Android 4+ surpasses a quarter of install base

Google updated its Platform Versions website last night to reveal Android 4.x is now on 28.5-percent of devices.

Ice Cream Sandwich officially released to the masses over a year ago, but it is only powering 25.8-percent of Android smartphones and tablets. Jelly Bean, the following Android OS that launched in June 2012, has a meager 2.7-percent of the pie. Meanwhile, in third place, the two-year-old Gingerbread sits comfortably with a 54.2-percent share.

Fragmentation is clearly still an issue with Android, but it seems the slow adoption of the latest OS is just as alarming. A new iteration of Jelly Bean, Android 4.2, will launch in roughly two weeks, but the first version has hardly made a dent. Of course, Google’s new lineup of Nexus products may give Jelly Bean’s share a boost. We will just have to wait and see, though.

Go to the Android Developers Dashboard for more details, graphs, and screen size data collected during a two-week period in October 2012.