Google: Half of Android app users onto 2.0

After months of breakneck development, Google's Android team has succeeded in getting a slim majority of its users into the Android 2.0 world.

Google released usage statistics Thursday showing that 50.4 percent of all Android devices that accessed the Android Market in the past two weeks were running Android 2.0 or higher. Android 2.0 was released last October along with the Motorola Droid, which has become one of the best-selling Android devices yet released.

The numbers don't necessarily reflect the number of Android 2.0 devices out in the wild, instead focusing on just the number of devices that are browsing and downloading applications from the Android Market. Still, developers that have been worried about fragmentation given the span in capabilities between the older Android 1.5 and 1.6 versions and the much more powerful Android 2.0 and higher versions can feel a bit more confident that Android app users are moving into the 2.0 world.

Google raced to get the 2.0 version out just a few months after releasing version 1.6, feeling competitive pressures from the likes of Apple to improve the capabilities of Android. And it was a big step up, enabling well-received applications such as Google Maps for Navigation. In a way, that speed was good for Android developers since it encouraged the development of powerful devices like the Droid, but it left them scrambling to figure out where they should target their applications.

Now that Android 2.2 is starting to become available, Google is expected to slow Android development to a more moderate pace.