Almost three quarters of iOS users have upgraded to the newest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, according to the latest stats shared by the company.
As measured by visits to the App Store on February 2, Apple claims that 72 percent of active iOS devices are running iOS 8 — compared to 25 percent who are sticking with iOS 7, and a minuscule 3 percent using earlier iterations. It’s not quite at the 80 percent+ mark that iOS 7 was at this time last year, but next to Android’s pitiful numbers, it’s still got to be considered a runaway hit for Apple.
Read on to find out what’s driving the move.
While iOS 8 is available on all newer iPhones and iPads, the most likely explanation for the continuing switchover to iOS 8 is the increasing pool of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners, which iOS 8 comes pre-installed on.
Apple sold a massive 74.5 million iPhones during the last three months of 2014, and according to a report published earlier today, the company plans to ship another 50 million by the end of March. I’d be very surprised if iOS 8 hit anywhere north of 80 percent adoption overall, but it’s still enough to trounce mobile OS adoption on any other platform.
By comparison, the latest version of Android (a.k.a Lollipop) is installed on a dismal 1.6 percent of devices. In fact, one of the most popular mobile OS’s used by the Android set remains Jelly Bean, which first arrived in 2012 and was last updated in 2013.
As kindly types, we don’t like to throw around terms like “fragmentation nightmare,” but it sure does put Apple’s numbers in context.
