Android Oreo adoption finally makes it into double figures
Video: One in ten Android devices now run on Oreo
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Adoption of the latest and greatest Android is notoriously slow and Android Oreo 8.0, released in August last year, is no different.
As excitement grows over the soon-to-be released Android P, Google's distribution figures from the week ending July 23 have offered a reminder about how few of Android's estimated two billion users will actually be enjoying the latest available features.
Android Oreo 8.0, released on August 21, is now running on 10.1 percent of Android devices, while Android 8.1, released in December, is on 2 percent. Still, Android Oreo is up from 5 percent since May.
Those who did get a phone with Oreo may at least benefit from Google's Project Treble, which introduced key architectural changes in order to deliver Android P to these phones faster than ever before.
Meanwhile, the biggest chunk of the two billion Android users are running on Marshmallow 6.0, which Google released in the days before edge-to-edge screens and notches were a thing. Precisely 23.5 recent of Android devices are running on Marshmallow today, followed by Nougat at 21.2 percent.
Android Oreo may get a minor boost in the coming days as Oreo finally rolls out to unlocked Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge devices in the US, after it reached Galaxy S8 devices around March.
As usual, the comparison with the latest iOS adoption figures make Android look like a mess, with 81 percent of iPhones and iPads now on iOS 11, released in July, while 14 percent remain on iOS 10, and five percent are on some earlier version.
Download now: Mobile device computing policy (Tech Pro Research)
Android Oreo put a leash on background processes for apps to help preserve RAM and battery life, introduced picture-in-picture mode, several notification changes, and of course Project Treble, which made the OS more modular to help OEMs release updates faster.
As for Android P, which Google will release around the end of summer, it is now moving towards the final stages of its preview phase. As Google mentioned recently, the latest preview was the "early release candidate build of Android with near-final system behaviors and the official Android P APIs (API level 28)".
Those who bought Android phones with Oreo installed can expect to receive Android P faster than in previous years due to Project Treble, meaning that it won't be just Google's own Pixel devices that get it fast. As discussed in a recent AMA on Reddit hosted by Android P's engineers, Project Treble actually has made life more difficult for Android engineers, but it should help Android's ongoing fragmentation problem.
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