Android fans will tell you the fragmentation concern is a non-issue, and that most devices are up to date. But Motorola itself posted a note explaining why many of its customers cannot have the latest version of Android, Android 5.0 Lollipop, depending on their device and where they are. Eventually, the rollout may come to most of their premium phones, but that's not true for many second and third-tier. Even Htc has issues. Lower-cost Android phones are too often treated as disposable, taking the mantle from flip phones. Many of those customers don't even run third-party apps, relying instead on the built-in apps for email and texting. I own several such phones, so I can test my Android apps on a variety of devices, and I have no expectation that upgrades will become available.
By contrast, Apple makes it easy to update their iPhones, including over-the-air upgrades. Of course, Apple only has a few devices to worry about, but that's the point. The fragmentation of different devices, screen sizes, operating systems, and features makes it harder for a developer like me to support as many Android devices as I'd like. Even though some of my apps support a whopping 4,000+ different Android devices, that still leaves out thousands of others. To be fair, Apple now has several different screen sizes to support, but it's manageable.
In making iOS an easy (and free) upgrade, Apple can claim that 97 percent of its users are on iOS 7 or higher, with 69 percent of those using iOS 8. Google cannot make such a claim. According to AppBrain, the largest share amongst Android users is KitKat or Android 4.4, which is at about 37 percent. The test of android user base, is of course, fragmented.
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