As the buzz about Ice Cream Sandwich dies down, and CES comes to a close, many websites have gone back to talking about one of their favorite subjects: fragmentation. Story after story about how fragmentation is ruining Android, who to blame, and how to fix it. Well, I’m here to put fragmentation into perspective for you.
As an Android geek, I hate Android fragmentation as much as anybody. It frustrates us power users when we are forced to use warranty breaking, risky measures just to have the latest Google has to offer. But notice how I said power user. Could it be that only these power users actually care about their phone’s version number? I wanted to find out. So, I put on my nerd glasses and went around my school, finding as many people with Android phones as I could find. And the results may make you rethink the importance of fragmentation.
All participants were asked the same questions: Do you know the name of the OS of your phone? Do you know what version of Android you are running? Do you know if it is the best/newest version? If it’s not the newest, are you upset by that fact? And if you do have the latest version, is it important to you that you continue to have the latest version in the future?
Here are the results. Out of the 60 people interviewed:
12 didn’t know their phone ran Android.
Of the 48 left, 27 didn’t know their Android version.
Of the 21 left, only 5 knew the latest version of Android was Ice Cream Sandwich and/or 4.0.
And of those 5 highly informed Android users, they all said that having the latest Google had to offer was important to them.
And, of the 16 that didn’t know that they had an outdated Android version, only 7 of them voiced any real care or concern about getting an update.
So, it would seem the majority of Android users really just don’t care about their version number. Only 5 out of the 60 people knew they had the newest Android, and all of them seemed to be tech-savvy, all but one running an ICS based custom ROM. And even when some were told they had outdated software, few said it mattered to them.
Does this mean fragmentation doesn’t matter and Google should stop working to fix it? Absolutely not. It’s a legitimate problem. But it is far from the biggest problem Google has. For Android geeks, it is wildly important to have the latest and greatest. But for the majority (AKA everyone else), they can run Froyo and not care in the slightest.
10 Responses
The Fragmentation Problem http://t.co/0GHRqubE #Android
The Fragmentation Problem http://t.co/EwnNkY43 #android
#Android The Fragmentation Problem http://t.co/z0xqEx03
#Android The Fragmentation Problem http://t.co/z0xqEx03
Většina uživatelů ovšem neví, o co s Froyo přichází. http://t.co/nZ95h67M
Většina uživatelů ovšem neví, o co s Froyo přichází. http://t.co/nZ95h67M
I wouldn’t have said it was a problem. Most Android users would have bought the phone on its merits at purchase. Only since the Jesus phone have people been obsessed with updated software, and by people I mean Tech Journalists. Go back 4/5 years when everyone was sporting the latest Nokia… Where was the obsession with upgrades then? It’s still only the minority of people that want the latest version of everything.
I can confirm from my own experience that most average users of Android devices that I've met so far either don't know what Android versions they are running or don't care enough to upgrade their devices when the update is available.
you are a disgrace
There is one thing all the interviewed people have in common. They all have a fully functional smartphone. This is the main reason so few of them were fully informed about the OS versions and such, and ultimately didn't care. If it's not broken, don't fix it, they say.