Google's Jelly Bean operating system has been slowly growing in popularity ever since it was first released, but how will the introduction of Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie affect that?
While the growth of Jelly Bean 4.1 and higher has been steady, the OS is nowhere close to running on the majority of Android devices, sparking speculation that the well-reviewed and popular interface will basically become obsolete once Key Lime Pie is ready for mass consumption.
According to the last update on Android's Developer Dashboard, Jelly Bean currently makes up 13.6 percent of all Android-based products. While that represents an increase of more than 50 percent since December, it's still well below Ice Cream Sandwich, which owns 29 percent of Google's market.
Even Ice Cream Sandwich's numbers don't compare to Gingerbread, which somehow still powers nearly 46 percent of all Android devices.
With all the rumors swirling about Key Lime Pie's features and release date, it's worth wondering: Just how will the upgrade affect Android users? Will anyone care?
The last question is a lot easier to answer than the first. Of course people will care; it's always great to hear about the latest and greatest new features that software engineers develop for your phone. If Jelly Bean's reception was any indication, Google hit a home run, and people are expecting even better things from Key Lime Pie. Whether or not most of them will be able to actually use those awesome new features, though, is a different situation entirely.
As it stands, it's already hard enough for most Android owners to get Jelly Bean. Since more than half of Android users are still running two-year-old Android 2.3 Gingerbread or lower, it's either impossible or extremely difficult to get them up and running on newer software. Key Lime Pie smartphones could possibly attract enough new users to render Jelly Bean unnecessary for new customers, or maybe it will simply splinter the Android base even more by only being available to next generation devices.
Now, since Gingerbread is as old as it is, maybe that means a bunch of two-year contracts are ready to expire and unleash a horde of hungry Jelly Bean and Key Lime Pie customers eager to scarf down everything they've been missing out on. But according to the Full Signal, new devices running on Gingerbread are still rolling onto shelves! That means fragmentation will probably continue to worsen after Key Lime Pie's debut.
What can be done about the situation isn't really clear, and if most people are still happy with Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich maybe it doesn't matter. For app developers, though, it does present some problems. Do they go for the powerful new software and tinker with new features, or do they stick with the systems that most people already use? Or do they have to develop for both?
To be fair, Google hasn't even confirmed when it will introduce Key Lime Pie, much less what products it'll appear on, but all signs currently point to May for the big reveal. That's awfully soon, considering its most recent version hasn't even hit 15 percent adoption.
After Qualcomm leaked a roadmap revealing a spring 2013 timeframe for Key Lime Pie's debut, many considered Google's I/O developer conference the perfect time for the company to roll out the new OS.
Considering that Jelly Bean was also revealed at last year's I/O conference, the information in Qualcomm's leak seems pretty accurate. The conference will run from May 15 - 17.
At that point we'll have some more information to go by, and it will be easier to tell if Google has an answer to its fragmentation problem or if it will continue to fester.
