Apple’s latest iOS adoption numbers are amazing

Apple’s newly published iOS and iPadOS adoption data is impressive on its own account, but astonishing when you think about the significance of these numbers.

Apple’s latest iOS adoption numbers

Apple infrequently shares usage and OS adoption data concerning its platforms. The latest information was gauged on December 15 and shows that:

• 81% of all iPhones introduced in the last four years use iOS 14.
• 72% of all active iPhones use iOS 14.
• 17% of all iPhones introduced in the last four years use iOS 13, with 2% using an earlier OS.
• 18% of all active iPhones use iOS 13, 10% more use an older OS.

That means around 90% of all the iPhones in use worldwide now run iOS 13 or iOS 14. That’s an amazing piece of data when you consider some estimates claim there are a billion iPhones in use worldwide, as it suggests 900 million people are using one of these versions of the Apple mobile OS. That’s over one in ten people currently alive on the planet.

Also read: 10 (good) reasons to install iOS 14.3

What other information do we have?

• 75% of all iPads introduced in the last four years use iOS 14.
• 61% of all iPads use iOS 14.
• 22 percent of iPads introduced in the last four years use iOS 13, 3% use an earlier OS.
• 21 percent of all iPads use iOS 13, with 18% stuck on an older operating system.

Step back just over a year and we say iOS 13 installed on 55% of all four-year-old devices and 50% of all active devices. This suggests some growth, and isn’t a precisely fair comparison as last year’s data emerged in October while this year we see the data come to us a little later than that, in part because everything shipped a little later than usual.

What patterns are visible?

The biggest visible pattern is that Apple can boast that in almost every case, around 90% of all iPhones in use globally will use the most recent or current iOS iteration. That’s good news for developers as it means the ecosystem is unfragmented. No other mobile manufacturer has this – and the user base seems set to grow by c.20% over the coming months.

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