A data analysis firm recently estimated that three-quarters of iPhone and iPad users have upgraded to iOS 12. Turns out that was slightly optimistic. Apple revealed today that iOS 12 adoption is actually at 70 percent.
That is vastly better than the number of people who’ve been able to upgrade to the latest version of Android.
iOS 12 debuted on September 17. By October 11 it had already reached 50 percent adoption.
And today Apple updated its developer website to indicate that 70 percent of all phones and tablets are using iOS 12 or iOS 12.1. The adoption rate among devices sold in the past four years is 72 percent.
Expect iOS 12 adoption to slow
A large majority of people who can install iOS 12 have done so within three months, but the rate has already begun to decrease. And based on data from previous iOS versions, the number of people who install the latest version will continue to slow. For example, according to Apple, seven months after version 11 was released it was on 81 percent of all potential devices.
Most users have the option to upgrade, even if they don’t choose to. There is a free upgrade to iOS 12 available for every smartphone and every tablet since the iPhone 5s and iPad Air, which both came out in 2013.
Contrast iOS with Android adoption
While it’s improbable that iOS 12 adoption will get anywhere close to 100 percent, it’s already enormously greater than any version of Android OS.
According to data from Google itself, adoption of Android 9 Pie, the version that came out a month before iOS 12, was at less than 0.1 percent on October 26, the most recent date for which we have information. Last year’s Android 8.x Oreo was at 21.5 percent.
These low adoption figures are a result of the complicated upgrade system Google has in place for phones and tablets running its mobile operating system.
