The iOS 12 software is now powering 75 percent of all devices

Apple’s iOS 12 software now powers three-quarters of all devices.

According to fresh data posted Wednesday to Apple’s App Store dashboard for developers, the following data points are now known based on App Store access logs captured on January 1:

  • 78 percent of all devices introduced in the last 4 years are using iOS 12
    • iOS 11: 17 percent
    • iOS 10 and older: 5 percent
  • 75 percent of all devices are using iOS 12
    • iOS 11: 17 percent
    • iOS 10 and older: 8 percent

In approximately a month or so, the adoption rate for Apple’s mobile operating system has picked up nine percentage points, increasing from the 70 percent of all iOS devices sold in the last four years being on iOS 12 to the 78 percent of hardware reported today.

iOS 12 has the same hardware requirements as iOS 11, meaning it runs on any iPhone from 2013’s iPhone 5s onward, all iPad Pro models, in addition to iPad mini 2 and newer, iPad Air and the fifth-generation iPad and up, plus the sixth-generation iPod touch.

By comparison, here are iOS 12 stats based on the previous update on October 31, 2018.

  • 63 percent of all devices introduced in the last 4 years were using iOS 12
    • iOS 11: 30 percent
    • iOS 10 and older: 7 percent
  • 60 percent of all devices were using iOS 12
    • iOS 11: 29 percent
    • iOS 10 and older: 11 percent

I said it before and I’ll say it again: having reliable data from an official source like Apple pays dividends compared against research firms like Mixpanel which derive their estimates by having people download select apps with a special tracking code embedded in them. For instance, Mixpanel’s November 29, 2018 estimate had iOS 12 hitting 75 percent of compatible devices whereas in reality it took an additional month or so to achieve that milestone.

Back to our friends in the Android world, their last two major updates—6.x (Marshmallow) and 7.x (Nougat)—collectively power less than 50 percent of Android devices in the wild, according to Google’s numbers collected during a 7-day period ending on October 26, 2018.

Once again, Google’s numbers highlight Android’s terrible fragmentation problem.

Apple’s stats prove iOS 12’s been adopted more quickly than the bug-ridden iOS 11 update. It’s roughly on par with iOS 10, which hit the 76 percent adoption rate on January 5, 2017.

ROUNDUP: How to use iOS 12’s new features on iPhone and iPad

While adoption rates for iOS 12 are similar to those for iOS 10, adoption rate figures for iOS 13 are certainly going to look even better than currently.

That’s because iOS 12 has brought an option to install iOS software updates automatically, removing any remaining friction associated with applying these updates manually.

Thoughts on the latest iOS 12 adoption rates?