Ice Cream Sandwich distribution grows but Gingerbread is more popular

What is it with Gingerbread? Android 2.3 is yet again the most popular sweet in the family, according to the number of devices accessing Google Play during the 14 days ending October 1, with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich steadily growing.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean reported the highest growth, managing to reach a 1.8 percent Android distribution that is 50 percent higher compared to the previous data released by Google that placed the latest member of the Android family at just 1.2 percent distribution. The continuous growth is impressive, but no where near as significant per the overall scheme of things and not even close to Ice Cream Sandwich.

The almost one-year old Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, versions 4.0.3 to 4.0.4, run on 23.7 percent of green robot-based devices, an improvement of 2.8 percentage points compared to last month. For the first time versions 4.0 to 4.0.2 are out of the picture, which can likely be attributed to updates.

The tablet-only Android operating system, Honeycomb can be found on 0.4 percent of devices for version Android 3.1 and 1.5 percent of devices for the next iteration, Android 3.2.

Yet the most popular Android version remains 2.3 Gingerbread -- on 55.8 percent of devices, with versions 2.3 to 2.3.2 taking up a minuscule 0.3 percent distribution in comparison to the 55.5 percent distribution for the 2.3.3 to 2.3.7 versions. Even though Gingerbread lost and Ice Cream Sandwich gained, the former is still more than twice as used compared to the latter.

Android 2.2 Froyo takes 12.8 percent of Android distribution and 2.1 Eclair is now at 3.4 percent. The Android 1.x family is on 0.5 percent of Android devices, 1.6 Donut taking 0.4 percent and 1.5 Cupcake 0.1 percent of the Android OS distribution.

All Android versions previous to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich have lost share, with the Android 4.x family growing to 25.5 percent distribution. Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean will continue to grow, according to the historical dataset, with Froyo and Gingerbread continuing the slow and steady descent.