Apple Highlights Low Fragmentation Among iOS Devices in Direct Jab at Android

[gnasher729]

Honestly, who is the 1% on an OS older than 6? Either get a new device or upgrade. Its not safe to live in the stone age.

Weird attitude. I have an age old iPod Touch, still playing music fine, and can't be upgraded from iOS 3. It does exactly what it always did: Play music. And I can get on the internet through WiFi if I feel the desire to do so. Can you give me any sane reason why I should stop using it?

 

[shadowbird423]

I'm sure people on older versions of iOS don't use the app store anymore because they're tired of upgrading an app only to have it inform them their iOS version is too old AFTER it's done installing. Also, there is no way to install the last compatible version of an app on your device. This makes using my original iPhone painful (yes, I do still use it when I go to places in which I would not risk my 5).

 

[bacaramac]

Honestly I wish they had a way to not include all those crappy pre-paid android phones that probably stuck on Gingerbread and to me are not true smartphones. That way we could get a better look at fragmentation and see where Android really sits in terms of both OS version and market share.

Or a better way is to only show devices less than 3 years old. Does Android still allow people like Samsung or whoever to put Gingerbread on a new phone? If not this would be a great metric.

 

[MonkeySee....]

It's going to be more fragmented now once iOS7 is released. I have a feeling adoption rates will not be as high as previous iOS, people are afraid of change.

just wait until ios7, I won't upgrade so easily

Don't worry. Once you get to use it you will see its a brilliant upgrade.

People will love it.

This may sound odd but using iOS6 on my iPad feels odd having been on the beta on my 4s.

 

[pgiguere1]

Yeah but all of iOS's new features aren't available on all devices. iOS will have even more features that won't be available on older devices.

Note that Apple posted this on the developer website. What you're saying isn't relevant to developers. What is is that they can target a single OS version (and its associated APIs) and know they can reach 93% of iOS users.

On Android it's not simple as that. As shown, the software is fragmented, and so is the hardware on top of it, and devices have all sorts of resolutions and aspect ratios. That matters to developers.

 

[Dzupiris]

I will definitely upgrade to ios7. The ugly icons wont stop me from upgrading.

 

[MonkeySee....]

Honestly I wish they had a way to not include all those crappy pre-paid android phones that probably stuck on Gingerbread and to me are not true smartphones. That way we could get a better look at fragmentation and see where Android really sits in terms of both OS version and market share.

Or a better way is to only show devices less than 3 years old. Does Android still allow people like Samsung or whoever to put Gingerbread on a new phone? If not this would be a great metric.

Why should that leave them out. That is Android. They created this mess.

 

[gnasher729]

Heck, I'm pleased they've dropped the 3GS.

I'm not. I have one. It works. It has over 400 CDs loaded. It does everything I want it to do. I can _understand_ why they dropped it from iOS 7, but why would anyone be _pleased_?

If you look at feature set of the OSes - Android 2.3 had all of the features of iOS7

Yes, keep telling yourself that. In the end, you will believe it.

 

[bacaramac]

What about those devices that DIDN'T access iTunes in those two weeks?

I think they would be considered a non-active user from a developer perspective. I think this graph is to show dev's a metric that applies to them.

 

[SpaceKitty]

In before someone with an iPhone 3GS starts belly aching about how they can't get iOS 7...

I have a 4S and a 3GS. No complaining here about the 3GS.

It's too slow on 6.1.2 So I would never expect anything more.

 

[Cloudane]

Useful for developers, I guess.

The other way of looking at it, from a user point of view (the ones paying the money) is that older versions of Android are still useful - that update to your favourite application hasn't said "sorry we need Android 4.0 now, goodbye and thanks for playing!" (a few do, but not many) and most apps seem to be available for 2.3 or greater. So a phone doesn't become next to useless just because it's only a few years old and its manufacturer has decided it's now obsolete and ineligible for the next software update. (Look at the really short life of the iPad 1 that way).

Also 2.3 is often used for cheaper / less powerful devices that can't take the bells and whistles of 4.x, so if you want a basic Android device for something that doesn't NEED to be multi core unibody aluminium awesomeness (we have a tablet at work that basically is used to control some lighting, it doesn't need to be special), you needn't put a huge dent in your wallet.

It's not the 100% ideal scenario for developers, but millions of them seem to be coping alright with the numerous versions of Microsoft Windows!

 

[bbeagle]

Avoiding fragmentation is why developers would much rather program for iOS instead of Android.

Just like a web developer's world is fragmented - IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc. (and different versions of each), it takes more time to develop a web site that works equally well on all browsers. If your boss tells you that you can develop for JUST Chrome, for example, it's a lot quicker to create a web site. Same idea for iOS.

 

[Tankmaze]

People will not upgrade to iOS 7 or adoption rate will be low? That' just FUD.
iOS 7 is still in development, once its ready and how easy it is with OTA upgrade, lots of people will jump on it, just like it did with iOS 6.

