iOS 8 adoption rate slowing down ahead of iOS 9, now sits at 86 percent

iOS 8 QuickType (teaser 001)

Our tracking of iOS 8 adoption rates continues with the newest update from the App Store dashboard indicating that the company’s mobile operating system is now powering an impressive 86 percent of the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices in the wild, as measured by the App Store on August 17, 2015.

iOS 7 continues to account for thirteen percent of iOS devices, with older iOS versions continuing to scrape out a mere two percent. A month ago, iOS 8 adoption stood at the 85 percent mark and iOS 7 comprised thirteen percent of iOS hardware in the wild.

iOS 8 adoption slowing down ahead of iOS 9

These stats were officially published last evening.

Like Google, Apple too derives iOS’s adoption rate figures by monitoring devices that have accessed the App Store recently.

If you take a closer look at the official numbers, you’ll realize that iOS 8’s adoption rate is actually slowing, rising only five percentage points in the past four months. But that was expected given the latest iPhones are ten months old now and iOS 9 is around the corner.

iOS 8 adoption rate 86 percent

There’s no doubt that many of the remaining thirteen percent of iOS 7 users decided to skip iOS 8 and upgrade to iOS 9 when it becomes available this fall.

What about Android?

Speaking of Google, the company’s own data collected through the Google Play Store app during a 7-day period ending on August 3, 2015 highlights ongoing issues with fragmentation and slow Android OS rollouts.

Android Adoption rate 20150803

For instance, less than twenty percent of devices run Lollipop editions (Android 5.0 and 5.1), with 39.3 percent of devices on KitKat (Android 4.4) and an additional 33.6 percent of Android devices running Jelly Bean versions (Android 4.1.x, 4.2.x and 4.3).

And this is what Android’s adoption stats looked like during a 7-day period ended June 1, 2015, a data point released prior to the August 3 stats refresh.

Android adoption rate table 20150601

It doesn’t heart reiterating that Google’s numbers exclude devices running forked Android versions such as Amazon’s Fire tablets and millions of devices sold in China that run third-party application stores and don’t support Google’s official Play Store app.

For the sake of completeness, I should mention that iOS 8 released last September whereas Android 5.0 launched last November so Apple’s mobile operating system did have a little bit of a head start over Google’s.

Source: Apple