How Android’s fragmentation issue is slowly receding

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[Commentary] Android fragmentation has long been a hot topic and for good reason. Google was iterating its mobile platform quickly, handset makers couldn't keep up without investing more time, money, or both, and developers showed frustration with the many versions of Android and handset configurations. That led to various versions of Android in customers hands with different features, application support and no guarantees of future upgrades. But the situation is getting better. The slowed pace of updates has led to a majority of handset owners now running variations of Android 2.2 or 2.3: Google reports that of all Android devices visiting the Android Market over the two weeks prior to Sept.2, 81.9 percent run these two main versions, or a sub-version like 2.3.3. Android 1.5 and 1.6 only account for 2.8 percent of all Android devices, while there are still 13.3 percent running Android 2.1


How Android’s fragmentation issue is slowly receding