More than 90% of iPhone users are running the most current OS, but a mere 0.4% are running the latest version of Android. The disparity highlights the poor practices of OEMs and phone carriers.

At TechCrunch they've complied some stats from around the web demonstrating the radical disparity between the currentness of Android and iPhone users operating systems. 90% of iPhone users have the current version of iOS (and a significant number of the remaining 10% likely have jailbroken phones and are waiting for a stable iOS 4 jailbreak). Conversely only 0.4% of Android users are on Android 2.3; even when generously adjusted to include the prior revision (2.2) the number only climbs to a paltry 51.8%. Why is this?

Obviously, this isn’t the Android users’ faults. The problem is that the OEMs and carriers are holding these updates up for a wide variety of reasons, 99 percent of which are undoubtedly bullshit. Here’s a perfect example. Supposedly, the Android 2.2 update is all ready to go for Samsung Android phones on T-Mobile, but Samsung doesn’t want to push it out so that they can entice people to buy the newly announced Vibrant 4G+ instead.

Sounds about right to me. I have a perfectly functional HTC Hero from Sprint and it took them nearly a year to release an upgrade from Android 1.5 to 2.1. Sprint has halted the upgrade path for the phone so it will not be officially receiving any upgrades to Android 2.2 or 2.3. I liberated my phone with a custom ROM but I'm in the extreme minority when it comes to phone purchasers. Those of us slinging around custom ROMs and jailbreaks are not your average cellphone owner.

Check out the full article at the link below for more information and additional breakdowns of cellphone OS via phone and carrier.

iPhone User? 90% Chance You’re On The Latest OS. Android User? 0.4% Chance [TechCrunch]