iOS 8 Adoption Stagnates Just Two and a Half Weeks After Launch

[iFitzgerald]

I bought my iPhone 4S about two or three months ago. It came with iOS7 (running 7.1.2 now) and I must say that I am very pleased with it, everything is smooth and everything I need works. Not to mention it was a BIG step forward coming from a crappy Android phone.

Regarding iOS8, the vast majority of 4S users that have update to iOS8 complain about it, (slower and worse battery life). So until a newer update improves this and until I start reading 4S users being happy about it, I'm going to stick with iOS7. No need to risk having my good experience with the 4S go away.

 

[rikscha]

I bought an iPhone 6. It clearly says phone in the name, yet I can't launch the phone app. It crashes instantly.
It is great having to ask Siri for my recent calls or missed calls. Most of the time my contacts app crashes as well. Very painful and surely can only be rectified by resetting everything. Annoying.

 

[VulchR]

I bought an iPhone 6. It clearly says phone in the name, yet I can't launch the phone app. It crashes instantly.
It is great having to ask Siri for my recent calls or missed calls. Most of the time my contacts app crashes as well. Very painful and surely can only be rectified by resetting everything. Annoying.

Return the phone. Simples.

 

[rikscha]

... everyone who wants to listen to music on their iPhones surely? How else would you organise and sync your music library otherwise?

iTunes match? Who connects it back to the Mac anymore.

 

[nouveau-apple]

There's no reason to upgrade to iOS 8 especially since it's not fully complete with glaring glitches at the forefront.

 

[roblesterjr04]

What I see...

From my experience asking people why they haven't updated: Their phone is so full of crap that they can't download the update, and so they don't bother. The iOS 8 upgrade required 6.9 GB of download space when we tried. Thats half the usable space on the standard capacity iphones of 16GB (12GB usable).

As far as the 6% left on ios 6 - Alot of them are hold overs who bought the iphone 5 and had the same problem I listed above.

 

[seecoolguy]

honestly wish i was still on 6. 7 was okay but iOS 8 has had nothing but problems for me and many others. Unacceptable and very unlike apple for this to happen.

This is very Apple like Remember the iPhone 3G? https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/979368/ I do enjoy Apple products, but older hardware at some point is just not supported very well.

in general they do a great job, but as they add more to the OS each new version makes the older hardware feel slow and also the new hardware runs circles around it too.

 

[jvmxtra]

How does big company like apple which controls everything have this much problem? Do you not test anything when releasing these software????

Do you not fire anybody or hire more people who know what they are doing after incidents like this?

What's going on here

 

[Justafrogg]

Apple has little to no choice about the timing to the release of their OS. It has to do with release of the new iPhone. Guess what, we know now, within a few weeks when iOS 9 will be released. It will be sometime in September 2015. Perhaps it will slip to first week in October.

They can be embarrassed about the initial release. But sometimes incredibly complicated projects don't get done perfectly. The main issue is that it is a multi-billion dollar issue if the OS isn't ready for the new iPhones. So that has to be first priority.

Your 4S experience will improve a bit. They can focus on you guys now.

I'm sure that Apple will get this fixed. I'm on the long waiting list for an iPhone 6 Plus so how iOS 8 works with a 4S won't affect me. I do however intend to keep my iPad2 for some time.

There is no reason other than marketing for Apple to release a new iOS to all legacy devices at the same time as it does when releasing a new device.

 

[rdlink]

Buggiest iOS I've ever experienced

You mind giving some specific details? I have used it for months, both on a 5S and a 6. No major issues. Most of the "issues" I did have were related to third party apps that haven't yet been updated, or have been updated and were broken by their updates.

Far too often I believe people have issues because of this problem, and are quick to say that Apple has released "the buggiest iOS ever."

When third party apps are involved you have to understand that Apple can't control the entire experience. Sure, they can have guidelines for the apps, they can control the hardware, and the way it interacts with the OS. But they cannot be absolutely sure that every one of the over 1 million apps available for people to download are solid with the new OS.

Not saying they're aren't bugs with iOS 8. There are always going to be bugs in software, and they will become more prominent when the users of the software go from about a million to 100 million almost instantly. But I find iOS to be relatively stable. In fact, I forgot that I was running it a few times in the first couple of weeks.

 

[azentropy]

Multiple reasons...

Other than my Air and my mini retina, the other iPads in my family are 3 iPad 2's, 1 iPad 3 and 1 original iPad mini. All but the iPad 3 are 16gb and tight on space and that combined with early reports that iOS 8 doesn't run well on any of them has me holding off.

I really wanted the family sharing feature, but then after trying it it ended up not being what I wanted. I want "every" installation/account to have to ask for permission, not to have to set them all up as child accounts.

 

[Tech198]

Didn't updates always require a ton of space when its done OTA? I don't think space limitations is the problem, I just think people don't see a difference between iOS7 and 8.

I see a difference, its just i choose not to update..

