Gadgetory

welcome back to Android QA my name is Jason this is where we try and answer your most pressing Android questions and the most pressing the most urgent question we get most often is Jace are you one crack no I'm just hooked on happy but the other most common question we get is when will my phone get the latest version of Android well I now have some good news on the subject and can point you in the right direction here we go so although we've answered this question before here on Android QA we've recently found some new news on the topic and so we thought we'd devote a whole Android QA to the subject to go a little deeper but first we need to take stock of where Android version distribution is today as you can see here from the chart the vast majority of the Android world is still using jelly bean or Ice Cream Sandwich there is a sizable population using Gingerbread and if that doesn't surprise you there are still people using Froyo but by far most of the clamoring is coming from the 98% of Android users who cannot use KitKat in fact only 1.4 percent of all Android users are currently on KitKat ouch but to be fair Google takes this issue of fragmentation very seriously and they have recently taken some steps allegedly to reduce the amount of fragmentation Android police has learned that Google plans to force Android device makers to use newer software versions in order to have access to Google mobile services like Gmail Google Maps and Google now apparently Google has issued a schedule that manufacturers have to adhere to in order to have Google Maps running on upcoming devices Noah though it has yet to be confirmed officially by Google this could mean we are all getting our Android updates faster so for those of you who want to go into this topic a little bit deeper I encourage you to check out the show right here where we talk about why Android updates take so long and how fragmentation plays a role in that but the question remains how do I know when my phone will get the latest Google update now you may know that some device manufacturers have an Android update calendar that you can view online Motorola for example has a site where you can go to input your carrier name and your device name will tell you the expected time that you will get the Android update but I discourage you from doing that or relying on that too much because the carriers are really the last leg in the process of an Android update and so it's the carrier's calendars that will be a little bit more accurate so many carriers though not all do publish their own Android calendar update where you can select your device and see which Android version is available if it is available at all and if so you can instigate or commence that Android update now they also post the the months in which they expect those new updates will be available but the kicker is those carriers are not bound by that calendar that's just a projected thing that they put out in press releases for people like me for example in 2012 on November 2012 my Galaxy Note was supposed to get jellybean it didn't come for another eight months so you gotta take it with a grain of salt thanks for watching android army if you have a question that has not been answered already in a past Q&A or a question you haven't already asked please put it in the comments below i'm looking for more questions questions that will help a larger number of people if you think it's a problem that many other people will have i would love to hear about it in the comments below connect with me here on google+ and twitter don't want to forget about my brothers in andhra josh jo tech ninja Kevin and Chris I shall see you next week on Android Q&A