Android 1.5/1.6 on More Than 25% Of Android Phones

So Google’s numbers reveal that it’s starting to push out more and more 2.x phones. of course, a lot of that is new phones which tend to be using those builds (but not always). Of course, there are over a quarter of all users still on 1.5 or 1.6 which means you have some compatibility problems. Those users consist of some phones that are too slow and some phones that carriers simply haven’t provided new software for (and yes, the user failed to get a custom ROM for). Ultimately, for some developers this leads to problems. Heck, even Angry Birds has problems with compatibility on Android and they’re not even open to all devices.

Do you guy think this is a real issue that’s only going to get worse? And who do you blame? Is it Goog for having an OS that doesn’t automatically update (assuming the hardware is there) or is it the carriers for not pushing out updated ROMs? This has that Windows Mobile feel to it if you as me…and we know MS’s answer was to shift the burden for updates to their shoulders and not the carriers. I think Google has to go that way as well if they want to stay on top of this pack…