Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iOS 8 Now Installed on 68 Percent of Active iOS Devices
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I love iOS 6 and am afraid that without Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall we will never have an iOS that is as good as 6 again. Luckily I have my ipod touch (it's actually running iOS5 because I didn't want the ad-free youtube app to go away).
[I read once that the iOS adoption stats are based on ITunes store purchases. If that is the case, I believe they are misleading. I know I haven't put a new app on my ipod Touch in a long time, because it's pretty much full and has most of what I need, and any new apps I don't need duplicate copies of on the touch. If that's how they are counting, then it is a misleadingly low number of how many devices are still on iOS models <7.]
However, I don't understand the hate for iOS 8? I upgraded my ipad air and honestly it's really not that different from 7. A few features that are nice, nothing that blew me away, but the dictation for one is cool. But overall to me iOS 7 is almost identical to iOS 8. I don't care for either, but if you're stuck with 7, why not upgrade? I'm thinking a lot of people who hated 7 are hesitant to make the same permanent upgrade mistake again, but for me, it can't really get any worse. iOS 7/8 is unintuitive to me. I'll upgrade to 9 no matter how hideous it may be, because I just don't like the user interface of 7/8.
But I just don't understand what is so awful about 8. If you gave me a device to us, I honestly wouldn't know whether it was running 7 or 8 unless I was really trying to determine it.
Last edited:
Using iOS x-1 with older iOS devices makes sense. People with the latest or next to latest models however usually have no valid reason to keep an out-of-date OS.
Wrong. It's actually the only statistic that matters for developers selling iOS apps and companies selling accessories for iOS devices.
All I know is...
If I could roll my original iPad minis back to 7, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Since moving to 8 (I wanted to use third party keyboards that changed their key legends from upper to lowercase), Safari reloads even more than before, with little warnings at the top about having to do so, and animations stutter just a bit.
Screen rotation is not reliable at all now. Battery life is down, too.
Worse, sometimes while browsing, my 3G model will crash back to the homescreen, but without icons. It will only display the wallpaper for about ten seconds, then pop up a "no SIM installed" warning and finally display app icons. It's like a mini-reboot.
It's almost like 8 wasn't really tested on these devices.
I still love my minis, but they're no way near as reliable and smooth.
If I could roll my original iPad minis back to 7, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Since moving to 8 (I wanted to use third party keyboards that changed their key legends from upper to lowercase), Safari reloads even more than before, with little warnings at the top about having to do so, and animations stutter just a bit.
Screen rotation is not reliable at all now. Battery life is down, too.
Worse, sometimes while browsing, my 3G model will crash back to the homescreen, but without icons. It will only display the wallpaper for about ten seconds, then pop up a "no SIM installed" warning and finally display app icons. It's like a mini-reboot.
It's almost like 8 wasn't really tested on these devices.
I still love my minis, but they're no way near as reliable and smooth.
Word of a true Genius
Quoted from a person with enough common sense:
"People around here have very short memories. Apple in year "X" has lost its way, can't make innovative products, and is only concerned about profits. Then when year "Y" comes around, year "X" was when Apple made awesome products, focused on having a great user experience, and was well ahead of its competitors.
Remember, iOS 6 was boring and uninspired. It was lambasted on these forums for being an example of how stale Apple had become. Anybody that dared to defend iOS 6 was deemed the most rotten of fanboys- people like them were the reason that Apple wasn't moving forward. As long as people were okay with iOS not changing, Apple wasn't going to do anything drastic. Well, except for removing the YouTube app. Apple was so "petty" and "juvenile" that they removed the YouTube app and made their own crappy Maps app that couldn't match up with Google Maps.
And here we are in 2014, a time when iOS 6 is suddenly hailed as a work of art. Sure, iOS 6 didn't have many new features, but at least it was stable. Not that anybody cared how stable it was back in 2012, but it's sure convenient to bring that up now, isn't it?
iOS 6 had issues. iOS 7 had issues. iOS 8 has issues. iOS 9 will have issues. Ditto for past, present, and future versions of OS X. As more and more people buy Apple products, more and more people will have issues, and they'll be more heavily reported in the press.
