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As measured by the App store. I would be surprised if the general population is the same distribution. People who go often to the app store probably update mor

by kmonsen 13y ago

As measured by the App store. I would be surprised if the general population is the same distribution. People who go often to the app store probably update more often. Still for developers it is a relevant number.

batiudrami 13y ago
At the same time, for a developer, those who never go on the app store aren't really important. But I agree, it is likely misrepresenting actual figures.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  That's likely the reason it's hosted on developer.apple.com and not their consumer-facing site. (It's also the same way Google measures their OS usage data, also hosted on their developer site.)
mh- 13y ago
I have this same argument about the Android numbers presented by Google. But as another reply to your post already pointed out, these are the numbers that are probably the most relevant to a would-be app creator.
- saurik 13y ago
  The problem is that this biases the statistics due to the 14-day window: everyone who buys a new iPhone goes to the App Store in order to download some "staple apps", but after the unitial setup a lot of users might only go to the App Store every three weeks (for example), meaning that newly purchased devices will be over-represented in the statics, and they all have iOS 6. Honestly, though: even correcting for this new-device bias, this still isn't what you care about... normal users don't sit around browsing the App Store or the Android Market... they open the app when they are interested in a specific download because of some external sale having occurred. Your market as a developer are "people with a device", not "people weird enough to try searching on their device". Regardless, though, yeah: the reason Apple is showing this statistic is because it is the identical metric reported by Google, and they were making a big deal about these numbers during the WWDC keynote, even to the extent of pointing out that Google had changed the metric in this way (to Market visits) was cheating... comparing, though, the like metrics isn't that bad.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    > The problem is that this biases the statistics due to the 14-day window: everyone who buys a new iPhone goes to the App Store in order to download some "staple apps" How do you know that’s how Apple measures OS version share? Why would Apple limit itself to only measuring when users open the App Store? Any iOS device that ever connects to the Internet checks in with Apple to be activated and registered. After that, iOS regularly checks for OS and app updates. If I own an iOS device that I never update and never visit the App Store on, that device will still check for updates and will transmit version data to Apple. Also, because every iOS device has a unique ID, more active users won‘t be counted double.
Schlaefer 13y ago
Also if your device is pre iOS 5 you hardly find new apps or updates. So you don't have much reason to visit the store.
- madeofpalk 13y ago
  Developers cannot support pre-iOS 5 anyway
  - allwein 13y ago
    We most certainly can. I'm still supporting one app which maintains 3.1.3 compatibility. Don't know where you got your misinformation.
MaxGabriel 13y ago
Everyone I've seen has very similar numbers: https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_frag https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_frag http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/ http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/ http://stats.unity3d.com/mobile/index-ios.html http://stats.unity3d.com/mobile/index-ios.html David Smith's numbers throw a few more percentage points to iOS 5, but he's a smaller sample size and his stats are two weeks old. Unity is similar, but it looks from the UI that their data is generated monthly. Mixpanel's are the most up-to-date and their numbers mirror Apple's.
- Aqua_Geek 13y ago
  > Mixpanel's are the most up-to-date and their numbers mirror Apple's. I just noticed this at the bottom of Mixpanel's graph: THIS REPORT WAS GENERATED FROM 79,977,999,480 RECORDS. That's quite the large dataset – 80B records!
demallien 13y ago
It's not clear what that actually means though. Consider this: every iPhone that has an active data connection regularly contacts the App Store to see if there are updates(i) to apps, regardless of whether or not the user actively visits the store. Are these update checks counted by the graph? What about system updates? Are those counted as going through the App Store? Regardless, we can be relatively sure that that graph is there to help developers when deciding which versions of iOS they should support. It would not be surprising if Apple decided simply to include only active App Store shoppers, because this is the number that actually interests developers. (i) I'm not actually sure if this is true if you have never installed an app from the App Store - there is maybe an exception where these phones don't check for updates in this case.
Angostura 13y ago
Indeed, it strikes me as a self selecting sample I have an First gen iPod Touch that I still use quite a lot, which can only run ioS 3.x - oddly enough, I don;t buy anything from the Appstore for it because there are hardly any new apps that will run on it.
acdha 13y ago
If they don't use the AppStore, you're not missing them as a potential customer.