 

[iSee]

This is actually a huge improvement for Android.

As best I can tell, OS upgrades seem to be a major issue for Android devices. It seems like updated versions of Android are either slow to come out or never come out for many devices.

I'm guessing the percentages are improving mainly due to new device sales not upgrades.

 

[ejbenjamin]

Apple is definitely better at offering updates to older devices, but App Store connections are a skewed measurement. I have an original iPod Touch, which can't be upgraded past iOS 3. It still works well for music and podcasts, but almost no apps support iOS 3 anymore, so I never connect to the App Store with it. I'm sure there are a lot of users in similar situations out there.

 

[Aljamaki]

It's going to be more fragmented now once iOS7 is released. I have a feeling adoption rates will not be as high as previous iOS, people are afraid of change.

They aren't that afraid. This is not Windows 7 verses Windows 8 or Windows XP verses Windows Vista.

 

[err404]

Honestly I wish they had a way to not include all those crappy pre-paid android phones that probably stuck on Gingerbread and to me are not true smartphones. That way we could get a better look at fragmentation and see where Android really sits in terms of both OS version and market share.

Or a better way is to only show devices less than 3 years old. Does Android still allow people like Samsung or whoever to put Gingerbread on a new phone? If not this would be a great metric.

What? You think it would be more accurate if they excluded phones not running JB? These are active phones over a recent period. This is by far the best way to accurately represent real world devices.

 

[samac92]

If you look at feature set of the OSes - Android 2.3 had all of the features of iOS7 So big deal Apple - same OS from 2007-2013 and ONE relatively significant iOS7 update that even tries to match Android 2.3!

Besides, Android people don't need to wait for an OS update to update most of their OS - it's called modularization peeps! (Chrome, Google Services(GMail, Play Store, various frameworks), Launchers, Keyboards - everything updates outside of the OS. So yeah, big deal with the numbers Apple - they don't mean as much as you make it sound they do.

It matters to developers (note this is posted on the developers site.) Making an app work with multiple OS versions isn't easy, and that's not even taking into consideration hardware.

This is why there are more, better quality apps on iOS. Even apps that come to both android and iOS usually come to iOS first.

 

[kayloh20]

If you look at feature set of the OSes - Android 2.3 had all of the features of iOS7 So big deal Apple - same OS from 2007-2013 and ONE relatively significant iOS7 update that even tries to match Android 2.3!

Besides, Android people don't need to wait for an OS update to update most of their OS - it's called modularization peeps! (Chrome, Google Services(GMail, Play Store, various frameworks), Launchers, Keyboards - everything updates outside of the OS. So yeah, big deal with the numbers Apple - they don't mean as much as you make it sound they do.

It's mainly a developers thing. Fact is, Android developers have to spend more time testing on all the different operating systems/hardware configurations/resolutions. iOS developers only have to focus on a couple versions of iOS (or at least the decision to is easier), three different resolutions (two of which are practically the same development-wise), and only a couple of devices (if even).

 

[Aljamaki]

Yeah but all of iOS's new features aren't available on all devices. iOS will have even more features that won't be available on older devices.

People who still have the 3GS understand they can't use it, and those with the 4 understand they can't do everything. That leaves us with the 4S running at the very least the vast majority of features, the 5 and the next phone running all features.


Your point is?

 

[TimeSquareDesi]

Yeah but all of iOS's new features aren't available on all devices. iOS will have even more features that won't be available on older devices.

At the risk of sounding like an Apple-fanboy, I feel that the engineers do this so the user experience is not comprimised by old - possibly sluggish - hardware that may not efficiently/properly run newer operating systems.

You're definitely right - that it won't work on older devices -but I think this will give users a uniform experience if they are running it on "relatively" new devices. I think this is a choice to make users happy, not a ploy by to make more money. Or both

 

[samac92]

Apple is definitely better at offering updates to older devices, but App Store connections are a skewed measurement. I have an original iPod Touch, which can't be upgraded past iOS 3. It still works well for music and podcasts, but almost no apps support iOS 3 anymore, so I never connect to the App Store with it. I'm sure there are a lot of users in similar situations out there.

Google also uses connections to the play store as a measurement. This is information for developers so they know who will see and be able to buy their app.

 

[Rocko1]

When you have close to 500 different Android devices, all requiring their own separate updates from their own manufacturer, you will have fragmentation.

 

[coreywt]

And if it wasn't for wanting to maintain jailbreaks on iOS devices, and not wanting to have to rejailbreak and set up all the jailbreak features again, the percentage of iOS 6 devices would probably be even higher.

 

[Millah]

Yeah but all of iOS's new features aren't available on all devices. iOS will have even more features that won't be available on older devices.

End user "features" has nothing to do with APIs, which is where this argument is directed, towards developers. Thats the heart of this entire argument, having a consistent API set across 93% of the entire install base. People seem to forget that the most significant changes with software updates are not the features, but the 1500 added APIs in each release.