iOS 26 Shows Unusually Slow Adoption Months After Release [Updated]

[JohnC1959]

It’s on my work laptop. It’s as stock as it gets. Zero customizations besides which apps are pinned to the Dock

Not being able to see wifi networks is certainly a very big problem. Big enough that I would go to an Apple store if you can and see what they can figure out.

 

[now i see it]

Unusually slow adoption due to unusually poor software

 

[btrach144]

Because it’s got liquid ass in it. So many UI bugs and UI inconsistencies.

On top of that, who thought monochromatic app icons was a good idea? It’s a UX nightmare!

Lastly, my wife is indifferent about tech. So if she’s complaining about how awful an update is, you know you missed the mark and messed up.

 

[sergekills]

I'm betting we'll see liquid glass slowly morph to something a bit more practical in coming minor and major versions. Some may be via user settings. Apple makes mistakes but they do also learn from mistakes.

iOS 7 was polished in iOS 12 release.
Waiting for iOS 31?

 

[814MB]

If only I could switch back to 18.

I’d give my left nut to go back to 18

 

[GlassFingers]

Also after selecting text I can’t scroll left and right through context menu in iOS 26. That’s my biggest complaint. I hate extra clicks and waiting for it to expand to a vertical menu. Ugly and annoying

 

[Avenged110]

What a shock. I hope that’s true. Maybe if it didn’t blow so hard, people would be more inclined to use it.

 

[DocMultimedia]

Upgrading was a big mistake. Want 18 again. Liquid Glass is a Solid Disaster.

 

[SpotOnT]

With all the bugs I hear about in iOS 26, I’m kind of planning on waiting until iOS 27 to upgrade at this point

 

[Luke MacWalker]

I wonder what were the numbers for iOS 7… 🤔

 

[WarmWinterHat]

I only have it on my work phone as I was required to upgrade just a week or so after 26.0 was released. According to someone in IT I was chatting with, it's been pretty divisive, and they've had a decent amount of complaints. In my unit, the update convinced several people to not update their personal phone and as far as I know, they still haven't.

My sister has been running it for over a month and hates it.
My brother and his wife are running and it are indifferent to the usability, but think it's ugly.

I've been eyeing my wife's Pixel and how much better it looks, and works.

I wonder what were the numbers for iOS 7… 🤔

7 was buggy but I liked the new look. 26 is buggy and it's fugly as hell. Not a good combo!

 

[garranhado]

It's time for Tim to leave.

Apple needs Jobs and Forstall.

 

[dmnc]

Because is awful

 

[CarAnalogy]

Yeah I’m really only running it because the new iPhone came with it and I had to upgrade my old phone to migrate.

Love the new hardware but yeah I would take iOS 18 on it if I could. The couple actual new features are nice but they absolutely did not require Liquid Glass to get them.

By the way LG should sue Apple for defamation for ruining that acronym.

 

[poematik13]

Until you hear "my phone changed and I don't like it", which I heard verbatim the day after Christmas.

My parents are STILL complaining about the iOS 18 (?) photos app redesign that nuked all the albums and made everything inaccessible and impossible to navigate. They’ve been slowly reverting it with updates back to how it was.

Apple’s OS are at all time low quality imo. Theyre just redesigning and messing with things that dont need to be touched, and introducing tons of bugs in the process.

 

[maika1305]

No problem with the looks of iOS 26 for me. It's the bugs that I don't like

 

[Homme]

iOS 7 was polished in iOS 12 release.
Waiting for iOS 31?

agreed there

I wonder what were the numbers for iOS 7… 🤔

The numbers were good I believe.

My parents are STILL complaining about the iOS 18 (?) photos app redesign that nuked all the albums and made everything inaccessible and impossible to navigate. They’ve been slowly reverting it with updates back to how it was.

Apple’s OS are at all time low quality imo. Theyre just redesigning and messing with things that dont need to be touched, and introducing tons of bugs in the process.

The photo app redesign in iOS 18 is much worse than on OS 26

 

[beltzak]

The renaming everything to 26 made sense.

I don't care for the Liquid Glass or whatever, but I don't mind as long as there is progress elsewhere, but there isn't. Screen Time hasn't been touched in what feels like a decade (when my kids were young, one of them is an adult now). I feel like MacOS has stagnated. The office suite apps haven't meaningfully changed in what feels like forever. You can't lock notes that have a checklists for some reason.

Safairi is fine. Just fine. Not bad enough to switch to Firefox when you're in the ecosystem, but otherwise a second-place choice - and it shouldn't be tied to OS releases.

And there's bugs, lots of bugs. Freezes, hitching, apps hang, sometimes run into memory leaks, processes hang in Activity Monitor and you don't know unless you are looking for it.

Uninstalling applications on MacOS is worse than either Windows or Linux.

I was hopeful that the convergence of IOS/iPadOS/MacOS would result in both stability and the ability to add new features easier, but it seems Apple is either not there yet, or has higher priorities. AI is a joke. I turned it off for two months and didn't notice a difference (other than +20% batt life). I turned it back on to see what I was missing, and again, I don't see any real difference. Notification summaries and writing tools, that's it?

Here is my 2 cents.

What I think is that Apple is so happy stealing 30% of every developers work that he does not give a **** about their apps anymore.

I have been wondering this myself and finally reached to this conclusion. A few years back I had to search and study several Mail apps and noticed that the App Store / Mac Store was full of Mail Apps with subscription models that were developing new features whereas Apple had it’s Mail application stagnated.