In my opinion, people should spend less time worrying about the issues that other people are having and start asking themselves if Apple products are working for them. If so, what's the issue? If not, maybe it's time to find products that meet their needs."
Quoted from a person with enough common sense:
"People around here have very short memories. Apple in year "X" has lost its way, can't make innovative products, and is only concerned about profits. Then when year "Y" comes around, year "X" was when Apple made awesome products, focused on having a great user experience, and was well ahead of its competitors.
Remember, iOS 6 was boring and uninspired. It was lambasted on these forums for being an example of how stale Apple had become. Anybody that dared to defend iOS 6 was deemed the most rotten of fanboys- people like them were the reason that Apple wasn't moving forward. As long as people were okay with iOS not changing, Apple wasn't going to do anything drastic. Well, except for removing the YouTube app. Apple was so "petty" and "juvenile" that they removed the YouTube app and made their own crappy Maps app that couldn't match up with Google Maps.
And here we are in 2014, a time when iOS 6 is suddenly hailed as a work of art. Sure, iOS 6 didn't have many new features, but at least it was stable. Not that anybody cared how stable it was back in 2012, but it's sure convenient to bring that up now, isn't it?
iOS 6 had issues. iOS 7 had issues. iOS 8 has issues. iOS 9 will have issues. Ditto for past, present, and future versions of OS X. As more and more people buy Apple products, more and more people will have issues, and they'll be more heavily reported in the press.
In my opinion, people should spend less time worrying about the issues that other people are having and start asking themselves if Apple products are working for them. If so, what's the issue? If not, maybe it's time to find products that meet their needs."
I'll anticipate and prepare myself. I'll install iOS 8 on all my devices now so that when ios 9 is out, I'll brag about me rocking iOS 8!
You get the choice of not upgrading to 8... So... If despite all the online whining (from some), people still choose to put it on their machine, that does say something. As for Upgraded hardware, that's only explains about 20% of the 68%
----------
Oh, wow! THAT'S THE OPPOSITE PEOPLE SAID 2 YEARS AGO. 90% of people here declared 6 stale as old bread. So, please spare me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/05/marco-arment_n_6416540.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
I read this two days ago. The writer thinks Apple software is in decline.
I read this two days ago. The writer thinks Apple software is in decline.
There were articles a while ago saying that Apple has 1,000 engineers working on chips. This was in 2011.
Perhaps they need to shift some of those people to the software department.
Where are those stats from (like the 20% of 68% and all that)?
----------
What's paticularly meaningful about that writer's opinion?
CDM... Sales since mid september, versus installed based. Could go to 25%. But. in all case it is not anywhere near 68% (BTW, I meant 20% of 100%, not 20% of 68%... Hope that helps
.I could flip back and ask, why the affirmation that IOS 8 machines are mostly new ones? Seems that affirmation is a lot more outrageous than mine isn't it?
Giving users a choice isn't a bad thing, and giving half the chance, Apple would do this on the desktop if they wanted to.
I have a sinking feeling Apple is headed that way.
I don't really care that according to benchmarks the dialed opens in 1.1 seconds under 8.1.2 vs .78 seconds under 7.1.2. I'm happy my devices are supported for x years. Yes there are glitches in IOS 8 as every release before this, but no critical showstoppers.
----------
It's irrelevant what bloggers say imo, sales are the real indication.
Me too, 8.1.latest on my 5S.
iOS 8 has always been better than 7 for my S, including speed, but not only.
People just love to make a drama about ANYTHING.
Two years ago, we said the same thing. iOS 6 sucked then and people wanted to stick with 4 or 5
I'm a bit interested in The source of the statistics here. Is it the app store?
In that case, I think the "earlier" category is way bigger than 4%.
