Earlier this week, Apple updated its iOS distribution numbers once again to show that 63% of active iOS devices have now upgraded to iOS 8. That’s a 7% increase over November and another sign of steady growth for what has been a problematic update for many users.
LAST TIME: iOS 8 adoption slowly inches towards 60% of iOS devices
Distribution of iOS 7 has fallen in proportion with the rise of iOS 8, down to 33% as of December 8th. Distribution of earlier versions has shrunk to 4%, which means that 96% of active iOS devices are on one of the two latest versions of the mobile operating system.
MacRumors notes that analytics service MixPanel shows similar results, with iOS 8 at 63.94%, iOS 7 at 33.42% and earlier versions at a miniscule 2.64%.
At first, users were wary to adopt iOS 8 in light of reports of bugs and issues that could potentially result in deleted data or bricked devices. Apple was quick to release updates to mollify iPhone and iPad owners, but only now does the distribution rate seem to be shifting at a normal pace.
The latest update, iOS 8.1.2, was released as an over-the-air update on Tuesday, applying more bug fixes and solving an issue which resulted in the deletion of purchased ringtones on some users’ devices. iOS 8.2, the next major release, will include tools for WatchKit developers interested in designing apps for the Apple Watch.
In contrast to this quick adoption, less than a third of Android users even have Android 4.4 KitKat on their devices while Android 5.0 Lollipop’s market share is simply too small to even count.
