Blog Post

Data Snapshot: Mobile OS versions – Android and iOS

Last edited: Jul 12, 2022 Published: Mar 14, 2013

Mixpanel Team

As the Android and iOS Operating Systems have become more established, app devs have become used to building to accommodate the multiple versions of the same platform that are in use by consumers. However, knowing which version of an OS has the greatest concentration of activity can allow an app dev to make a smart decision when evaluating trade-offs between taking advantage of the capabilities of the newest version of an OS vs cutting off consumers on older versions.

This data snapshot looks at activity levels on the different versions of the Android and iOS Operating Systems over the past month (February 13, 2013 – March 13, 2013). During this short period of time Android had a wider spread of activity across different versions of their OS while the majority of activity on the iOS platform happened on version 6.x.

Android

Over the last month, Android activity was spread across multiple versions of their OS. The greatest concentration of activity on Android OS is on version 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with 24% of activity, version 2.3.6 (Gingerbread) with 19% of activity and version 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean) with 13% of activity.

iOS

iOS devices have a much cleaner curve with the most activity happening on devices running the newest versions of the OS. 43% of iOS activity over the last month happened on devices running version 6.1.2 of their operating system.

Developers should look at their own data and take the differences between these two platforms into account as they plan for their next app build.