More Android Jelly Bean operating system (OS) users exist now than there are users running Android Ice Cream Sandwich on their devices. New product releases and also recent firmware updates to older-model smartphones and tablets helped along with the turnaround. Android Jelly Bean 4.1 and 4.2 have finally overtaken Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Six months after its release, Jelly Bean beat Ice Cream sandwich among active Android devices and saw a rise in usage by 3.4 percent in April. Android Jelly Bean now accounts for 28.4 percent of overall OSes used on Android devices. Ice Cream Sandwich devices are not too far behind, with a total of 27.5 percent use on active devices.
The spike in April can be attributed in part to the system updates issued for existing devices; even older devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab7.0 Plus received Android Jelly Bean updates. The introduction of new devices into the market such as the HTC One, with stock Jelly Bean already installed also helped boost Jelly Bean distribution numbers.
As noted in the firmware distribution pie chart on the Android developers' website, Android still suffers from fragmentation. Although Jelly Bean surpassed Ice Cream Sandwich, there are still large numbers of devices running Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Compared to the two-year-old Gingerbread OS build, Jelly Bean is the second most widely used OS.
Other previous Android OSes show very small numbers on the data chart, with 0.1 percent for Android Donut and Honeycomb builds. Éclair shows a total of 1.7 percent and 3.7 percent of devices still run Android Froyo. The next OS build expected to be released soon is Android Key Lime Pie, following the Jelly Bean 4.3 update.
