6 ms·

iOS 6 Adoption Stats One Month In

46 points by appbot 14y ago

mjs 14y ago
1. Graph is a bit suspicious--why does the adoption rate sometimes go down? (Some quite large drops as well.) 2. Any equivalent graphs for other versions? 3. Adoption rate pretty flat since about two weeks after the iOS 6 release. 4. What percentage of devices can be upgraded to iOS 6? (Probably 95%+, since the 3GS is supported--?)
- manuelflara 14y ago
  Since this is "the % of our app's users using iOS6", the rate going down it probably means that in a given day the rate was 70% and the other less than that (meaning more total users, or just more active users that day with less than iOS6, etc).
- appbot 14y ago
  Nothing to be suspicious about, that's just we are seeing, can't tell you if it's representative of what others are seeing (although the %'s seem to be in the right ballpark to what others have reported). Spikes seem to be related to when an update for one of our apps come out, e.g. around the 2nd (the big spike) is when our update to Discovr Music came out (https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/discovr-music-find-new-music/id412768094?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/discovr-music-find-new-music...) I guess people who updated to that are more likely to of updated to iOS 6. In that actual release (2.6) we are seeing more like 75% iOS 6 usage.
  - smackfu 14y ago
    Yeah, that would be interesting to also show what percentage of people are on the latest version of your software. A lot of less techie people just never update anything, unless it breaks.
- delinka 14y ago
  If this were an adoption rate, then a rate can certainly drop. Imagine 5% of current users upgrade on Monday and then only 2% upgrade on Tuesday. A rate is not "raw user numbers." In the case of this article, additional new users on an older version of iOS would cause a drop in the percentage of users on iOS 6. For example, I have not yet upgraded my iPhone 4 to iOS 6. If I start using this app today, I'd increase the number of users, but cause a decrease in the precent of users on iOS 6.
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    It's not a rate, though, it's "adoption". How can it drop? Unless users tried iOS 6 and went back to 5 en masse.
    - delinka 14y ago
      I submitted before I was finished editing. Apologies for that. I noticed your reply after I was finished. I address this above.
      - appbot 14y ago
        I can see your point, I guess an accurate description of the graph would be the percentage of people using our app on iOS 6 on each particular day
jareds 14y ago
Could someone please describe this graph in detail? Unfortunately there are no numbers to go along with it which is challenging for those like me who are totally blind.
- appbot 14y ago
  Sorry there are %'s on left axis, it goes from 0% at the bottom to 70% at the top.
- brian_cloutier 14y ago
  This is a bar chart of iOS6 adoption over time. It starts at September 1st 2012 on left and ends at October 16th on the right, with a bar for each day that indicates what percentage of their users were running iOS6 on that day. The days are labeled terribly so none of the dates I'm about to give are exact. From September 1st to around September 18th very few of their users ran iOS6. It's hard to tell because the graph is incredibly coarse but at most, 2% of their users were using iOS6. The graph points out that these were the beta testers. The official launch is labeled, and on that day iOS6 adoption soars. On around September 21st, just a few days after the iOS6 launch, already 35% of their users were running iOS6. By September 25th, a little less than 50% were. On October 2 the adoption rate jumps to the highest shown on the graph, a little under 70%. The next day it sinks down to 60%, and the next day it sinks back down to 52.5%. For the last few weeks of data starting on October 6th, the adoption rate stays steady at around 55 or 57%.
- haeric 14y ago
  The graph shows percentage of users having installed iOS6, one bar per day. The bars are very close to 1-2% in early september (beta testers), then around the release 19th of September, the bars quickly rise each day: 30%, 35%, 45%, 47%, 50%, and from there on a quite steady (but jumpy) rise towards about 60% today. There's one weird peak at about 1st of October at about 65%, but that's probably just happenstance. Edit: The difference in the numbers me and the fellow who posted just at the same time shows how coarse the percentage-axis was ;)
  - brian_cloutier 14y ago
blahpro 14y ago
I’d be really interested to see iOS 6 adoption stats compared against previous releases of iOS. Does anyone know if there’s anything published on this?
- smackfu 14y ago
  Marco gives one datapoint for iOS 5.0 here for Instapaper: http://www.marco.org/2011/11/30/more-ios-device-and-os-version-stats-from-instapaper http://www.marco.org/2011/11/30/more-ios-device-and-os-versi... 49 days = 45%
- graeme 14y ago
  This is a very good question. For example, I haven't upgraded because my phone is jailbroken. As of 2009, 10% of idevices were jailbroken with Cydia installed. Couldn't find any more recent stats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia
  - kzahel 14y ago
    Yes, from what I have read there is still no "untethered" jailbreak for iPhone 4 iOS6. That's what's keeping me from upgrading.
  - smackfu 14y ago
    And all the iPad 1s can't upgrade.
mibbitier 14y ago
Have they fixed the ridiculous "Only one connection allowed at a time to an http server" change yet? :/ As far as I'm aware, the browser is fairly unusable because of this.
- ghostganz 14y ago
  I found the browser a lot better/faster on my 3GS after the update, probably due to Javascript speed improvements, so it's very far from "unusable".
- betterth 14y ago
  I haven't noticed anything and I use Safari/Chrome pretty heavily on my Touch. Under what conditions would this noticeably affect my browsing?
- kzahel 14y ago
  Mobile safari should use SPDY, then this wouldn't be as much of a problem :-)
- pilif 14y ago
  This limitation doesn't exist. Safari happily opens up to 4 connections per server. There is however a bug with long-polling connections: If you fire off the XHR for the long-polling endpoint (or Server Site Events endpoint for that matter) before window.onload has fired, then Safari will not fire onload (nor load any other external resource) until the long-polling connection closes or returns something. What you are seeing is people not updating their scripts yet to take this bug into account.
  - lazugod 14y ago
    > What you are seeing is people not updating their scripts yet to take this bug into account. Why? Shouldn't the expectation be that the bug gets fixed?
    - pygy_ 14y ago
      Because meanwhile, your users/customers experience the bug, which for you means lost page views, mindshare and probably revenue...
smackfu 14y ago
Another source shows the same plateau at 65% or so: http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/ http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/ I am a bit surprised from those numbers that there weren't more people left on 5.0, since 5.1 was an OTA update like 6. But maybe this is more of an "I don't want the update" thing than a "I don't know about the update" thing.
bobsy 14y ago
I haven't updated to iOS6. I was worried that google maps would be deleted from my iPad and replaced with apple maps. I do not want this. I heard somethings about Safari being buggy.. I didn't really want this either as I only really use my iPad to surf the web. I was concerned about the memory footprint. As I understand it app's now download retina resources whether you have a retina iPad or not. I have limited space on my iPad. It runs fine at the moment. I didn't see any reason to update.
- masklinn 14y ago
  > I haven't updated to iOS6. I was worried that google maps would be deleted from my iPad and replaced with apple maps. I do not want this. I'm also waiting for 6.1 at least to see how Apple Maps will evolve, I have no sense of direction whatsoever so I need maps to show me where I am, and Apple Maps still seems a bit too risky for now. It's possible to use the Google Maps site directly, but in my tests it's less responsive and the geolocation doesn't work as well as in the application itself. > I heard somethings about Safari being buggy.. I didn't really want this either as I only really use my iPad to surf the web. I've seen developer reports, but no reports of user issues. Quite the opposite, webkit's been updated in iOS6 so Safari is apparently significantly faster. > I was concerned about the memory footprint. As I understand it app's now download retina resources whether you have a retina iPad or not. It's always done that (ever since the release of the original iPad and the creation of "hybrid" iPhone/iPad applications), the version of iOS you're running is completely irrelevant to that issue: if you're running an application compatible with all iOS devices (3GS to iPad 3 at native resolutions) it may very well bundle 4 different copies of bitmapped assets (or even 5 for e.g. startup screens, since the iPhone 5 has a different resolution than the 4/4S). I don't believe iOS AppStore bundles have every been stripped. I'm not even sure they could be since they're signed (unless you jailbreak).
  - demallien 14y ago
    Just as a data point on this whole Maps thing, Apple Maps in iOS 6 has already saved me on numerous occassions in the US and Europe. In Europe, I had a dedicated Garmin Nuvi, but it was Maps that got me to the the tiny village in Alsace. In the US I had a dedicated TomTom, but it was Maps that was able to correctly locate sites of interest for Civil War fans (Eastern Theater). Both dedicated GPSes had had their maps updated in the last month or so. Make of that what you will, but my personal experience has been that Maps is actually pretty reasonable. In major cities it maybe isn't quite as detailed as Google maps, but then, you can always use Google Maps as a web app for that...
dusing 14y ago
My ex wife's iPhone 4 is still using ios4 since I'm not around to do it for her. I chuckle a bit every time she sends me a text message.
SeppoErviala 14y ago
I wonder how many of non-adopters use jailbroken devices.
peterwiese 14y ago
i see no reason to upgrade at all.

