Googlelaunched its voice assistant Google Now on the iPhone today.
It's an amazing product, and much better than Apple's own Siri.
Now for some brutal irony.
Google Now isn't available on most Android phones because they're still running an older version of the operating system that's incompatible. Yet it does work on Android's biggest competitor, iOS.
Google Now only works on Android phones running the latest version of the OS called Jelly Bean. According to Google's own statistics, only 25% of Android devices are running Jelly Bean. Gingerbread, a version of Android that is about two and a half years old, is running on more devices than any other version (about 39%).
Why are so many Android phones running an outdated version of the OS?
Historically, phone manufacturers have had difficulty bringing the latest versions of Android to their devices. That's because most manufacturers heavily modify the regular version OS with their own "skins" and services. And that takes a lot of time.
After that, manufacturers have to submit those software tweaks to carriers for even more testing before the update can be wirelessly transmitted to your phone. The entire process can take months in some cases.
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