iOS 12 Adoption Hits 88%, Continues to Outpace iOS 11

[Duel]

with millions of iPhone 6 & 6 Plus phones still in use in the wild - and unable to upgrade to iOS 13, next year's adoption rate to iOS 13 won't look so rosy

Millions isn’t much from over a billion. I think the iOS 13 adoption rate going to look very good too.
[doublepost=1565275036][/doublepost]

Like it was said above - if a user wasn't constantly annoyed by endless "upgrade meeee!" pop ups, I wonder what the actual adoption rate (of someone going out and choosing the latest IOS) would be.

It’s big full OS update, why wouldn’t you upgrade?

 

[TroyBoy30]

My s9+ begs to differ.

shoulda bought a pixel

 

[ericinboston]

I'm sure the constant pop-up reminders to update your iOS (if you haven't already), without giving the user any call to action to refuse, had nothing to do with that. /sarcasm

You beat me to the comment! Apple is CONSTANTLY harassing my to update. Popups are on the screen when I wake up in the morning...sometimes they pop up in the middle of me using the iPad, etc. People CANNOT turn these alerts off and likely just update to get rid of the nagware.

 

[TrenttonY]

Just wait until the disaster known as iOS 13 is released.

Just a gut feeling. Ive been right in the past...

 

[Juicy Box]

The best reason to stay on ios: updates.

Unless you were on an iPad Mini 2 and updated to iOS 9.

Or...

Unless you were on a [insert iDevice here] and updated to iOS 11.

 

[mactumors]

My s9+ begs to differ.

Your S9+ is less than 2 years old. What are you trying to say?

 

[alpi123]

with millions of iPhone 6 & 6 Plus phones still in use in the wild - and unable to upgrade to iOS 13, next year's adoption rate to iOS 13 won't look so rosy

Actually, it will. They take into account supported devices only. And iOS 13 brings features that users have wished for years.

 

[JetLaw]

with millions of iPhone 6 & 6 Plus phones still in use in the wild - and unable to upgrade to iOS 13, next year's adoption rate to iOS 13 won't look so rosy

I was actually wondering how they measure adoption. I suspect that it they may limit their definition of "Active devices" as being the ones that are capable of running whatever version whose adoption they are measuring.

 

[Seanm87]

if I could downgrade, I would have downgrade immediately to iOS version 10.3.3 on my 6s. The battery life is just terrible on the current iOS (~2hrs Screen On, 100% battery health).

Have you considered that the battery is now 2 years older so doesn’t hold as much of a charge anymore?

EDIT: just seen you have 100% battery health. That’s definitely not normal. Assuming you’re not exaggerating you need to speak with apple about it and do a reset.

 

[512ke]

My phone upgraded by itself. That's the secret to high upgrade rates.

 

[realtuner]

What good are updates if iOS still lacks features that Android had seven years ago like split screen multitasking, background multitasking, background file/media/web services, dock/desktop mode, place icons anywhere on home screen, swipe away unwanted calls, external drive support, mouse support with a real pointer, etc.?

Yawn.

Android is a joke for the same reason Linux is a joke (and has never taken over Windows despite repeated claims "This is the year of Linux on the desktop" for the past 20 years. Apps.

An operating system is USELESS without software to run on it. So while Linux has many useful & powerful features that Windows lacks, they aren't enough to make it as useful overall as Windows. Same with Android vs iOS. The quality gap between iOS and Android is significant (esp on tablets where Android is an utter and complete joke).

Also interesting you left out all the things iOS had before Android (and the list is very long). Why is that?

 

[Bawstun]

What surprises me is that anyone is still on iOS 11. iOS 12 is better in every way, including speed. My guess is that some people’s phones are too full to upgrade, because that’s the only reason not to upgrade.

iOS 12 trades battery life for speed, drastically. I had an iPhone SE on iOS 11 that could go all day 10-11 hours, and on iOS 12 it was at 20% in 5-6 hours of usage.
[doublepost=1565281371][/doublepost]

Yawn.

