With iOS 9 around the corner, iOS 8 adoption stops dead in its tracks

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iOS 8 adoption is pretty much over. Photo: Apple
iOS 8 adoption is pretty much over. Photo: Apple

Apple just announced WWDC 2015 today, when the company will presumably unveil iOS 9. Yet with iOS 9 on horizon, a significant number of iPhone and iPad users still haven’t bothered upgrading to iOS 8, with just 79% of all iOS users running it.

Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

That number’s up just 1% in the last two weeks, which is the rate Apple updates its App Store Distribution Webpage, showing the rate at which users are adopting its latest operating system.

iOS 8 adoption has been slow as molasses compared to previous versions, and nothing seems to be changing. First released to the public on September 17, iOS 8 is almost seven months old at this point, and we can reasonably expect to start seeing the first developer’s only previews of iOS 9 in a couple months.

Comparatively, iOS 7 reached a 78% adoption rate just three months after release.

Granted, 79% of all devices is incredible compared to Google Android, where just 0.4% of all devices run the latest version of Android Lollipop.

And there are alternate reasons for why the adoption rate could be slowing down now. For example, iOS is running on more devices than ever before, and we’ve finally reached the point where, for many, a three or four year old iPhone or iPad that can only run iOS 7 is “good enough” without warranting an upgrade.

Still, the trend seems to be pretty clear. iOS 8 adoption rates will tick up at a rate of about 1% per month until iOS 9 hits, in which case, the whole cycle will start all over again.

Source: Apple

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