iOS 6 Adoption Up 29% After Google Maps Hits App Store

MacRumors · Dec 19, 2012

Google Maps was released for iOS on December 12, and in the five days after it hit the App Store, ad management platform MoPub noticed a 29 percent increase in unique iOS 6 users.

The data from MoPub, which supports 12,000 apps and monitors 1 billion ad impressions daily, suggests that quite a few iDevice owners were waiting for a better mapping solution before upgrading to Apple's newest operating system.

TechCrunch spoke to MoPub CEO Jim Payne, who had this to say:

"We observed since the launch of Google Maps for iOS 6 a 30 percent increase in unique iOS 6 users, and we think it's related to Google Maps. It verifies that hypothesis that people were actually holding back to upgrade until Google Maps was available."

MoPub's data does, however, conflict with another report from mobile ad network Chitika, which saw just a 0.2 percentage point increase in iOS 6 users in the first 36 hours of Google Maps availability. MoPub seems to include a wider set of data than Chitika and which was taken over a longer period of time, and MoPub's inclusion of weekend data in particular seems to have contributed significantly to the observed increase in adoption, as people may have been waiting to do the lengthy update to iOS 6.

An increased iOS 6 adoption rate following the launch of Google Maps not only benefits Google, but also Apple, which naturally wants as many users as possible on its latest operating system version. With Google's mapping solution now taking some of the pressure off of Apple's own flawed product, one major reason holding some users back from updating to iOS 6 has been addressed.

Article Link: iOS 6 Adoption Up 29% After Google Maps Hits App Store

gmanist1000 · Dec 19, 2012

Google needs to add:

Contacts integration!
Night mode

thekris1234 · Dec 19, 2012

Ironic that the developer of a platform with slow adoption rates can cause the adoption rate of a rival platform to surge.

Otterblue · Dec 19, 2012

Figures.

nepalisherpa · Dec 19, 2012

Could it be that more people are buying iPhone 5/new iPads (which come with iOS 6 to begin with) for holiday gifts?

Brian Y · Dec 19, 2012

Unless I'm seeing things differently:

Wed-Thur: gradient far less than Tue-Wed
Thur-Fri: gradient about the same as Tue-Wed
Fri-Sat: gradient steeper than Tue-Wed, which is normal since more people will be at home to update. That, and more people will buy new phones at the weekend.

That graph, if anything, shows the exact opposite to what this article is suggesting.

Megagator · Dec 19, 2012

Or maybe the fact that iPhone, iPad and iPad mini sales are likely going up due to Christmas and such?
Not that no one waited on google maps but 30% increase seems a little steep.

voyagerd · Dec 19, 2012

Insufficient data needed for analysis.

trunten · Dec 19, 2012

This is such a horrible use of statistics.... Need to know our starting point.

edit: Looks like voyagerd just beat me to that point.

kenypowa · Dec 19, 2012

Looks like the percentage of Apple Map in the garbage folder increased by the same margin.

mathcolo · Dec 19, 2012

thekris1234 said:
Ironic that the developer of a platform with slow adoption rates can cause the adoption rate of a rival platform to surge.

Your statement isn't really factually accurate1.3 million Android devices are being activated every day. I wouldn't call that "slow"

linuxcooldude · Dec 19, 2012

Megagator said:
Or maybe the fact that iPhone, iPad and iPad mini sales are likely going up due to Christmas and such?
Not that no one waited on google maps but 30% increase seems a little steep.

Could be, seen new iPhone 5 on sale as low as $127.00 & 4S at $50.00 at various retailers for holiday season.

Along with the iPad mini which seems to be taking off too.

notjustjay · Dec 19, 2012

Well, I can tell you that I was one of them. I didn't want to upgrade to iOS 6 until suitable replacement apps for YouTube and Google Maps were available.

SuperBrown · Dec 19, 2012

notjustjay said:
Well, I can tell you that I was one of them. I didn't want to upgrade to iOS 6 until suitable replacement apps for YouTube and Google Maps were available.

That makes 3 of us. My friend and I also have yet to upgrade to iOS6, but I'll likely do so soon now for this exact reason.

ArtOfWarfare · Dec 19, 2012

mathcolo said:
Your statement isn't really factually accurate1.3 million Android devices are being activated every day. I wouldn't call that "slow"

He's referring to the fact that over 50% of Android devices are still running an OS Google released over two years ago. As an Android Developer, it sucks because it means if you want to support more than 50% of the market, you have to restrict yourself to using APIs that were available when Google released Gingerbread 2 years ago.

