Why Android Oreo's adoption rates pale in front of iOS 11?

Android Oreo is Google's latest version of the mobile operating system that boasts some very cool features with improved speed and security along with greater control of apps. And it's been nearly six months that the final version of OS officially debuted. But despite all this, the adoption rate of Oreo stands at abysmal 1.1 percent of all Android devices.

Now, compare this number with Apple's devices running its latest software iOS 11, This number comes out to be a huge 65 percent. So why the stark difference? Android's fragmentation issue when it comes to software updates is no secret. For a lot of phones, the version of Android that came installed in the phone when you bought it is often the one that it’ll always have.

Notably, currently, Android 7.0 Nougat is the most-used version of the mobile operating system, running on 28.5 percent of Android devices marginally edging Android, 6.0 Marshmallow (released in 2015), which stands at 28.1 percent.

It isn't that Google isn't aware of the problem. It was precisely to fix this that it launched Project Treble that comes with Oreo. Project Treble makes it easier for Android owners to upgrade their devices to the current version of the mobile operating system without having to wait on their chip partner to support it. It was announced to address Android fragmentation, so that manufacturers can quickly push out the latest update on their devices without having to wait for hardware partners to rework their drivers.

Iliyan Malchev, Project Treble’s team lead, called it the “biggest change to the low-level system architecture of Android to date” in a blog post earlier this year.

While all devices shipping with Android 8.0 out of the box will be supporting Project treble i.e. automatic updates, mandatory, the same is not true for older flagships that have or will update to Android O. The case in point, OnePlus 3, 3T, 5, 5T as also the current lineup of Nokia devices that will not support the feature.

So looks like while the solution has arrived, its a long way before it starts showing noticeable changes.