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iOS 9 climbs to 84% adoption, Apple ramps iOS 10 testing ahead of WWDC

iOS 9.3

Although Apple usually updates its iOS adoption statistics on a fortnightly basis, the company had strangely stopped updating its iOS chart last month. As iOS 9 growth appeared to have stalled, perhaps the numbers simply didn’t change significantly in that time. However, this week Apple has updated the chart with a significant jump, now reporting iOS 9 was seen on 84% of active devices as of April 18th. With iOS 10 set to be announced in June (and internal testing gradually ramping — see below), it appears iOS 9 will end up peaking around the 90% adoption mark in line with previous versions.

For the iOS 9.3 chart, the reported change is a jump of 5% over the last reported statistic, a substantial increase. This rise can probably be explained by compelling feature enhancements included in the iOS 9.3 update, such as Night Shift, Touch ID Notes and more.

Moreover, Apple launched a couple of new hardware devices that help to boost adoption numbers, in the form of the iPhone SE and 9.7 inch iPad Pro. As both products are only sold with iOS 9.3 installed, new hardware releases boost overall adoption for the latest operating system version compared to older devices still running iOS 8 or earlier.

Screen Shot 2016-04-21 at 19.21.19

Apple is expected to unveil the next major release of iOS, unclear if it will be dubbed iOS 10 or iOS X, for WWDC which was announced earlier in the week. 9to5Mac’s statistics show a gradual ramp in hits from iOS 10 devices over the last two months, indicating that the company is expanding testing ahead of the conference.

In terms of features, rumors about iOS 10 features are still pretty thin on the ground. There is a potential for person-to-person Apple Pay payments to debut, the ability to hide stock apps, and App Store discoverability improvements amongst other changes. Read our roundup about what to expect from Apple’s software at WWDC here.

Screen Shot 2016-04-21 at 19.27.44

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Comments

  1. viciosodiego - 8 years ago

    Wait, apple employees reed this site?
    why?

  2. Nic Buhrman - 8 years ago

    These articles are purely to whet our appetites for Gurman’s iOS 10 scoop, I betcha.

  3. George Pollen - 8 years ago

    Come on now, let’s see a comparison to Android 5.0 adoption (or rather lack thereof).

  4. Jean-Pierre Koenig - 8 years ago

    I am not sure you realize that the reason OS X is called OS X is that in the Unix world (where OS X comes from), X windows is the name of the GUI interface. This is why it was named OS X and NOT OS 10!

  5. cheesylifeblog - 8 years ago

    ?For the iOS 9.3 chart, the reported change is a jump of 5% over the last reported statistic, a substantial increase”
    Where does this come from?

  6. etjh - 8 years ago

    Why doesn’t Apple fix linegate?

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.