Android is a joke for the same reason Linux is a joke (and has never taken over Windows despite repeated claims "This is the year of Linux on the desktop" for the past 20 years. Apps.

An operating system is USELESS without software to run on it. So while Linux has many useful & powerful features that Windows lacks, they aren't enough to make it as useful overall as Windows. Same with Android vs iOS. The quality gap between iOS and Android is significant (esp on tablets where Android is an utter and complete joke).

Also interesting you left out all the things iOS had before Android (and the list is very long). Why is that?

Most of the popular iOS apps also have an Android version, and sometimes they’re actually somewhat better. I found myself liking many Android versions of my most-used apps even better.

 

[Robert.Walter]

if I could downgrade, I would have downgrade immediately to iOS version 10.3.3 on my 6s. The battery life is just terrible on the current iOS (~2hrs Screen On, 100% battery health).

Downgrade from what?

Also remember, your battery is older now and may be responsible.

 

[tgwaste]

This is not an achievement. Control is Apples #1 practice.

 

[Frantisekj]

Nice, but it is probably last time Apple can show such great numbers, if we are talking about active devices and not only compatible ones. Because with iOS 13 Apple will cut 20 % of them off. iPhone 5s, 6 and 6+ counts together such amount of active phones. Situation with iPads is even worse. 30 % of devices.
You can check detailed statistic from one app developer that i think represents situation well. https://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/
I think Apple will provide security updates for iOS 12 for some time.

 

[johncarync]

I have read through the comments and I haven't seen something mentioned: the trust factor. I think it's user trust in Apple's ability to release a bug-free update that's helping widespread adoption. It used to be that you'd put off updating your phone because Apple would release an update and then news would spread of how "X" is now messed up or "Y" stopped working. Over the past 4 years, those complaints (other than "my old phone is now slow") are fewer and farther between. My recent experience with updates has been uneventful. Add "trust in updates" with "numerous annoying alerts" and you have an impressive upgrade rate.

 

[itsmilo]

Well it’s not like you can downgrade so „continues to outpace“ is pretty obvious

 

[coolfactor]

android gets way more, better updates - which are really worth doing it!
it has far more features and possibilities.
ios has mainly cosmetic and security updates

You're joking, right? Come on, tell us you're joking.

 

[C DM]

What good are updates if iOS still lacks features that Android had seven years ago like split screen multitasking, background multitasking, background file/media/web services, dock/desktop mode, place icons anywhere on home screen, swipe away unwanted calls, external drive support, mouse support with a real pointer, etc.?

Seems like they are more than just fine for millions and millions.
[doublepost=1565284499][/doublepost]

Well it’s not like you can downgrade so „continues to outpace“ is pretty obvious

Well, it's a comparison to where the previous iOS version was at this time last year.
[doublepost=1565284620][/doublepost]

Just wait until the disaster known as iOS 13 is released.

Just a gut feeling. Ive been right in the past...

Seems like it's not being seen as anything even close to a disaster by most.
[doublepost=1565284695][/doublepost]

I was actually wondering how they measure adoption. I suspect that it they may limit their definition of "Active devices" as being the ones that are capable of running whatever version whose adoption they are measuring.

The data is measured by what iOS devices are running when they access the App Store over a particular period of time.
[doublepost=1565284739][/doublepost]

This is not an achievement. Control is Apples #1 practice.

This is basically just developer information to let them know the breakdown of what the customers are using.

 

[Timemaster]

Are you kidding me? Android gets MONTHLY security updates and full yearly releases. What are you talking about lol?

If you're assuming Android is a OEM that builds phones, you have a misunderstanding of what Android is.

