Apple loves to tout how quickly people update to its newest software, but with iOS 8, many are choosing to hold back. The company’s own numbers show that only 1% of the iOS user base has upgraded to iOS 8 in the last two weeks.
Only 47% of users are on iOS 8 vs. 46% the week of September 21st. Adoption rates usually slow down as time wears on, but these unusually low numbers indicate that many are choosing to not upgrade to iOS 8. Unfortunately, Apple has given a few reasons why that’s the case.
Apple has had its fair share of software bugs in the couple of weeks that iOS 8 has been out. The initial release went relatively smoothly, although iOS 8 requires at least 5GB of empty device storage, which has been the main hurdle for many would-be iOS 8 upgraders to overcome. Many max out their device storage with media and apps, making it a pain to clear space to update.
HealthKit apps weren’t made available at first, but then Apple pushed out iOS 8.0.1, which was a disaster. It bricked thousands of phones by disabling cellular and Touch ID. Apple quickly released a fix in the form of 8.0.2, but the widely reported snafu that was 8.0.1 likely made the public wary of updating.
When you take into account those factors, the other performance complaints out there, broken Bluetooth connectivity in cars, and the iCloud Drive bug that could delete all data, it’s easy to see why iOS 8 hasn’t been gaining traction. With Apple selling a record number of new iPhones all running iOS 8, 47% isn’t very impressive.
To put the percentage into even more perspective, Tim Cook said that iOS 7 adoption was at 64% during Apple’s October iPad event on October 22nd, 2013. With a 1% increase every two weeks, iOS 8 has a long way to go to catch up.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
34 responses to “iOS 8 growth slows to an embarrassing crawl”
The reason most of my friends haven’t upgraded is the 5GB requirement. Ridiculous.
Also, there isn’t much improvement from iOS 7 to 8
Do they know they can plug into any computer with iTunes and update, without clearing 5GB off their phone?
What they know is that it’s 2014.
2014 creates many idiots?
Idiots tend to use iPhones, that is true
The need for 5gb of free space has probably kept many people with 16gb phones from upgrading. The fact that you can upgrade via iTunes WITHOUT having 5gb free space must have gotten by me. I didn’t know that little piece of trivia. I will be taking advantage of it in the future. Thanks.
Yeah, but then you have to install the awful iTunes junkware.
It remains like a stink on my Windows PC .
It’s not ridiculous in the slightest. iOS 8 is a big update there are a lot of frameworks and API’s that are changed or are just plain new and weren’t present in iOS 7. So a couple things are at play here:
1.) The update itself is large
2.) When you do an over the air update there is much more space required because you need the space to download the update file (1.8GB or so?) -which is in an ‘archived’ format thus it’s actually a bit smaller than it could be and less you have to download- and then you need the space to unpack that update file so 2.2 GB or so and then you need space so the device can move files around and do what it needs to do for the actual install itself (maybe another 1GB?). This is not a unique thing to iOS or iDevices this is how updates of this nature typically work regardless of platform. Once the update is done it deletes itself and all the temp files it created etc… and you get all your space back.
No jailbreak no upgrade. Simple.
I Love Apple But IOS 8 is The WORST Update EVER!!!
Why? Been using it since release on my 5s. Works fine, and I never did 8.01 as I never patch on release day for any software.
Heard that in every iOS release
“Apple loves to tout how quickly people update to its newest software…”
And Cult loves to tout how quickly people do •not• update on day one, week one, or month one… along with reporting other meaningless statistics. It’s a silly game you play. Lacking any serious software bug, build-problem or change in Apple management, Cult literally creates these non-stories from whatever is lying around. How about some interesting features?
Thank you. Couldn’t agree more. And calling it embarrassing? Like 47% is a joke. Android is at 8 fit its latest. Beginning to really hate this “writer”.
Many people are waiting to get their new phone.
I personally love it. The update worked just fine on my old iPhone 5, had the new TimeLapse feature which I played around with it for a few weeks as I waited for my 6 Plus to arrive 13 days later. I am glad i didnt see the 8.01 update before it was removed. Really looking forward to it working with Yosemite. I WILL probably wait a few days before upgrading Mavericks though..just in case 10.10 has bugs any potential issues..
I have had iOS8 since the first Beta. Only had some minor issues which was resolved in later Betas. I never had the “chance” to install 8.0.1 cause they took it away. 8.1 GM is awesome.
Perhaps a lot of those are iPhone 4 users which was kept out of this release onwards.
Is this 47% of devices that can support iOS 8, or ALL iOS devices?
This is exactly the right question! Even better, the supported ones or the truly capable? Meaning, excluding the oldest iphones and ipads theoretically capable.
They are just shoddy “journalists” going for the cheap headline.
