I’ve been developing an application targeting Android and iOS for a bit now; and every day greets me with the “Android SDK Manager” which is basically a package manager for the various versions of Android that you can install and build your applications against.
As I was trying to get my application loaded on to my Galaxy Tab GT-7310 8.9 it occurred to me that I didn’t really understand the corollary between release dates of the two platforms. While it’s likely nothing; I thought to do a bit of discovery while waiting for Android 3.2 to install.
When I thought about it, I made a bet that the release dates would have something in common; and likely there for no other reason than marketing initiatives.
Graphic:
Beyond being correct in my assumption that there would be a commonality; I really don’t want to make any assumptions about why but I think it seems pretty obvious. The net result is that it’s a complete nightmare for a small developer trying to do hardware tests on actual Android devices because of compatibility / capability issues.
Details
(Android) Cupcake 1.5
April 30, 2009
(Android) Donut 1.6
September 15, 2009
(Android) Eclair 2.0 and 2.1
October 26, 2009
iOS 3.1.3
February 2, 2010
(Android) Froyo 2.2
May 20, 2010
iOS 4.2.1
November 22, 2010
(Android) Gingerbread 2.3.bunches
December 6, 2010
(Android) Honeycomb 3.bunches.bunches
February 22, 2011
(Android) Ice Cream Sandwich 4.1
October 19, 2011
iOS 5.1.1
May 7, 2012
(Android) Jelly Bean 4.1.bunches
June 28, 2012
iOS 6.0
June 25, 2012
Credit to Wikipedia as the Source of Truth and Google Docs for their excellent trend grapher.