My dad hated iOS 6 so much I had to get him a non-upgraded iPhone 4 so he could continue on iOS 5 after I convinced him to upgrade his previous phone... And he is absolutely never on the App Store and has no apps installed whatsoever. My mum has iOS 5 on her iPad 1 and is not using any apps outside the built in.
I do believe that a lot older people have no idea about upgrades and no idea about the App Store. I peek at people's phones at work and after passing 50, the amount of apps on your phone seems to dwindle and at retirement age, it reaches zero third party apps.
Of course, the developers are hardly interested in the users not caring about the app store, but these users are still using their i-units with older versions of iOS but it doesn't show.
It would be interesting to see actual numbers in that statistics and compare to official sales numbers over the years.
In that case, I think the "earlier" category is way bigger than 4%.
My dad hated iOS 6 so much I had to get him a non-upgraded iPhone 4 so he could continue on iOS 5 after I convinced him to upgrade his previous phone... And he is absolutely never on the App Store and has no apps installed whatsoever. My mum has iOS 5 on her iPad 1 and is not using any apps outside the built in.
I do believe that a lot older people have no idea about upgrades and no idea about the App Store. I peek at people's phones at work and after passing 50, the amount of apps on your phone seems to dwindle and at retirement age, it reaches zero third party apps.
Of course, the developers are hardly interested in the users not caring about the app store, but these users are still using their i-units with older versions of iOS but it doesn't show.
It would be interesting to see actual numbers in that statistics and compare to official sales numbers over the years.
I'm a bit interested in The source of the statistics here. Is it the app store?
In that case, I think the "earlier" category is way bigger than 4%.
My dad hated iOS 6 so much I had to get him a non-upgraded iPhone 4 so he could continue on iOS 5 after I convinced him to upgrade his previous phone... And he is absolutely never on the App Store and has no apps installed whatsoever. My mum has iOS 5 on her iPad 1 and is not using any apps outside the built in.
I do believe that a lot older people have no idea about upgrades and no idea about the App Store. I peek at people's phones at work and after passing 50, the amount of apps on your phone seems to dwindle and at retirement age, it reaches zero third party apps.
Of course, the developers are hardly interested in the users not caring about the app store, but these users are still using their i-units with older versions of iOS but it doesn't show.
It would be interesting to see actual numbers in that statistics and compare to official sales numbers over the years.
These statistics are from devices accessing the App Store. It says it below the chart.
So your mom and dad... and anyone else who hasn't accessed the App Store this week... are not counted in these statistics.
I never said that iOS 8 was slow, just that the statement that "Apple keep moving iOS on with the latest processors" is equivalent to saying that the OS getting more bloated. Same thing with Android.
I don't really know which is faster because I haven't tried iOS 8 enough. iOS 7 was faster than 6 for me. The OS that really got bloated was Mac OS X with Lion, and it got worse again in Mavericks.
Last edited:
I am running 7.1.2 on my iPhone 5 and iPad Air. Both run really perfectly. Therefore I really see no reason why I should change this. The features in iOS 8 are not interesting for me, so there is no reason to upgrade.
I sorta knew that
Just saying that this might not be the best statistics on iOS 8 usage as I'm guessing a lot of people who got a new i-unit for Xmas is still browsing the App Store to find stuff they want 
I wonder if this is an industry wide thing? SJVN over at ZDnet just posted the statistics on Lollipop and it was far slower than KK or JB.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/android-lollipop-is-out-but-almost-no-one-is-using-it/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/android-lollipop-is-out-but-almost-no-one-is-using-it/
I sorta knew that
Ok... you didn't sound 100% certain earlier
Just saying that this might not be the best statistics on iOS 8 usage as I'm guessing a lot of people who got a new i-unit for Xmas is still browsing the App Store to find stuff they want
What would be a better way though? They need the device checking into something in order to see which version it's running.
That's how Google tracks Android versions too... by seeing which devices access the Google Play Store.
Remember... these statistics are for developers to let them know which OS version people are using to access the app stores.
It's not a method to check the versions of ALL devices in existence.