Android News 05 February 2014 – 12:00 GMT / 07:00 EST:
- Google Nexus 5 in Red is Finally Official
- Android Jelly Bean Distribution Reached to 60% While KitKat Remains Under 2%
- Sony Announces End of Life for its 2012’s Handsets, Including Xperia S and Xperia ion
1. Google Nexus 5 in Red is Finally Official
Google officially announced the newest member of the nexus family, Red Nexus 5, which the price and specs are exactly the same as Nexus 5 but the back color is bright Red.
So, if you are looking for a valuable Valentine’s Day gift, you just need to head over to Google Play Store and get the 16GB Nexus 5 in Red for $349 or the 32GB version for $399.
If you live in the UK, Carphone Warehouse will be offering the new color exclusively, starting from tomorrow and the good news is that the retailer has just reduced the price to match the Google Play Store price, which means the 16GB version will cost you £299 and increase to £339 if you double the internal storage.
According to LG Blog, the first wave of Nexus 5 in Red will hit United States, Canada, U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Korea and the next wave will hit more European countries by the end of the month.
Go to Google Play Store
2. Android Jelly Bean Distribution Reached to 60% While KitKat Remains Under 2%
Another month and here is another report by Google about the percentage of different Android versions running on active Android devices. By Active Android devices, we mean devices which visited the Google Play Store during a 7-day period ending on February 4, 2014.
The new report indicates that more than 60% of Android devices are running either of Jelly Bean versions, and this number drops to 20% when looking at Gingerbread distribution. The newest Android version, Android KitKat, now runs on less than 2% of Android devices which isn’t expected to get more share at least in the next couple of months.
If we take a look at the whole picture, we notice about 80% of active Android devices are now running Android 4.0 and up, thanks to the wide adoption of Android 4.1.x, 4.2.x and 4.3.
3. Sony Announces End of Life for its 2012’s Handsets, Including Xperia S and Xperia ion
If your Android device is at least 18months old, then you shouldn’t expect for any software support, and while some manufacturers don’t mention this life cycle of support, Sony Mobile officially announces the list of its handsets (Generally announced in 2012) which will be no longer receiving any software support and the current Android version will be their latest and final version.
Here is the list of devices Sony marked them as EOL: Xperia arc S, Xperia S, Xperia SL, Xperia ion, Xperia acro S, Xperia go, Xperia P, Xperia J, Xperia miro, Xperia sola, Xperia tipo and Xperia U.