Embarrasing crawl? I don’t think so. Maybe a lot of these people are waiting on 8.1, or maybe it’s because of the space requirements for over the air upgrading. Instead of trying to make this a bigger issue than it is, why not post something telling people how to get over that space requirement, or how to perform the upgrade using iTunes?
Yes, it’s getting pretty bad when even CoM starts down the Apple is doomed path.
This information makes no sense to me. With all the millions and millions of iPhone 6 and 6+ sold, each of which comes with iOS 8, how could the figures for 8 be so low? I updated to iOS 8 on my iPhone 4S the week before I updated to the iPhone 6, but experienced no problems whatsoever with it. I didn’t install iOS 8.0.1 simply because I was too busy working, so I didn’t experience any difficulties there either. These figures just seem altered or interpreted incorrectly. Give it another couple of weeks and this will probably blow over as just another made up story like “bendgate” or all of the “gates” before it: No Big Deal. I always update through iTunes. Never had a problem since my first gen iPhone to my current iPhone 6. Keep up the good work Apple.
I just bought a refurbished 2012 Mac Pro from Apple’s online store, then just under 90 days later, I had a catastrophic hard drive crash on 2 separate drives. I took it to the Apple Store in Tampa and contacted customer support on the phone: The upshot is that Apple is sending me a brand new black Mac Pro with a 1TB SSD and 16GB of Ram for a total cost of $100 to cover one additional stick of RAM. Now that’s customer service!
I’ve already upgraded, but really there is no big rush to upgrade to iOS 8 at the present time. ApplePay won’t be rolled out until sometime in “October”, and the really cool features of iOS 8 such as Handoff won’t work until OS X Yosemite comes out, and there is no official word on when that will be. Until then, there are some nice new features in iOS 8 to play with, but nothing that requires people to run home and update right now.
I’d say that a lot of those people are using iPhone 4 which has been accounted on the iOS 7 share and no longer on 8 once they cannot get this update ever onwards.
For those who are not upgrading to an iPhone 6, there’s not much to iOS 8 to make it a worthwhile upgrade. I upgraded on my 5S, but I haven’t seen any “awesome” new features.
Extensions alone is worth it. Widgets are overrated I’ll grant you. And the manual camera controls and photos editing tools (along again with extensions to use other apps in the photos app) and quick message reply and actionable notifications. I could go on and on. iOS 8 is the biggest update ever for features.
I regretted upgrading to iOS 7 almost immediately. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with 8.
Indeed, with so many applications losing functionality and so little in return for the update, I would prefer strongly to revert back to IOS 7.0
UPDATE TO IOS8 — BRICK YOUR PHONE OR “FORMAT TO FIX IT” (mandatory, no escape once you start)
Gee, why are people failing to rush at this offer?
We need a Hooray Day for the end of the incompetent thieving Jew, Tim Cook.
($3.2 BILLION to purchase the BEATS junkware service is what experienced money managers call, “A huge theft from Apple” because he gets a huge kickback for that price paid to his criminal embezzlement accomplices).
I updated within the first few hours after release in the we hours of the morning. I did it as an over the air update just to see what it would be like.
I have an iPhone 5S 64GB Space Gray. I absolutely love this phone to pieces, it’s the 3rd model of iPhone I have owned over the many years.
I work in IT so it was important for me to go ahead an do the upgrade so that I would understand what my user base would be experiencing on their own. Most companies I work with hand out iPhones to their management employees to replace Blackberries and purge them from their organization.
I had not one hiccup doing the install, had totally forgot updates might be available until I thought about it 2 weeks later and did the 8.0.2 update with no problems at all.
Benefits of the update are very nice:
– My phone all of a sudden has about 25% more battery life it seems.
– My phone all of a sudden is a HECK OF A LOT FASTER .. it’s like totally optimized. In comparison this is reminiscent of the difference between OS X 10.5 and 10.6 or Vista and Windows 7.
– Seems a lot more stable than iOS 5 to iOS 6 was in timeline of release as the app updates roll out from various 3rd party developers.
– Only one app crashed and got the Springboard Apple logo reboot.. Facebook! No surprise there, 2 days later.. an update was released. Always has been the most unreliable mobile app on every platform.
– New Wallpapers
– Now some of the optional apps are bundled in the OS (iBooks, et al)
– The new features are kind of cool and some things are immediately useful like “Hey Siri”
– Yes Siri is much nicer and Navigation is very good.
– I wound up resetting my Auto-correct dictionary it was just too screwy for the things it tries to say are correct that were intentionally used in the past.
– I now await an Apple Watch next year to pair up with my iPhone 5S so I can enjoy ApplePay and the Health apps, this is going to be fun.
– At some point I will have to decide if I will go with iPhone 6 Plus or with an iPad w/LTE since for 128GB they are the exact same price on AT&T.
Embarrassing? Really?
I miss the look and feel of iOS 6 every day. I’m sure a lot of users felt iOS 7 was a horrible mistake, and don’t want a repeat.