WildCowboy · Dec 19, 2012

mathcolo said:
Your statement isn't really factually accurate1.3 million Android devices are being activated every day. I wouldn't call that "slow"

I think he was addressing Android upgrade data. Less than 7% of Android devices are currently using Jelly Bean.

TheHateMachine · Dec 19, 2012

mathcolo said:
Your statement isn't really factually accurate1.3 million Android devices are being activated every day. I wouldn't call that "slow"

I believe he meant to point out the slowness of Android's version upgrade rate yet couldn't quite put the correct words down. In the context of an article about OS Upgrades one can only assume.

bacaramac · Dec 19, 2012

I agree that Google Maps had more data, but I have had no issues with the information that is actually in the Maps App.

My Biggest issue is Google was way smarter in finding places. As in example, if I asked Siri to search for Village Inn, stupid Siri would search for Village In and not find anything. Whereas with Google, if I searched for Village In, it would ask if I meant Village Inn.

Apple needs to fix this ASAP. Google was just way smarter when searching for awkwardly named businesses such as a place called Cookiez instead of Cookies.

WildCowboy · Dec 19, 2012

trunten said:
This is such a horrible use of statistics.... Need to know our starting point.

edit: Looks like voyagerd just beat me to that point.

voyagerd said:
Insufficient data needed for analysis.

It certainly would have been good to include some "pre-Google Maps" data points, but it should be pretty safe to assume that the number of iOS 6 devices wasn't growing by more than 30% per week before this.

Gemütlichkeit · Dec 19, 2012

Wish apple and google would come to smoe agreement where we'd be allowed to use apples UI but googles logic

best of both

KdParker · Dec 19, 2012

gmanist1000 said:
Google needs to add:

Contacts integration!

Night mode

Can they?

Gemütlichkeit · Dec 19, 2012

bacaramac said:
I agree that Google Maps had more data, but I have had no issues with the information that is actually in the Maps App.

My Biggest issue is Google was way smarter in finding places. As in example, if I asked Siri to search for Village Inn, stupid Siri would search for Village In and not find anything. Whereas with Google, if I searched for Village In, it would ask if I meant Village Inn.

Apple needs to fix this ASAP. Google was just way smarter when searching for awkwardly named businesses such as a place called Cookiez instead of Cookies.

Absolutely, my biggest complaint with apple maps. It's horrible at knowing what I actually want when searching for something. I can search for UPS distribution center and it wuld give me UPS stores across town. I go to google and type the same information in and it takes me right where I need to go.

lakshwadeep · Dec 19, 2012

WildCowboy said:
It certainly would have been good to include some "pre-Google Maps" data points, but it should be pretty safe to assume that the number of iOS 6 devices wasn't growing by more than 30% per week before this.

But that 30% is based on what's defined as "100%". Instead of just plotting absolute numbers, they should have plotted the second derivative (i.e. the rate of iOS 6 adoption per unit of time, not just the number of adoptions). That would have clearly shown whether there is an increase in the rate after google maps was reintroduced.

Superdrive · Dec 19, 2012

bacaramac said:
I agree that Google Maps had more data, but I have had no issues with the information that is actually in the Maps App.

My Biggest issue is Google was way smarter in finding places. As in example, if I asked Siri to search for Village Inn, stupid Siri would search for Village In and not find anything. Whereas with Google, if I searched for Village In, it would ask if I meant Village Inn.

Apple needs to fix this ASAP. Google was just way smarter when searching for awkwardly named businesses such as a place called Cookiez instead of Cookies.

Agreed 100%! Even when it comes to addresses, Apple Maps is very finicky. 123 Easy St 75623 would find an address in Google whereas Apple needs city, state, and precise address formulation..

rwilliams · Dec 19, 2012

Google Maps is a nice app, but I can't use it as my primary map application for a few reasons:

1. No contact integration. That's a basic feature that Apple's Maps and other GPS apps have. I have no idea why Google shipped this without it.

2. No night mode. Navigon does this very well.

3. Notification banners/spoken voice isn't done very well. Apple Maps does a much better job with the rotating banners, and Google Maps has trouble speaking up over music being played, whereas Apple and Navigon mute the music somewhat to make it easier to hear.

I did notice that Google Maps has gotten better at naming the roads to travel and turn onto. The first 2 days I had it, it just said "turn left/right". Now it names the roads. No idea what happened there. I'm sure subsequent updates will add these much needed features and fixes, and I look forward to it.

KdParker said:
Can they?

Why not? Navigon is third party and it has both.

iOS 6 Adoption Up 29% After Google Maps Hits App Store

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