Ice Cream Sandwich Breaks 10% Android Installs (Just As Jelly Bean Arrives)

Android Ice Cream Sandwich has finally broken the 10-percent barrier for active installs, meaning 1-in-10 Android devices run the OS which has, ironically, just been superseded by Jelly Bean. Android 4.x installs are to be found on 10.9-percent of Google Play-accessing devices, according to the latest batch of platform break-down stats, though Gingerbread still dominates the market.

Google's figures are based on active Android installations that are available to officially access the Play download store; those third-party devices which use Android but which aren't permitted access – such as cheap tablets running phone versions of the OS – aren't counted. The latest batch of numbers cover the two week period up until July 2.

The span of devices running different versions of Android has become an increasing issue for Google, carriers and manufacturers, not to mention a frustration for owners who'd like to have the very latest software. Google has often argued that "fragmentation" isn't a big deal, but the search giant revealed plans last week at IO to seed a "platform developer kit" (PDK) to OEMs 2-3 months ahead of future OS releases so as to give them time to ready their own upgrades.

That's not soon enough to combat another round of fragmentation this time, however. With Jelly Bean's arrival on the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 7 tablet, it remains to be seen how quickly manufacturers will be pushing out Android 4.1 to their phones and slates.