Even as Apple is expected to unveil iOS 14 on Monday, the company revealed that 92% of all iPhones introduced in the last four years run iOS 13. That’s a higher adoption percentage than for iOS 12 this time last year.
And it’s vastly ahead of the percentage of Android users who’ve been able to upgrade to the latest version of Google’s operating system.
iOS 13 adoption is really, really high
Apple tracks which of the various versions of its operating systems are on iPhones and iPads that visit the App Store, and it periodically informs developers on the percentages. But not on any regular schedule.
As of Wednesday, June 17, the company says that iOS 13 adoption is at 92% for iPhones released in the last four years. Just 7% of these use iOS 12. However, when all active handsets are included, the percentage drops to 81%.
For comparison, last August, just before the release of iOS 13, Apple said 90% of all recent iPhones ran iOS 12. But the percentage of all handsets running the current version was 88%. This might indicate that, in 2020, more users of older devices resist upgrading.
iPadOS adoption is too
Adoption of iPadOS 13 is even higher. Apple says 93% of tablets introduced in the last four years use this version. Only 5% are still on iOS 12.
But there are still plenty of older models running previous versions. Apple says 73% of all its tablets that are still active enough to visit the App Store use iPadOS 13.
Contrast iOS with Android adoption
Adoption of the latest Android OS version lags far behind. It’s so low, Google stopped publicly announcing it. Only developers have access to this data. It still gets revealed, though.
As of May, Android 10 is on 8.2% of devices. That’s despite this version launching about nine months earlier. The previous version, Android Pie, is on 31.3% of devices. That means 60.5% of Android devices are running a version more than two years old.
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. It’s up to individual handset makers to release upgrades for their products. This often takes months. And older devices frequently aren’t offered the latest versions.
