iOS 11 Adoption Reaches 65% ⇥ macrumors.com

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

iOS 11 is now installed on 65 percent of iOS devices, according to new statistics Apple shared yesterday on its App Store support page for developers.

[…]

28 percent of devices continue to use iOS 10, while earlier versions of iOS are installed on seven percent of iOS devices.

Since iOS 11 was released, its adoption rate has been quite a bit slower than iOS 10 adoption rates in 2017. In January of 2017, for example, iOS 10 was installed on 76 percent of iOS devices.

Via Michael Tsai:

This is curious because iOS has gotten more pushy about getting you to update. iOS 11 still supports the iPhone 5s, so I don’t think the difference is due to old devices that can’t update. It sounds like a large number of users are choosing not to, and living with the annoying notification prompts.

Perhaps the reason for this is that iOS 11 simply isn’t as compelling of a software update for iPhone users as was iOS 10; but hypothetically lax iPhone upgrades should, theoretically, be offset by rapid adoption on the iPad, where iOS 11 was a massive release. Or maybe fewer iOS devices have been sold with iOS 11 preinstalled, but that would conflict with Apple’s earnings forecast — they haven’t issued revised guidance on the Q1 2018 numbers that they are scheduled to announce on February 1.

While it’s still well ahead of Android update rates, I would love to know why iOS 11 has such comparatively lax adoption.¹ It must be frustrating for developers who are aching to update their apps with new capabilities and more efficient API use.

Update: Farhad on Twitter:

One big thing you’re leaving out in your analysis is that many people still have 16GB iPhones and can’t be bothered to clear the ~3-5GB they need to to install the update…

This is probably true as well — even though Apple stopped selling new 16 GB iPhones with the iPhone 7, it’s going to take a long time to flush smaller-capacity devices out of the market.

Update: Another factor might be that iOS 11 dropped support for 32-bit devices and apps.