What’s the deal with the Android distribution report and Pie?

Pocketnow

By Jules Wang

Published Oct 2, 2018

So, Android Pie has been around for a bit more than a month now and it hasn't been logged into the latest distribution report.

Between the third Tuesday of July and the last Friday of September, Google decided to not update its Android version distribution report. It’s actually pretty typical to have some sort of gap around the time of a new version release — in this case, Android 9 Pie — and it’s also fairly typical to not have that new version recorded in the next distribution report.

So, there should be few surprises (other than the fact that Google has fallen off of its first Mondays habit for drops) for this latest report. The data comes from devices making Google Play Service requests through the seven days leading up to September 28.

Version	Codename	API	Distribution	Change
2.3.3-2.3.7	Gingerbread	10	0.30%	0.1%
4.0.3-4.0.4	Ice Cream Sandwich	15	0.30%	N/A
4.1.x, 4.2.x, 4.3	Jelly Bean	16-18	3.20%	-0.4%
4.4	Kitkat	19	7.80%	-1.3%
5-5.1	Lollipop	21-22	18.30%	-2.1%
6	Marshmallow	23	21.60%	-1.9%
7-7.1	Nougat	24-26	29.30%	-1.5%
8	Oreo	26	13.40%	2.3%
8.1	Oreo	27	5.80%	3.8%

The good news for Google? All other versions than the still-current Oreo have lost share… except for Gingerbread. Perhaps there’s a sampling error going on there.

But the Android Pie pipeline is still long and even with the streamlining afforded by Project Treble, it’ll still take many months before Android 9 overtakes Android 8.0 and 8.1. Still, one would hope that a berth of third-party early-access devices from the likes of Motorola, Nokia and OnePlus would help bump the numbers up a bit.