The latest iteration of Google's mobile operating system, Android 4.4 or KitKat has finally made its presence felt in the monthly OS distribution data, provided by Google.
Sharing the
distribution data of different versions of Android, Google reported that the most recent version of Android, KitKat or Android 4.4, is now present on 1.1 percent devices. Notably, the new version of the operating system ships only with the Nexus 5, though Google had also released Android 4.4 updates for the Nexus 4, Google editions of HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4, and the Motorola Moto X, in addition to the Nexus 7 tablets (both 2012 and 2013 editions).
Different versions of Android Jelly Bean are now running on 54.5 percent of all Android devices with Android 4.1.x on 37.4 percent devices (it was 37.3 percent, last month), Android 4.2.x on 12.9 percent (it was 12.5 percent, last month) and Android 4.3 on 4.2 percent devices (vis a vis 2.3 percent, last month). Last month, Android Jelly Bean's combined share was 52.1 percent.
Android 4.0.x or Ice Cream Sandwich, in Google's latest report, registered a share of 18.6 percent, a decline of 1.2 points.
Android 2.2 Froyo's device distribution share was 1.6 percent, a dip of 0.1 points while the share of Gingerbread (Android 2.3.x) was 24.1 percent, compared to 26.3 percent last month. While Gingerbread's share reduced by 2.2 points this month, it still has the second-largest share, making things difficult for developers who've been trying to put Android 4.0 as the threshold. This means that a significant number of Android users don't get access to the latest version of some apps.
Beginning April, the distribution data charts are now based on the data collected from each device when the user visits the Google Play store. Google says this is to make it more accurate and reflect the percentage of users who are actively engaged in the Android and Google Play ecosystem. Prior to this, data was collected when the device simply checked-in to Google servers.
Starting September, Google stopped including Android 1.6 Donut and Android 2.1 Eclair in the data as it is gathered from the new version of Google Play store app, which supports Android 2.2 and above.
It's worth pointing out that the total sample excludes forked variants of Android (the ones on Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets) and variants in China that don't include Google services.