iOS 15 Now Installed on 89% of All iPhones From the Last Four Years

[Smearbrick]

Is this such an important topic that there are two articles dedicated to this?

This isn’t a dog at the site (I’m sure it will be taken that way), more of a question to fellow followers.

 

[Mizouse]

I’m still on 14.8 with my 12 Pro Max.

Still waiting on those promised security updates because I’m still not ready yet for iOS15.

 

[CarAnalogy]

The update didn't brick my device, just crippled it.

The worse case for me was iOS9 on my iPad Mini 2. iOS 8 was great in the Mini 2, no problems at all and great battery life.

After updating to iOS9, the device slowed to a crawl, especially on Safari. The battery life suffered a lot.

It behaved like it was perpetually out of RAM, and page swapped everything. Safari was literally unusable.

iOS 10 improved on things greatly, but not even close to the rock solid experience of iOS 8.

I still use my iPad Mini 2 everyday, and it is still on iOS 10.

Oh yeah same thing happened to me on original retina ipad.

 

[Thebrochure]

Proudly one of the 11%.

 

[now i see it]

It’s getting (or has gotten) to the point that every new version of iOS for the first 6 months is basically malware

 

[Eithanius]

It’s getting (or has gotten) to the point that every new version of iOS for the first 6 months is basically malware

Malware for the first 6 months, ******** for the rest of the lifecycle, especially 15…

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Nice! Is your device secure from Malware?

Of course it is, there's no sideloading allowed, so the iPhone is 100% security and privacy assured

 

[Beautyspin]

Meanwhile Android is a joke about 7% phones has the newest OS

iOS updates and Android updates work differently. First and foremost, the biggest features in Android in recent memory have not even come from system updates. Nearby Share, Google’s version of Airdrop, and RCS, Google’s version of iMessage, are arguably some of the most important releases the company has made in a long time when it comes to really improving the experience of owning an Android phone for the masses. Neither feature required a system update. Nearby Share was delivered to every Android phone running Android 6.0 and higher through a simple, essentially invisible update to Google Play Services. RCS was delivered in a similar manner, through an app either pre-installed on the phone or easily obtainable via the Play Store. Most of the components are modularized and updated as such after Google rearchitected Android through Project Treble.

That’s in stark contrast to how Apple handles iOS. On an iPhone, even minor features are often dependent on a full system update. It’s for that reason that an old, unsupported Android phone is usually much more useful than an old, unsupported iPhone, even if that iPhone got more updates during its lifespan.

The main issue is whether an Android phone gets security fix updates on time or not.

 

[segfaultdotorg]

"82% of all devices use iOS 15."
Talk about burying the lede! When did they make iOS 15 available for Android, Fire tablets, etc.?

 

[MuppetGate]

It might be higher if they hadn’t done that weird thing of saying, in the keynote even I believe, that if you didn’t want iOS 15 yet you can stay on 14 a while. And then apparently a while meant about one month, just a single point release I believe.

It might have been higher if they hadn’t told their customers they were installing spyware on their devices.

 

[jav6454]

Proudly one of the 11%.

Why?

 

[SenorWhyMe]

Meanwhile Android is a joke about 7% phones has the newest OS

damn why do people like you always thinking about android daily

 

[svish]

Very impressive numbers.

 

[MacBH928]

Most of them probably want it to shutup about upgrading reminders. Those should be illegal to be more than once every 2 weeks

 

[JustSomebody12]

It might be higher if they hadn’t done that weird thing of saying, in the keynote even I believe, that if you didn’t want iOS 15 yet you can stay on 14 a while. And then apparently a while meant about one month, just a single point release I believe. I bet they won’t do that again. That didn’t make any sense, if you’re concerned about .0 releases just wait until .1

But more to the point, why wouldn’t every iPhone user upgrade to the latest version. The one percent still on 13 or below must be doing it purpose, is the default setting not to automatically download and install, or at least prompt the living hell out of you?

Consider that before iOS 15.5 you couldn't update with a cellular connection.

There are families with no fixed internet connection, if the user is tech-naive, it's possible they never connected to a WiFi network and so the phone never had the chance to update.

I think the need arises when killer apps start requiring a newer OS.

 

[swingerofbirch]

Meanwhile Android is a joke about 7% phones has the newest OS

I bought a Samsung A50 a few years ago to use without cell service . . .sort of like a big iPod touch because it had an amazing black friday deal. I think it was about $150.

Anyhow, it still has monthly updates up to present. I don't think I'd know the difference it was officially the latest Android or not. But it does get constant security updates. And unlike Apple, I haven't worried about needing to do a backup before each one because I've never had an issue with them. They've added new features. Like being able to switch between front and rear camera during recording and when mirroring to a TV they fixed an issue where it lets you use the camera in landscape mode. I don't pay attention to the Android version. The apps get updated. I think Apple is unique in tying its latest built-in apps to the latest OS. Google has a new messages on the web service (it would be like if imessage let you access your messages on icloud.com--which would be nice). And under the system requirements it requires Messages on Android 5.0 or above--and this is a brand new service. If Apple came out with anything new, it would require a system update.

I'm not sure why Apple has to have a new iOS every year--or any of its OSes for that matter. They mostly seem to be updates to their apps. And why does it start over so buggy each time? Couldn't it just be the same OS with a few new features more incremental? It seems like they're starting over each time the way each one takes a long time to get the bugs out.

The other thing I've really enjoyed about Android is backing up. I just connect it to my Mac and can drag and drop whatever I want from Android File transfer. It's just a basic list of folders of everything on the phone. I can drag everything to an external hard drive. Backing up an iPhone to an external drive if you didn't create a symbolic link with the first back up is impossible—and my computer just doesn't have the space internally, and iCloud backups are incomplete. And even with local backups you can't actually use the data in any meaningful way unless you restore that back up.

After using Android I'm actually at the point of wanting Android on an iPhone device (like the 13 mini). Just the lower complexity of backing up files and my ease at doing updates versus on an iPhone where I've had issues before. But I do like small phones, and Apple is the last (and not for long) to make them.

 

[bassexpander]

I bought a Samsung A50 a few years ago to use without cell service . . .sort of like a big iPod touch because it had an amazing black friday deal. I think it was about $150.

Anyhow, it still has monthly updates up to present. I don't think I'd know the difference it was officially the latest Android or not. But it does get constant security updates. And unlike Apple, I haven't worried about needing to do a backup before each one because I've never had an issue with them. They've added new features. Like being able to switch between front and rear camera during recording and when mirroring to a TV they fixed an issue where it lets you use the camera in landscape mode. I don't pay attention to the Android version. The apps get updated. I think Apple is unique in tying its latest built-in apps to the latest OS. Google has a new messages on the web service (it would be like if imessage let you access your messages on icloud.com--which would be nice). And under the system requirements it requires Messages on Android 5.0 or above--and this is a brand new service. If Apple came out with anything new, it would require a system update.

I'm not sure why Apple has to have a new iOS every year--or any of its OSes for that matter. They mostly seem to be updates to their apps. And why does it start over so buggy each time? Couldn't it just be the same OS with a few new features more incremental? It seems like they're starting over each time the way each one takes a long time to get the bugs out.

The other thing I've really enjoyed about Android is backing up. I just connect it to my Mac and can drag and drop whatever I want from Android File transfer. It's just a basic list of folders of everything on the phone. I can drag everything to an external hard drive. Backing up an iPhone to an external drive if you didn't create a symbolic link with the first back up is impossible—and my computer just doesn't have the space internally, and iCloud backups are incomplete. And even with local backups you can't actually use the data in any meaningful way unless you restore that back up.

After using Android I'm actually at the point of wanting Android on an iPhone device (like the 13 mini). Just the lower complexity of backing up files and my ease at doing updates versus on an iPhone where I've had issues before. But I do like small phones, and Apple is the last (and not for long) to make them.

Samsung phones have a list online detailing the end of security updates. My wife’s S9, just 4 years old and still fast enough, lost support this year. Your a50 is less than 3 years old. The 0 in 50 denotes a phone from 2000.

 

[Eithanius]

The number stands at a high 89% because Apple wouldn't allow downgrades to iOS 14 and prior... Had they been allowed the downgrades, iOS 15 would only be like 45% at most...?

 

[Eithanius]

Consider that before iOS 15.5 you couldn't update with a cellular connection.

There are families with no fixed internet connection, if the user is tech-naive, it's possible they never connected to a WiFi network and so the phone never had the chance to update.

On the other hand, on iPadOS 15, a stupid bug resulted in two of the updates sapping over 5GB of my cellular quota despite me instructing it not to download via cellular and my iPad is always connected to WiFi... Now my iPad sit on Airplane mode all the time...

 

[k1121j]

So planned obsolescence is working 😑

 

[Thebrochure]

Why?

Because I don't see any practical reason to upgrade.

 

[atoqir]

iOS updates and Android updates work differently. First and foremost, the biggest features in Android in recent memory have not even come from system updates. Nearby Share, Google’s version of Airdrop, and RCS, Google’s version of iMessage, are arguably some of the most important releases the company has made in a long time when it comes to really improving the experience of owning an Android phone for the masses. Neither feature required a system update. Nearby Share was delivered to every Android phone running Android 6.0 and higher through a simple, essentially invisible update to Google Play Services. RCS was delivered in a similar manner, through an app either pre-installed on the phone or easily obtainable via the Play Store. Most of the components are modularized and updated as such after Google rearchitected Android through Project Treble.

That’s in stark contrast to how Apple handles iOS. On an iPhone, even minor features are often dependent on a full system update. It’s for that reason that an old, unsupported Android phone is usually much more useful than an old, unsupported iPhone, even if that iPhone got more updates during its lifespan.

The main issue is whether an Android phone gets security fix updates on time or not.

Yeah this is the only thing I really hate about Apple stuff

Monday on WWDC will be an hour of stuff that are just minor app updates in mail/music/reminders etc

Every non Apple OS in the world delivers those quietly through the store or the app updates itself. A good modular OS doesn’t need a full built to fix some app bug or change a font.

 

[swingerofbirch]

Samsung phones have a list online detailing the end of security updates. My wife’s S9, just 4 years old and still fast enough, lost support this year. Your a50 is less than 3 years old. The 0 in 50 denotes a phone from 2000.

Not sure. I just looked it up to see which year I bought it, and I bought it November 2019, when it was at a very heavy discount for black friday off contract, so I assume it had already been out for a while at that point. Wikipedia says it came out Feb 2019, so it's been over 3 years.

 

[RouterCFW]

Probably not as secure as 15.5 but I'm not losing sleep over it.

I’m sorry but if you are being serious wtf is wrong with you the amount of critical remote vulnerabilities that have been fixed since 14.8 is mind blowing you should seriously update