Android Version Updates: The Sad Statistics

Yesterday Google dashed all hopes of Nexus One owners for a system update to Android 4.0. And it must be said that Nexus One owners were actually lucky — most Android device owners would have been happy to get even that kind of "product lifespan."

Michelle DeGusta, who runs the blog Theunderstatement.com, keeps a fascinating set of statistics: she meticulously records the release date of each Android smartphone (we're talking about major releases in the US market, not including most Chinese devices), its price, and what she calls the "relevance period." And you know what? The results are very interesting:

• 7 out of 18 smartphones never had the current (i.e., latest) version of Android;
• 12 out of 18 had the current version of Android for only a few weeks or less;
• 10 out of 18 were two OS versions behind by the time their two-year carrier contract expired;
• 11 out of 18 phones stopped receiving updates less than a year after release;
• 13 out of 18 stopped receiving support while they were still being sold, or immediately after;
• 15 out of 18 never received an update to version 2.3 (Gingerbread), even though it was released in December 2010;
• Within a few weeks after the release of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), all devices shown on the chart will fall another OS version behind;
• At least 16 out of 18 devices listed will never officially receive Ice Cream Sandwich.

How can you not recall the cries of "Give us 2.1 on the Hero!"

The infographic itself is below:

P.S. By the way, for fun you can track my karma score. Right now it's at 80 with 196 votes. I predict a sharp decrease :)

UPDATE: The karma experiment is going very illustratively. In the couple of hours the post has existed, karma slightly increased (thank you), but 9 people have already downvoted it. And this despite the fact that the post itself was only downvoted twice. So much for the question of fanaticism.