The most recent snapshot of Android OS usage from the Android Developers Dashboards, up to August 12th, shows adoption of KitKat, the latest fully available version of the OS, jumping some 3 percent in just a month, from 18 percent in July to a hair under 21 percent. If this kind of momentum continues, the proverbial fragmentation of the Android platform may soon be a thing of the past.

The total numbers for Android Jelly Bean and KitKat takeup on the Dashboards now stand at 75.1 percent. With Android Ice Cream Sandwich (itself slightly down on the previous total) included as well to cover all of the 4.x versions of the Android OS, takeup now stands at 85.7 percent. The residual 14 or so percent presumably represents legacy devices that won’t be squeezed out of the ecosystem any time soon, but hardly a significant focus for developers, whose attention must already be turning to Android L and the next level up in the OS hierarchy. The much-vaunted goal of the latest round of Android development to introduce a more uniform experience across the platform may hardly be an issue with these kind of figures, given the comparative uniformity of the 4.x versions, but at least it’s good to see that carriers and manufacturers are finally stepping up to push the updates out to users.

NO COMMENTS

The TeleRead community values your civil and thoughtful comments. We use a cache, so expect a delay. Problems? E-mail newteleread@gmail.com.