Google Will No Longer Show The Android Distribution Chart On The Web

Before today, it was always very easy to see the percentage of Android devices that used to run on each historic versions of the operating system. But as it became more and more difficult for Google to update the statistics regularly - especially for the last one year, the company has now decided to take down the Android Distribution chart from the web.

The Android distribution chart was created with the aim to help Android developers in understanding the “minimum” version of Android their app would stay compatible with. But this always led to one problem of numbers being so flattering and unrealistic e.g. older versions like 2015’s Android Marshmallow enjoying around 16% market share.

Moreover, surprisingly even Apple used to take help from the data presented in the Android distribution chart to make an estimate regarding when their iOS devices should receive updates.

Google made the most recent updates in the chart first back in 2018 and then around Google I/O in May 2019. After that Google kept realizing the issues associated with it and finally took it down from the web, as first spotted by 9to5Google. However, if someone is still interested to find the Android distribution chart, Google has placed a notice that suggests you to find the insights in Android Studio.

While one can definitely argue regarding how Google shouldn’t hide the details inside its massive development suite, but that still makes sense as such information has always been more useful for developers. So, what do you actually get to see in Android studio?

Google finally updates Android distribution dashboard
Screenshot: Xda-developers.

In the pie chart above, the first change that you will notice is of “cumulative distribution” percentages. Now before we explain that further to you, Android developers usually have the choice of picking up the oldest version of Android on which they want their device to work and that then makes their app super smooth on all versions after the minimum one.

Here, in this case, the cumulative distribution basically informs developers about the percentage of global Android devices that they might lose by going for each newer version of Android. This has been the data that Android developers wanted for years and that is why the Android distribution chart was also designed.

Google also provides extra up to date information that can help you in recreating the Android distribution chart on your own.

Android Distribution Chart

This chart is presenting one obvious fact that Android 10 has not yet been able to achieve 10% market share (standing at 8.2%) when compared to Android Pie that already had 10.4% share back in May 2019. Android Pie enjoys the largest share on Android devices with 31.3%.

This decreased number of Android 10 based devices doesn’t fall well with the intuitive especially with Project Treble built to make the success of Android Pie happen. The initiative should have practically made year-over-year the percentage of Android devices on the latest version increase. However, with that being said, Android 10 still has one month left so we will have to wait and see if the difference gets covered up.

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