46 points by appbot 14y ago

mjs 14y ago

1. Graph is a bit suspicious--why does the adoption rate sometimes go down? (Some quite large drops as well.) 2. Any equivalent graphs for other versions? 3. Adoption rate pretty flat since about two weeks after the iOS 6 release. 4. What percentage of devices can be upgraded to iOS 6? (Probably 95%+, since the 3GS is supported--?)

manuelflara 14y ago
Since this is "the % of our app's users using iOS6", the rate going down it probably means that in a given day the rate was 70% and the other less than that (meaning more total users, or just more active users that day with less than iOS6, etc).
appbot 14y ago
Nothing to be suspicious about, that's just we are seeing, can't tell you if it's representative of what others are seeing (although the %'s seem to be in the right ballpark to what others have reported). Spikes seem to be related to when an update for one of our apps come out, e.g. around the 2nd (the big spike) is when our update to Discovr Music came out (https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/discovr-music-find-new-music/id412768094?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/discovr-music-find-new-music...) I guess people who updated to that are more likely to of updated to iOS 6. In that actual release (2.6) we are seeing more like 75% iOS 6 usage.
- smackfu 14y ago
  Yeah, that would be interesting to also show what percentage of people are on the latest version of your software. A lot of less techie people just never update anything, unless it breaks.
delinka 14y ago
If this were an adoption rate, then a rate can certainly drop. Imagine 5% of current users upgrade on Monday and then only 2% upgrade on Tuesday. A rate is not "raw user numbers." In the case of this article, additional new users on an older version of iOS would cause a drop in the percentage of users on iOS 6. For example, I have not yet upgraded my iPhone 4 to iOS 6. If I start using this app today, I'd increase the number of users, but cause a decrease in the precent of users on iOS 6.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  It's not a rate, though, it's "adoption". How can it drop? Unless users tried iOS 6 and went back to 5 en masse.
  - delinka 14y ago
    I submitted before I was finished editing. Apologies for that. I noticed your reply after I was finished. I address this above.
    - appbot 14y ago
      I can see your point, I guess an accurate description of the graph would be the percentage of people using our app on iOS 6 on each particular day

jareds 14y ago

Could someone please describe this graph in detail? Unfortunately there are no numbers to go along with it which is challenging for those like me who are totally blind.

appbot 14y ago
Sorry there are %'s on left axis, it goes from 0% at the bottom to 70% at the top.
brian_cloutier 14y ago
This is a bar chart of iOS6 adoption over time. It starts at September 1st 2012 on left and ends at October 16th on the right, with a bar for each day that indicates what percentage of their users were running iOS6 on that day. The days are labeled terribly so none of the dates I'm about to give are exact. From September 1st to around September 18th very few of their users ran iOS6. It's hard to tell because the graph is incredibly coarse but at most, 2% of their users were using iOS6. The graph points out that these were the beta testers. The official launch is labeled, and on that day iOS6 adoption soars. On around September 21st, just a few days after the iOS6 launch, already 35% of their users were running iOS6. By September 25th, a little less than 50% were. On October 2 the adoption rate jumps to the highest shown on the graph, a little under 70%. The next day it sinks down to 60%, and the next day it sinks back down to 52.5%. For the last few weeks of data starting on October 6th, the adoption rate stays steady at around 55 or 57%.
haeric 14y ago
The graph shows percentage of users having installed iOS6, one bar per day. The bars are very close to 1-2% in early september (beta testers), then around the release 19th of September, the bars quickly rise each day: 30%, 35%, 45%, 47%, 50%, and from there on a quite steady (but jumpy) rise towards about 60% today. There's one weird peak at about 1st of October at about 65%, but that's probably just happenstance. Edit: The difference in the numbers me and the fellow who posted just at the same time shows how coarse the percentage-axis was ;)
- brian_cloutier 14y ago

blahpro 14y ago

I’d be really interested to see iOS 6 adoption stats compared against previous releases of iOS. Does anyone know if there’s anything published on this?

smackfu 14y ago
Marco gives one datapoint for iOS 5.0 here for Instapaper: http://www.marco.org/2011/11/30/more-ios-device-and-os-version-stats-from-instapaper http://www.marco.org/2011/11/30/more-ios-device-and-os-versi... 49 days = 45%
graeme 14y ago
This is a very good question. For example, I haven't upgraded because my phone is jailbroken. As of 2009, 10% of idevices were jailbroken with Cydia installed. Couldn't find any more recent stats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia
- kzahel 14y ago
  Yes, from what I have read there is still no "untethered" jailbreak for iPhone 4 iOS6. That's what's keeping me from upgrading.
- smackfu 14y ago
  And all the iPad 1s can't upgrade.

