We’re likely only a couple of months away from the first developer previews of iOS 9, but iOS 8 adoption continues to creepy steadily northwards.
According to Apple’s in-house stats — measured by visits to the App Store on April 27 — 81 percent of eligible iOS devices have now upgraded to Apple’s latest mobile OS. That’s up 2 percent from the last time Apple released its numbers.
Naysayers will likely point to the fact that this is slower than last year’s iOS 7 adoption, which hit a comparable 78% adoption rate just three months after its release. That’s certainly correct, but the fact that four-out-of-five iOS users are using the latest version of iOS is still a stat that would make Android stop dead in its tracks.
By comparison, Android’s two most popular builds remain KitKat and Jelly Bean — despite the fact that the second of these was released in 2012 and last updated in 2013. Android’s iOS 8 equivalent, Lollipop, was released just two months after iOS 8, but shows of up on just 5.4 percent of devices. Talk about fragmentation!
The recent iOS 8 growth was likely helped by the release of iOS 8.3 and possibly the Apple Watch. iOS 8.4 has additionally already been seeded to devs for testing, with the big new feature being a redesigned Music app.
Source: Apple
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
6 responses to “iOS 8 growth slowing, but still enough to shame Android”
If you say so. I like both ios and android and the title of this article is just dumb. I use both ios and android and the great thing about android is that older versions of os all the way back to kitkat don’t make it bad at all. I understand it can still be fragmented but android itself is still very good. Plus with the newest ios updates you lose jailbreak. I guess it depends on how you use your phone.
I agree and disagree. Android versions even going back to Jellybean ARE awesome. But the fragmentation is still very frustrating. I’m on a Galaxy S4 and am only getting Lollipop this week (supposedly).
The issue with jailbreak is a good point because I’ll most likely lose root once I do upgrade to Lollipop. With each update Samsung patches up more and more of the exploits used to get root access.
That said, I’d still like a choice and waiting sucks.
I agree completely. Although updates don’t matter to me to a certain degree, when you release an update like 5.0 with problems and they don’t get fixed till 5.1 that is an issue. It’s the reason i got a moto x 2014 and sold my g3. I could have rooted and installed custom rom but i like stock rom unless it’s on my backup phone that is my tester phone. My wife is using the iphone right now but she likes the g3 better so the iphone is just sitting there.
Apples to Oranges! iOS is on one phone the iPhone. Android is on hundreds LG G series, Samsung Galaxy S series, HTC One series, Sony Experia Z series, Moto X series, none of which is owned by Android (Google). Compare adoption to the Nexus line, which would probably best the iPhone. Otherwise, there’s no sensible way to make this type of comparison legit and justified.
Totally different approaches. Google updates the core part of the OS independently of the version number a device is running.
Trying to compare the two just makes you lose credibility IMO.
WAT?