A new chart assembled by the understatement‘s Michael Degusta spells out a sad story for owners of Android devices. As Degusta documents, Android users are out of luck when it comes to updates, as most vendors don’t support their Android devices long enough (or well enough) to ever make upgrades available to their users.
Degusta has put together a tremendous amount of research regarding Android handsets, and made the following observations:
- 7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS.
- 12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less.
- 10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period.
- 11 of 18 stopped getting any support updates less than a year after release.
- 13 of 18 stopped getting any support updates before they even stopped selling the device or very shortly thereafter.
- 15 of 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010.
- In a few weeks, when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out, every device on here will be another major version behind.
- At least 16 of 18 will almost certainly never get Ice Cream Sandwich.
On the other hand, iOS devices are frequently updated, and are supported by new software updates at least 3 years following their release. Check out the full post over at the understatement to see all of Degusta’s findings, and check out the chart below (click to expand) for a handy illustration:
