Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by parrots 4995 days ago
The adoption rate for iOS6 has been amazing compared to previous versions that weren't OTA. Over 60% in less than a month (according to a statistically significant and diverse user base source: http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/). I recall seeing some iOS5-only apps when it was adopted this widely after a few months.
1 comments
smackfu 4995 days ago
OTOH, that graph sure has plateaued at around 60% for the last week. I think there is a fairly significant group of iPhone owners who just don't care about OS updates and never even notice that indicator on Settings telling you that you can update.

Or this: http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/05/after-early-boom-new-number...

link
parrots 4995 days ago
Sure, it's slowed down - everyone has gotten the pop-up by now telling them to OTA update so those that are left didn't want to right away. But that just puts us in the same boat we used to be; a slower adoption rate as we wait for them to manually do it.

If they don't care, that's fine. They'll start to care as more things go iOS6 only. Just like people stay on XP forever until there's a reason to upgrade.

But 60% of the user base (including those who can't update like iPad 1, not just 60% of eligible) in less than a month? As a dev that make me really really happy and not scoff at considering going iOS6 only.

link
smackfu 4995 days ago
Oh definitely it's a good adoption rate. I just think a lot of people were thinking "60% in a week! We'll be at 90% in a month!" and that seems overly optimistic at this point. And if it plateaus at 70%, how many developers are willing to cut off 30% of their customer base?
link
shinratdr 4993 days ago
History has shown that won't be the case. We might not be at 90% by the end of the month but mark my words, the exponential growth of iPhone sales in which each new model eclipses the entirety of iPhone sales up to that point has a pretty drastic effect on the old OS percentages.

The combination of the iPad, iPad mini, iPhone 5, and new iPod touch all running iOS 6 and the aggressive older device update strategy means we are pretty much assured 90% by the end of this year, if not sooner. With the notable exception of the original iPad, the iOS devices that can't run/won't run iOS 6 are a drop in the bucket.

The other thing to note is that as devices get older, users tend to enjoy them less and therefore screw around on them less. This naturally results in less app usage, less browser usage, appearing in less statistics, etc...

So while the exact percentage of all iOS devices running iOS 6 might take longer than a year to hit 90%, I suspect app developers will have a fairly different picture painted for them by their personal usage statistics.

link