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Official User Data for Android Developers Helps Cut Through Fragmentation

android-data_chartIn an effort to battle fragmentation on the platform, the Android Development team took to the official blog today to announce the availability of a new device dashboard.

This page provides data about the relative number of active devices running a given version of the Android platform. The information is collected by recording the number of Android devices that have accessed the Android Market within a 14-day period. The data collection period is clearly marked on the dashboard.

Android Platform Percent of Devices
Android 1.1 0.3%
Android 1.5 27.7%
Android 1.6 54.2%
Android 2.0 2.9%
Android 2.0.1 14.8%

Data collected during two weeks ending on 12/14/2009

This information can help developers understand the landscape of device distribution and decide how to prioritize the development of your application features for the devices currently in the hands of users.

As Raphaël Moll says on the original post "Now you know, and knowing is half the battle".

Go Joe!

I'm a Software Engineer and extremely passionate Smartphone enthusiast; I've been working with mobile devices for a long time and contributing to the mobile community for about as long. Currently I'm a contributor for AndroidGuys.com and move on the Android space in general, before that I was a contributor to the Windows Mobile community as part of the "Board of Experts" at the Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine Best Software Awards; and I also served as Technical Reviewer for a Microsoft Learning official course on Windows Mobile 6 Development (Course 6066A). You can follow me on Twitter -> http://twitter.com/jdgx

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  • http://twitter.com/MatthewPatience @MatthewPatience

    This is exactly what I was looking for to assure me that developing for 1.6 was the smart way to go. Thanks.

  • RNekic

    Unfortunately, to me, this says 1.5 is still the way to go. I'm not sure I'd want to cut out more than 25% of the audience by going to 1.6 instead of 1.5.

  • retnavydp

    I think you should bear in mind that many of those 1.6 units will be updating to 2.0 when it's available for the particular handset.

  • James

    Are 2.1, 2.01, and 1.6 all completely backward compatible with 1.5? That is the important question. For example, before the Droid, were there screen sizes bigger than 320x480? If not, does 1.5 support different screen sizes?

  • Dianne

    Newer versions of Android are backwards compatible with apps developed for older versions. Multiple screen support was introduced in 1.6. It is fairly easily to develop against a newer version of the platform to use features there, while remaining compatible with older versions, as long as you take a little care. For example you can develop against 1.6 to use the new API to include resources for different densities or other screen attributes, and still be compatible with 1.5 -- just be sure to test against 1.5 to make sure you haven't made a mistake and broken on it.