Jelly Bean: Solution to Google’s Android fragmentation problem?

Google could be on its way toward fixing its Android fragmentation problem, according to stats Monday that show Jelly Bean is now the most popular version of the mobile platform.

Jelly Bean, which is the latest version of Google’s operating system, topped Gingerbread in terms of usage for the first time Monday. Gingerbread, which was rolled out in late 2010, now accounts for 34.1% of Android users; Jelly Bean is now used by 37.9%.

The stats are shown in Google’s developer dashboard and are determined by the Android devices that visit the Google Play digital store in the previous two weeks.

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Jelly Bean becoming the most used version of Android is a welcome sign for Google, which set out to fix the amount of fragmentation in its mobile platform when it rolled out Jelly Bean last summer.

Because Android is used on hundreds of different types of smartphones and tablets, Google has always had a hard time getting the bulk of its users onto the same version of the platform. Instead, all users are scattered about on several types of Android.

This is a problem for Google, as it makes it harder and slower for developers to create Android apps. Unlike for the iPhone, developers cannot simply make one version of their app for Android but rather must take extra time to make sure their app works on the various versions of the platform that are still in heavy usage.

Usage is still nearly evenly split between Jelly Bean and Gingerbread along with Ice Cream Sandwich, which accounts for 23.3% of Android users, but if the percent of users on Jelly Bean continues to climb, you might not hear too much about Google’s fragmentation problem anymore.

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