Its like saying buying a top notch house with games room, if your never gonna use it. You buy it, cos u think u may want it later..

That's different.

 

[Ted13]

Love iOS 8 on my 5s. No complaints.

Totally agree -absolutely rock solid on the 5S. Meanwhile a rollicking frolicking disaster on the 2.5 year old iPad 3 -- good thing I'll be able to upgrade in a couple of weeks...

 

[B4U]

I refuse to be guinea pig for a buggy OS even it is forced onto my device.
In fact, I am still on 7.0.6 on my 5s because the end call button is still usable there.
The 4S is still on 6.1.3 so that it does not become a piece of paperweight.

 

[NameUndecided]

Wifi (and maybe something else ?) issues on my iPad 3, here.

It started just after installing 8.2.

Oftentimes, pages will load way too slowly, or more often just stop and stall halfway through loading. Across both Safari and Coast browsers.

I get lots of "page is not secure" or "not verified" type warnings for obviously safe sites like this one and imdb and... probably most others upon their first visit.
At first I thought this was a glitch with updated Coast, but I'm seeing it happen with Safari.

And most glaring and annoying -- None of my Google apps work because they're not able to connect to any servers.
No YouTube app, no Google Search app.

All other devices work just fine. This all started on the iPad just after updating to 8.2 from 8.0 the other day.

 

[Tech198]

Well.. at least the "other side" is happy...

It's high time Apple started walking on two legs instead of one.

 

[scott911]

I think a big problem is that people with near full devices need to take action to delete, transfer data before being able to update iOS via wifi.

I updated via a hardwire connection to itunes and did not have to clear data. Does the prompt to update device include the direct-connect suggestion if the device is low on memory storage? If not, that would be useful to increase future adoption...

 

[TallManNY]

I'm sure that Apple will get this fixed. I'm on the long waiting list for an iPhone 6 Plus so how iOS 8 works with a 4S won't affect me. I do however intend to keep my iPad2 for some time.

There is no reason other than marketing for Apple to release a new iOS to all legacy devices at the same time as it does when releasing a new device.

I've never really understood Apple's decision to do it this way. I would think the more logical thing would be to release the new iOS for the new phone and only they would get the new features for at least a few weeks. That seems like the better marketing move. Not only would you be showing off your new phone, but you would be showing off the new OS as well. So the process would take longer and be a better advertisement.

If this also results in happier older phone users for a few weeks, so much the better.

Anyway, this is the OS update that we got savvy on. I told GF not to update the iPad 3 with OS 8. My Mom's iPhone 4 can't take the update, so I didn't need to intervene there, but I would have given her the same advice if she had a 4s. Apple supports three generations back, but you really shouldn't take advantage of it if you have the oldest supported generation.

 

[Gav Mack]

I wish I'd not upgraded my main two devices, my 5s and iPad Air to iOS 8. With the often hard resets I have to do to make apps and the settings app stop hanging, rotation bugs, Bluetooth, repeated asking for my icloud passwords and most annoyingly Safari on the iPad which breaks itself daily by pressing both buttons down till I see the Apple logo isn't an ideal situation to have using them for work.

Most troublesome since iOS4 for me.

 

[techweenie]

Why would you send things like that to the CEO of a company? Do you think that his responsibilities include defect backlog management? I'm pretty sure there is a support address for bug reports.

It's not a bug. It's a missing feature. The prior CEO did not distance himself from feedback.

 

[TC03]

I'm starting to think that apology letter for Apple Maps was unnecessary. Apple Maps wasn't great but not so bad either. Besides Maps, iOS 6 ran very smoothly and overall performance was great.

The bad performance on iOS 7.0 and 8.0 bugged me more than Apple Maps.

 

[Imory]

Yea it feels stuttery, I'm surprised I didn't notice it before. Other than that though, I've been dealing more so with freezing and ios 8 becoming unresponsive.

Yeah, such a **** up by Apple. Some people might find it to be a minor thing, but the fact is they didn't care and decided to release it anyway knowing that it stutters on their high-end hardware which the A7 definitely is. This time they've handled it in an appalling way with their release and the quality control has been subpar.

 

[Sodner]

I think it has to be the space issue #1 and lots of folks with iPad 2's not wanting to risk slower performance.

I know we have our phones upgraded (6, 6, 5s) and my iPad Air but both our iPad 2's (16 and 64gb) we are in no rush to update.

 

[winston1236]

Probably because most people are on older IP's these days. Not a big issue thats just what happens with older hardware.

 

[DiscoMcDisco]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but I've had a hell of time just freeing up the space on my girlf's 5S 16GB to just get the damn thing installed. I wonder how much of that is the reason people aren't doing it/able to do it.

They touted the non-computer setup etc a little too hard and now they have a user base that doesn't have over a third of it's devices free to install the latest OS.

It actually complained at me saying it wanted 5.7GB free space to install.

I'd like to see the survey results on why people haven't upgraded.