Less than 2% of Android devices are tablets

In the latest platform versions report from Android Developers, Honeycomb, the tablet-only version of Android has scored disappointingly, accounting for only 1.8% of all Android devices. Compare this to Apple’s 250 million iOS devices, substantially more than 1.8% of those are iPads.

The good news for Android however is that Gingerbread adoption has accelerated over the past month. In a 14-day period ending October 3rd, Gingerbread (v2.3) accounted for 38.7% of all Android devices, representing a 7.4% increase in a similar period ending September 2nd.

Between September and October Froyo (v2.2) has declined by 5.9%, now at 45.3%, as users move towards Gingerbread – Android’s latest smartphone OS version.

Platform versions Eclair (v2.1) and below have declined slightly from 16.1% in September to 14.2% in October. These are the versions that Android need to eradicate as some newer Android apps refuse to work at this level. With Android’s expected release of Ice Cream Sandwich (yes, another Android version) next week, it’s precisely these versions that may be incompatible for upgrade.

Honeycomb, the Android version reserved specifically for tablets, increased only slightly from 1.4% in September to 1.8% in October.

Until Android figures out a self-updating process similar to Apple’s iOS, fragmentation will continue to plague Android and its developers.