the Android market. Expand Expanding Close
Google, as it does at the beginning of every month, has updated the Android distribution data this time reflecting data collected during the last week of November. KitKat continues its slow climb up this month, rising to 33.9 percent from 30.2 percent last month. Every other Android version, as a result, fell in usage.
Google ushered in a new design language called Material Design as one of the biggest new elements of Android Lollipop, and an upcoming Linux distribution called Quartz OS aims to bring the clean and simplistic user interface to the desktop. Quartz OS is essentially the marriage of Material Design and Linux, aiming to harness the flexibility and power of the JavaScript-based markup language QML. Expand Expanding Close
The latest Android distribution numbers for a seven-day period ending November 3rd reveal that KitKat is installed on 30.2% of devices that accessed the Play Store during the last week. Meanwhile, the distribution of the over two-year-old Jelly Bean version continued to decline, but remains the leading platform, with a 50.1% share. Expand Expanding Close
Google has updated the Play Store Developer Distribution Agreement (DDA) with a few notable changes that developers will likely want to pay attention to (via Android Police). First on the list, developers are now required to respond to customer service requests for paid apps and in-app purchases within 3 days.
For paid Products or in-app transactions, you must respond to customer support inquiries within three (3) business days, and within 24 hours to any support or Product concerns stated to be urgent by Google. Failure to provide adequate information or support for your Products may result in low Product ratings, less prominent product exposure, low sales, billing disputes, or removal from the Store.
Secondly, a huge change to how European VAT is handled is definitely going to make developers’ lives much easier. While developers have long been expected to handle the VAT tax for EU sales, Google is going to take over this task as of January 1st, 2015. Determining, charging, and remitting this tax is going to all be up to the fine folks in Mountain View.
Where Google, the Payment Processor or the Authorized Carrier is required by applicable (local) legislation to determine, apply and pay the applicable tax rate, Google, the Payment Processor or the Authorized Carrier (and not Developer) will be responsible for applying and collecting and remitting the taxes to the appropriate taxing authority. If Google collects and remits value added taxes on customer payments (where required of Google by applicable local law) and this remittance fulfils the applicable requirements for value added taxes on those customer payments, such taxes will not be passed on to Developer by Google. Where Google is required to collect and remit taxes as described in this section, Developer and Google will recognise a supply from Developer to Google for tax purposes, and developer will comply with the relevant tax obligations arising from this additional supply.
Dish and The Walt Disney company announced today that they have reached a multi-year distribution deal that will see Dish subscribers gain access to a ton of Disney content including its ABC and ESPN networks. That means if you subscribe to Dish, you’ll now be able to access the WATCH ABC, WATCH ABC Family, WATCH Disney Channel, WATCH DisneyXD and WatchESPN apps through your computer, smartphone, tablet and other connected devices like game consoles and set top boxes. The deal will also see Dish launch a number of Disney and ESPN networks while pending litigation between the two companies comes to an end:
The agreement will result in dismissal of all pending litigation between the two companies, including disputes over PrimeTime Anytime and AutoHop. As part of the accord, DISH will disable AutoHop functionality for ABC content within the C3 ratings window. The deal also provides a structure for other advertising models as the market evolves, including dynamic ad insertion, advertising on mobile devices and extended advertising measurement periods.
DISH will make available Disney Junior, Fusion, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Buzzer Beater, as well as Longhorn Network and the upcoming SEC ESPN Network upon its launch. In addition, DISH, ESPN and ESPN Deportes customers will have access to the live and video-on-demand channel ESPN3… As part of the agreement, DISH will launch ESPNEWS, ESPNU, Disney Channel and ABC Family in high definition. ESPN Classic will be reintroduced as a video-on-demand channel.
We hear a lot about adoption of iOS updates vs the fragmentation that Android users are forced to deal with, but just how far behind are the top Android devices compared to iPhone when it comes to getting support? To answer that question, Fidlee.com has updated a chart that it first put together a couple years back in order to see if things have become any better for Android in recent years. It hasn’t.
In the chart above we see that many once flagship Android devices— the Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy S3, LG G2 etc— have still not received the latest Android 4.4 KitKat update and in some cases are even further behind. Most of the devices on the list have been an upgrade or two behind since launch or not long after. In comparison, only the iPhone 3GS fives years after its release doesn’t support iOS 7. We also get a look at how much longer Apple devices generally stay available for sale and continue receiving support, nearly twice as long as Android in most cases.
Not only did Apple claim iOS 7 was “the fastest software upgrade in history” with more than 200 million devices installing the OS less than a week after launch, but analytics firms tracking adoption also noticed adoption was much higher than previous releases. Currently iOS 7 sits at about 77% of users, according to the latest data from Fiksu’s iOS Usage Monitor. While the chart above is only for devices released last year, things aren’t much better for newer Android devices. In comparison to iOS 7 adoption, Google reports that its latest release, Android 4.4 KitKat, is at just 1.1% weeks into launch. The previous release, Android 4.3, is at just 4.2%, while the majority of users remain on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean first released in July 2012. Currently KitKat is only available for Nexus devices and slowly trickling out to Moto X and Google Play Edition devices.
A couple more charts below from Fidlee showing just how bad things are on Android compared to iOS: Expand Expanding Close