Android is an open source OS that is regularly maintained and regularly updated. Because of its open nature, OEMs and enthusiasts alike can choose what they want to do with it. If you want to use it as is, you can install it on day 0. See Essential Phone and Google Pixel Line. When a company maintains both software and hardware, you get day 0 updates. Like Google. But what's great about Android is even if you're not Google, you can still release it on day 0 if you're okay with the way it is. See Essential Phone. It's all about choice.

If you want to compare Android and iOS in terms of updates, you should compare Apple and Google, as they are the most comparable. Then see if your update claim holds any truth.

If you want to customize it even further, well then you release it when you're customization is done. Companies like OnePlus do some customizations, but not much, so their updates are delayed 1-2 months usually. Companies like Samsung basically rebuild the entire user interface and add features like Dual Bluetooth Streaming, screen recording, custom camera software, etc.

With all that said, even a company like Samsung does a yearly release of new software. They're just not on the same schedule as the core underlying Android OS.

Hopefully you now know how Android works!

Now, if you don't like Android- that's fine. There are many reasons to prefer iOS over Android (and vice versa). But there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding of how Android updates work- even MacRumors staff are ignorant on this.

Mix all of that with Google project Treble which is separating out the OS from UI layer. These means the OS gets updated and they do not mess with the OEM customization on the UI.

 

[AZMecha]

with millions of iPhone 6 & 6 Plus phones still in use in the wild - and unable to upgrade to iOS 13, next year's adoption rate to iOS 13 won't look so rosy

Well if you choose New Apple Card or iPhone Upgrade program or Classic Barclay's Card you too can have a shiny new Apple Device!!!!!

 

[realtuner]

The data is measured by what iOS devices are running when they access the App Store over a particular period of time.

There’s an interesting story behind why Apple does this, and it’s a dig at Google.

What Google used to do to count active devices is when a device checked into Google servers. This counted all active devices in use. The downside is it counted all those old devices running much older versions of Android.

Google modified the way they count devices as those that visited the Google Play Store within the last 7 days. Their “excuse” for this change is that it reflected users who were visiting the Google Play Store and therefore were more likely to buy Apps so developers could see what devices they should target.

The real reason they did it is because it instantly skewed their version numbers to favor newer versions of Android so it wouldn’t look like such a mess (it still does, but it’s better).

So when Apple started showing adoption rates they specifically copied the Google model and poked fun at the differences.

 

[zombierunner]

So 12% of iOS users are not using iOS 12? Why?

 

[redheeler]

if I could downgrade, I would have downgrade immediately to iOS version 10.3.3 on my 6s. The battery life is just terrible on the current iOS (~2hrs Screen On, 100% battery health).

Still running 10.3.3 on my 6s Plus. Not being able to downgrade, and loss of 32-bit app support, were the reasons I never updated it to 11 or 12, otherwise I definitely would have.
[doublepost=1565297694][/doublepost]

So 12% of iOS users are not using iOS 12? Why?

See my two reasons above.

 

[C DM]

There’s an interesting story behind why Apple does this, and it’s a dig at Google.

What Google used to do to count active devices is when a device checked into Google servers. This counted all active devices in use. The downside is it counted all those old devices running much older versions of Android.

Google modified the way they count devices as those that visited the Google Play Store within the last 7 days. Their “excuse” for this change is that it reflected users who were visiting the Google Play Store and therefore were more likely to buy Apps so developers could see what devices they should target.

The real reason they did it is because it instantly skewed their version numbers to favor newer versions of Android so it wouldn’t look like such a mess (it still does, but it’s better).

So when Apple started showing adoption rates they specifically copied the Google model and poked fun at the differences.

Well, whatever the stories might or might not be related to it all, the underlying point is that the data is aimed at developers and basing it on App Store access is probably a somewhat better take on it than something else when it comes to representing the user base that uses apps (which is basically what's more important to developers).
[doublepost=1565298606][/doublepost]

So 12% of iOS users are not using iOS 12? Why?

There are active devices that simply don't support iOS 12.