Android Lollipop is the OS of choice for one in five users
If you own an Android device, find four similarly outfitted friends and line up, shoulder-to-shoulder. Look to your left. Look to your right. Chances are, one of you has Lollipop, the latest Android mobile operating system. Twenty-one percent of Android devices use Lollipop, according to the company's own breakdown. This figure is up significantly from May, when Android reported just nine percent of its devices used the new OS. The largest share of the Android OS pie goes to Kit Kat, with 39 percent, followed by Jelly Bean with 32 percent.
Android's next update is called "Marshmallow" and while it doesn't yet have a release date, it should hit devices soon. Marshmallow's focus is "polish and quality," according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. We checked out the M Preview version in June and found that "when M works well, it works really well."
A few notes regarding today's numbers: The Nexus 9, Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge all come with Lollipop right out of the box. Also, Android's figures reflect "devices running the latest Google Play Store app, which is compatible with Android 2.2 and higher." That means older devices, or those without Google Play, aren't counted in this particular survey.
