Android’s Lollipop and iOS 8 were announced at virtually the exact same time, but iOS 8 is obliterating it in terms of user adoption.
According to figures released by both Apple and Google, iOS 8 has 85 percent adoption among eligible iPhone and iPad users, while Lollipop is struggling its way to a mere 12.4 percent.
Given that iOS 9 is now well into its beta period, and the official public version is just two months away, I’d expect adoption to have just about maxed out at this point. If Apple’s lucky, it will hit 87 percent before iOS 9 — but it’s still a massive feat compared to what Android is managing.
Apple’s figures were measured by visits to the App Store on July 20. It showed that 13 percent of people are still using iOS 7, while a minuscule 2 percent are working on older iOS versions than this — coincidentally not far from the number of Android users using the latest Lollipop 5.1 version.
Overall, iOS 8 adoption has been slightly slower than iOS 7 growth, which hit 85 percent the week ending March 23, 2014 — four months earlier than iOS 8. By July that year it hit 90 percent.
Interestingly, Tim Cook announced during yesterday’s earnings call that last quarter Apple “experienced the highest switcher rate from Android that we’ve ever measured.” Just to add a bit more salt in the wound.