Same with Calendars, Notes, Pages, Numbers, Automator, Terminal, Spotlight , Photos, iMovie, Reminders, Contacts, Calculator on iPad …

Basically everything has been halted… so why could this be?

I have no other explanation than they are neglecting their own apps in order to drive more sales while at the same time they’re saving money not developing stock apps.

And the things that have changed, like System Preferences have gone to worse.

It’s been several years already so or the greed stops soon or the roadmap doesn’t look good.

In the other hand the Apple Silicon looks awesome in Mac’s. Shocking.

 

[sw1tcher]

Apple now continues to support older operating systems with security updates, allowing users to remain on iOS 18 without immediate pressure to update or forfeit critical patches. This makes it much easier for users to remain on older software.

^ This ^ contradicts this

Don't Want to Upgrade to iOS 26? Here's How to Stay on iOS 18 [Update: Now Unavailable]

Since the beginning of December, Apple has been pushing iPhone users who opted to stay on iOS 18 to install iOS 26 instead. Apple started by making the iOS 18 upgrades less visible, and has now transitioned to making new iOS 18 updates unavailable on any device capable of running iOS 26. If you...

www.macrumors.com

If you have an ‌iPhone‌ 11 or later, Apple is no longer offering new versions of iOS 18, even though there was a security update that came out alongside iOS 26.2. Apple stopped showing new iOS 18 updates when iOS 26.2 launched, forcing iOS 18 users to upgrade to iOS 26.2 if they want to keep their devices secure.

 

[Homme]

7 was buggy but I liked the new look. 26 is buggy and it's fugly as hell. Not a good combo!

7 wasn’t too buggy though the iPhone 4 tolerated 7.0 and luckily didnt suffer the same iPhone 3G/iOS 4.0 disaster level but 7.1 improved it a lot

the iPad 3 also started to get a little laggy on iOS 7 hence why both devices were the actual reason why that and the iPhone 4 didn’t get the blurred control center feature ( and the iPad 2 but that definitely supported it because of its low screen resolution/pixels but of course if the 3 can’t get it the 2 couldn’t either)

 

[rishey]

Because it stinks?

 

[klasma]

Wow! For a text-heavy website where you interact by typing a lot, I would have thought that most users would be on a desktop OS. Personally I almost never visit the site on a phone. It seems I'm quite out of touch!

I think the percentage is of iPhone users, not of total visitors.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

7 wasn’t too buggy though the iPhone 4 tolerated 7.0 and luckily didnt suffer the same iPhone 3G/iOS 4.0 disaster level but 7.1 improved it a lot

the iPad 3 also started to get a little laggy on iOS 7 hence why both devices were the actual reason why that and the iPhone 4 didn’t get the blurred control center feature ( and the iPad 2 but that definitely supported it because of its low screen resolution/pixels but of course if the 3 can’t get it the 2 couldn’t either)

Oh man, I forgot about iOS 4 on my 3g... 😱

I rolled back to 3.1.3 and stayed there until I upgraded to the 4 about six months after it was released. You know, back when Apple actually allowed downgrades.

 

[Greatness617]

iOS 26 is showing unusually slow adoption among iPhone users months after release, according to third-party analytics.

Usage data published by StatCounter (via Cult of Mac) for January 2026 indicates that only around 15 to 16% of active iPhones worldwide are running any version of iOS 26. The breakdown shows iOS 26.1 accounting for approximately 10.6% of devices, iOS 26.2 for about 4.6%, and the original iOS 26.0 release at roughly 1.1%. In contrast, more than 60% of iPhones tracked by StatCounter remain on iOS 18, with iOS 18.7 and iOS 18.6 alone representing a majority of active devices.

Historical comparisons highlight how atypical this adoption curve appears. StatCounter data from January 2025 shows that roughly 63% of iPhones were running some version of iOS 18 about four months after its release. In January 2024, iOS 17 had reached approximately 54% adoption over a similar timeframe, while iOS 16 surpassed 60% adoption by January 2023.

Based on those figures, iOS 26 adoption appears to be running at less than one-quarter of the rate achieved by recent predecessors during the same post-release window. StatCounter derives its estimates from web traffic analytics, tracking operating system versions via page impressions across its global network of participating websites.

In the first week of January last year, 89.3% of MacRumors visitors used a version of iOS 18. This year, during the same time period, only 25.7% of MacRumors readers are running a version of iOS 26. In the absence of official numbers from Apple, the true adoption rate remains unknown, but the data suggests a level of hesitation toward iOS 26 that has not been seen in recent years.

Unlike many previous releases, iOS 26 introduces Liquid Glass as a fundamental visual overhaul, replacing large portions of the traditional opaque interface with translucent layers, blurred backgrounds, and dynamic depth effects across system elements. Upon its announcement at WWDC last year, the redesign received mixed reviews, which could be a contributing factor to hesitation around upgrading.

Likewise, Apple now continues to support older operating systems with security updates, allowing users to remain on iOS 18 without immediate pressure to update or forfeit critical patches. This makes it much easier for users to remain on older software.

Article Link: iOS 26 Shows Unusually Slow Adoption Months After Release

because we hate it I wish I could go back

 

[Virinprew]

It’s not the best OS. I have this weird glitch where the time on lock screen would shift to the right on 17 pro max no less. It’s really annoying.