mibbitier 14y ago

Have they fixed the ridiculous "Only one connection allowed at a time to an http server" change yet? :/ As far as I'm aware, the browser is fairly unusable because of this.

ghostganz 14y ago
I found the browser a lot better/faster on my 3GS after the update, probably due to Javascript speed improvements, so it's very far from "unusable".
betterth 14y ago
I haven't noticed anything and I use Safari/Chrome pretty heavily on my Touch. Under what conditions would this noticeably affect my browsing?
kzahel 14y ago
Mobile safari should use SPDY, then this wouldn't be as much of a problem :-)
pilif 14y ago
This limitation doesn't exist. Safari happily opens up to 4 connections per server. There is however a bug with long-polling connections: If you fire off the XHR for the long-polling endpoint (or Server Site Events endpoint for that matter) before window.onload has fired, then Safari will not fire onload (nor load any other external resource) until the long-polling connection closes or returns something. What you are seeing is people not updating their scripts yet to take this bug into account.
- lazugod 14y ago
  > What you are seeing is people not updating their scripts yet to take this bug into account. Why? Shouldn't the expectation be that the bug gets fixed?
  - pygy_ 14y ago
    Because meanwhile, your users/customers experience the bug, which for you means lost page views, mindshare and probably revenue...

smackfu 14y ago

Another source shows the same plateau at 65% or so: http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/ http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/ I am a bit surprised from those numbers that there weren't more people left on 5.0, since 5.1 was an OTA update like 6. But maybe this is more of an "I don't want the update" thing than a "I don't know about the update" thing.

bobsy 14y ago

I haven't updated to iOS6. I was worried that google maps would be deleted from my iPad and replaced with apple maps. I do not want this. I heard somethings about Safari being buggy.. I didn't really want this either as I only really use my iPad to surf the web. I was concerned about the memory footprint. As I understand it app's now download retina resources whether you have a retina iPad or not. I have limited space on my iPad. It runs fine at the moment. I didn't see any reason to update.

masklinn 14y ago
> I haven't updated to iOS6. I was worried that google maps would be deleted from my iPad and replaced with apple maps. I do not want this. I'm also waiting for 6.1 at least to see how Apple Maps will evolve, I have no sense of direction whatsoever so I need maps to show me where I am, and Apple Maps still seems a bit too risky for now. It's possible to use the Google Maps site directly, but in my tests it's less responsive and the geolocation doesn't work as well as in the application itself. > I heard somethings about Safari being buggy.. I didn't really want this either as I only really use my iPad to surf the web. I've seen developer reports, but no reports of user issues. Quite the opposite, webkit's been updated in iOS6 so Safari is apparently significantly faster. > I was concerned about the memory footprint. As I understand it app's now download retina resources whether you have a retina iPad or not. It's always done that (ever since the release of the original iPad and the creation of "hybrid" iPhone/iPad applications), the version of iOS you're running is completely irrelevant to that issue: if you're running an application compatible with all iOS devices (3GS to iPad 3 at native resolutions) it may very well bundle 4 different copies of bitmapped assets (or even 5 for e.g. startup screens, since the iPhone 5 has a different resolution than the 4/4S). I don't believe iOS AppStore bundles have every been stripped. I'm not even sure they could be since they're signed (unless you jailbreak).
- demallien 14y ago
  Just as a data point on this whole Maps thing, Apple Maps in iOS 6 has already saved me on numerous occassions in the US and Europe. In Europe, I had a dedicated Garmin Nuvi, but it was Maps that got me to the the tiny village in Alsace. In the US I had a dedicated TomTom, but it was Maps that was able to correctly locate sites of interest for Civil War fans (Eastern Theater). Both dedicated GPSes had had their maps updated in the last month or so. Make of that what you will, but my personal experience has been that Maps is actually pretty reasonable. In major cities it maybe isn't quite as detailed as Google maps, but then, you can always use Google Maps as a web app for that...

dusing 14y ago

My ex wife's iPhone 4 is still using ios4 since I'm not around to do it for her. I chuckle a bit every time she sends me a text message.

SeppoErviala 14y ago

I wonder how many of non-adopters use jailbroken devices.

peterwiese 14y ago

i see no reason to upgrade at all.