by kmonsen 13y ago

batiudrami 13y ago

At the same time, for a developer, those who never go on the app store aren't really important. But I agree, it is likely misrepresenting actual figures.

interpol_p 13y ago
That's likely the reason it's hosted on developer.apple.com and not their consumer-facing site. (It's also the same way Google measures their OS usage data, also hosted on their developer site.)

mh- 13y ago

I have this same argument about the Android numbers presented by Google. But as another reply to your post already pointed out, these are the numbers that are probably the most relevant to a would-be app creator.

saurik 13y ago
The problem is that this biases the statistics due to the 14-day window: everyone who buys a new iPhone goes to the App Store in order to download some "staple apps", but after the unitial setup a lot of users might only go to the App Store every three weeks (for example), meaning that newly purchased devices will be over-represented in the statics, and they all have iOS 6. Honestly, though: even correcting for this new-device bias, this still isn't what you care about... normal users don't sit around browsing the App Store or the Android Market... they open the app when they are interested in a specific download because of some external sale having occurred. Your market as a developer are "people with a device", not "people weird enough to try searching on their device". Regardless, though, yeah: the reason Apple is showing this statistic is because it is the identical metric reported by Google, and they were making a big deal about these numbers during the WWDC keynote, even to the extent of pointing out that Google had changed the metric in this way (to Market visits) was cheating... comparing, though, the like metrics isn't that bad.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  > The problem is that this biases the statistics due to the 14-day window: everyone who buys a new iPhone goes to the App Store in order to download some "staple apps" How do you know that’s how Apple measures OS version share? Why would Apple limit itself to only measuring when users open the App Store? Any iOS device that ever connects to the Internet checks in with Apple to be activated and registered. After that, iOS regularly checks for OS and app updates. If I own an iOS device that I never update and never visit the App Store on, that device will still check for updates and will transmit version data to Apple. Also, because every iOS device has a unique ID, more active users won‘t be counted double.

Schlaefer 13y ago

Also if your device is pre iOS 5 you hardly find new apps or updates. So you don't have much reason to visit the store.

madeofpalk 13y ago
Developers cannot support pre-iOS 5 anyway
- allwein 13y ago
  We most certainly can. I'm still supporting one app which maintains 3.1.3 compatibility. Don't know where you got your misinformation.

MaxGabriel 13y ago

Everyone I've seen has very similar numbers: https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_frag https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_frag http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/ http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/ http://stats.unity3d.com/mobile/index-ios.html http://stats.unity3d.com/mobile/index-ios.html David Smith's numbers throw a few more percentage points to iOS 5, but he's a smaller sample size and his stats are two weeks old. Unity is similar, but it looks from the UI that their data is generated monthly. Mixpanel's are the most up-to-date and their numbers mirror Apple's.

Aqua_Geek 13y ago
> Mixpanel's are the most up-to-date and their numbers mirror Apple's. I just noticed this at the bottom of Mixpanel's graph: THIS REPORT WAS GENERATED FROM 79,977,999,480 RECORDS. That's quite the large dataset – 80B records!

demallien 13y ago

It's not clear what that actually means though. Consider this: every iPhone that has an active data connection regularly contacts the App Store to see if there are updates(i) to apps, regardless of whether or not the user actively visits the store. Are these update checks counted by the graph? What about system updates? Are those counted as going through the App Store? Regardless, we can be relatively sure that that graph is there to help developers when deciding which versions of iOS they should support. It would not be surprising if Apple decided simply to include only active App Store shoppers, because this is the number that actually interests developers. (i) I'm not actually sure if this is true if you have never installed an app from the App Store - there is maybe an exception where these phones don't check for updates in this case.

Angostura 13y ago

Indeed, it strikes me as a self selecting sample I have an First gen iPod Touch that I still use quite a lot, which can only run ioS 3.x - oddly enough, I don;t buy anything from the Appstore for it because there are hardly any new apps that will run on it.

acdha 13y ago

If they don't use the AppStore, you're not missing them as a potential customer.