One of the big problems for Android is fragmentation, with some low-end smartphones hitting the market with the five-generation-old Android 4.0 installed. Apple has harped on this point quite a few times, the latest while unveiling the new iPads in October last year.
But things may be about to change, according to a new Google memo sent to a smartphone manufacturer. As per the memo leaked by technology website Mobile Bloom, the internet search titan will stop approving manufacturers' requests for Google Mobile Services (GMS) for older Android versions nine months after a new iteration of the platform is introduced.
Google Mobile Services include popular products like Gmail, Hangouts, Maps, Chrome, Now, Plus etc. Though a few manufacturers like Amazon do not use these services in their devices, most of the popular companies (Samsung, LG, HTC etc) put them in their products.
This practice will come into effect from February 2014, meaning that new smartphones will come preloaded with at least Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), which was rolled out in July 2013.
The memo states, "Starting February 2014, Google will no longer approve GMS distribution on new Android products that ship older platform releases. Each platform release will have a 'GMS approval window' that typically closes nine months after the next Android platform release is publicly available. (In other words, we all have nine months to get new products on the latest platform after its public release.) The policy could only mean good things, especially for the smartphone user."
This policy would put a stop to manufacturers pushing low-end smartphones with older Android versions in the market just because of the high hardware requirements of newer operating systems.
The latest version of Android, named KitKat, has been optimized by Google to ensure devices with low configuration (mainly 512MB RAM) run smoothly.
According to data by Google, all three versions of Android Jelly Bean combined (4.1, 4.2 and 4.3) currently power 60.7% of all devices running on the OS. Gingerbread, launched in December 2010, has the second biggest share at 20%. Third comes Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with 16.1%, while KitKat is on just 1.8% of the devices. The May 2010 version of Google's operating system, Android 2.2 (Froyo), still powers 1.3% of the devices currently in use.
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