Stats on iPhone and Android show device and OS distributions

Stats time again - this time we'll look at how Android OS versions are distributed as well as the iPhone OS. What do you think is more popular - iPhone 3G or 2nd-gen iPod touch? Which version of Android generates the most mobile Internet traffic? The answers are a little surprising.

Android is being criticized for getting very fragmented - and as far as mobile web traffic is concerned, the three most popular versions right now (1.5 Cupcake, 1.6 Donut and 2.x Eclair) have almost equal shares.

Android stats: traffic by handset • by OS version

In September 2009, when Donut was released, there was a sharp drop in the traffic v1.5 generated and v1.6 rose quite quickly. However, in October when Eclair came out, the v1.6 decline was smoother. It's also odd that Cupcake currently holds the top spot in mobile Internet traffic generated by Android.

The Motorola Droid holds the top spot in the per-phone breakdown of the traffic shares - it also gave quite a boost to Eclair when it launched in November 2009, followed by the HTC Hero. Google's Nexus One doesn't seem to be doing quite hot - just 2%, but it's not widely available outside the US and the UK.

Moving on to Apple's flock of devices, the iPhone 3GS is the most popular device from Cupertino - it accounts for 39% of all Apple devices, followed by the second-gen iPod touch - 25%, and the iPhone 3G comes in third with 20%. Unlike the iPhones, the iPod touch distribution is in favor of the 2nd-gen device (the 3rd-gen iPod touch is at 12% share).

iPhone and iPod stats: traffic by device • by OS version

The first incarnations of both the iPhone and the iPod touch are all but forgotten - they both sit at about 2%. The vast majority uses the two most recent versions of the iPhone OS - 3.1.2 gets 42% and 3.1.3 leads with 44%. The rest are running older versions, probably never having bothered with the whole "firmware update" black magic.

The iPhone OS 3.1.3 is harder to jailbreak than 3.1.2 - can this account for the popularity of the slightly older version? It very well could, but 3.1.3 came out recently so a lot of those 42% percent probably just haven't gotten to updating yet.

Source (PDF)