Android OS versions breakdown and updated mobile Google web apps, HTC releases own widgets

The Android family keeps growing with more and more handsets, so Google has just launched the device dashboard. Their mobile web apps are also now better, faster, stronger, and HTC released new Sense UI widgets for the Hero and Droid Eris.

Android devices graph shows OS versions shares

The newly released Android devices graph is based on devices, which have accessed the Marketplace within the last two weeks and will be updated periodically. As you can see the 1.5 devices have a share of more than a quarter of all devices but the main target for developers should probably be version 1.6.

Android 1.6 devices account for more than half the market. But ver. 1.6 smartphones do not share one and the same displays and they vary from QVGA up to WVGA resolution.

Google tweaks its web apps for speed

Today Google also updated their mobile web apps and now it should load up to three times faster for certain devices. The new Gmail features include full label support, swipe to archive, smart links, faster address auto-complete, outbox, enhanced refresh and auto-expanding boxes. Google claim they've pushed the mobile web browser capabilities and HTML5 to the max. To try it, just head on to www.google.com on your mobile browser and hit apps.

GMail on iPhone

And HTC jumps up and offers some free Sense UI widgets

Meanwhile HTC made another move for differentiating their Android devices. They've released a few new widgets compatible with the HTC Hero and the CDMA-based HTC Droid Eris. The available widgets for download are Tip Calculator, Today in History, Dice and Battery.

The new widgets