The latest official figures from the android developers blog show that Android 2.3, Gingerbread, is now running on almost 1 in 3 Android handsets. This information is essential to app developers and it's great to see Google keeping them up to date this way. The breakdown is important when considering how much effort to put into supporting the older versions, and conversely how much they can rely on the newer features of Android being available in the real world. For example, C2DM (Cloud to Device Messaging), the Android push messaging system, is only available to Android 2.2 and later devices. With this news we can see that now represents around 75% of all handsets, which is great news compared to a year ago when it probably wouldn't have been relied upon for use in a mainstream app.
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Google recently announced the launch of Android Instant Apps, a new technology which allows just the bare minumum of an App to be downloaded from links, bypassing the Play Store. This sounds cool enough on its own, but the implications of this reach far deeper than at first appears, and could end up changing the entire internet.