Unlike iOS handsets, Android smartphones are produced by a variety of manufacturers, each of which attempts to implement their own optimised and unique version of Google’s operating system.<\/p>\n
This can result in interesting anomalies, such as the significant difference between Huawei’s EMUI Android skin and the custom Android OS on Samsung devices.<\/p>\n
Having multiple Android skins in circulation along with a large range of hardware to maintain compatibility with means that the rollout of Android updates can sometimes be very slow.<\/p>\n
This is especially true when compared to the rollout of iOS updates, which are taken up quickly and support far older devices compared to Android.<\/p>\n
To determine how quickly Android users were receiving updates for their devices, we compared the mobile operating statistics from NetMarketShare<\/strong><\/a> for November 2018.<\/p>\n The data showed that while 67.71% of all smartphone users had an Android device, less than half of them were using Android 8.0 or Android 8.1.<\/p>\n As for the latest version of the operating system – Android 9.0 – its adoption has been so slow it did not even appear in the top 10 rankings.<\/p>\n According to the data, 15.35% of all smartphone users are using Android 8.0 while 13.31% are using Android 8.1.<\/p>\n Android 8.0 was released in August 2017, and has still not rolled out to many high-end smartphones from major manufacturers.<\/p>\n As adoption of this operating system grew slowly, Google released its Android 9.0 software on 6 August 2018.<\/p>\n It is indicative of the slow uptake of Android updates that most major Android manufacturers have not yet updated their flagship devices to Android 9.0, with even the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 running Android 8.1 despite being launched after Android 9.0.<\/p>\n If the pace of updates continue at this rate, older versions of Android will remain the most popular operating systems for a long period of times as manufacturers struggle to deliver major updates to their devices.<\/p>\n The exception to this rule are devices which form part of Google’s Android One<\/strong><\/a> programme.<\/p>\n Android One smartphones – such as the Nokia 7.1 or Motorola One – receive operating system updates quickly after they are released by Google, and come with the guarantee of monthly security updates for at least 3 years after initial release.<\/p>\n This rate of adoption stands in stark contrast with the accessibility and rapid rollout of updates for iPhones and iPads.<\/p>\n Following the launch of Android 9.0 in August, Apple launched<\/strong><\/a> its iOS 12 operating system on 17 September 2018.<\/p>\n The operating system immediately became available for download on Apple devices as old as the iPhone 5s, and delivered a number of enhancements including improved performance and responsiveness.<\/p>\n Barely three months after the launch of the OS, it was easily the most popular operating system across Apple devices and was the third-most popular mobile OS version in the world.<\/p>\n Whereas the Android community is splintered across five different versions of the software, most iPhone users are now using iOS 12, with a quickly-decreasing amount using iOS 11.<\/p>\n Unlike iOS handsets, Android smartphones are produced by a variety of manufacturers – meaning OS updates are not uniform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341028,"featured_media":225973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[397,167,35,691,56006,645,1361,42740],"class_list":["post-288330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","tag-android","tag-google","tag-headline","tag-ios","tag-iphone-ipad","tag-samsung","tag-smartphones-2","tag-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288958,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288330\/revisions\/288958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Android 8 vs Android 9<\/h3>\n
iOS advantages<\/h3>\n
Now read:\u00a0The alternatives to Windows 10 if you are tired of broken updates<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"