Apple has said 72 per cent of all the iPhones released in the last four years now use iOS 15, while if you count iPhones that were introduced more than four years ago, the iOS 15 installation number stands at 63 per cent. The new installation data for iOS 15 landed on the Apple website for the first time since iOS 15 was released in September last year. The 72 per cent coverage of iPhones up to four years old shows the adoption has been steady and can grow over time, but slower than the adoption rate of prior iOS versions – maybe because iPhone users are not that impressed by iOS 15.
The fresh installation data shows that while 72 per cent of iPhone devices from the last four years are on iOS 15, 26 per cent of iPhone devices still continue to run on iOS 14. And there are a handful of iPhones, 2 per cent to be precise, that are on iOS versions older than iOS 14. If you talk about all iPhone devices, only 63 per cent are on iOS 15, 30 per cent on iOS 14, and 7 per cent on earlier iOS versions.
Apple has given this data because there are still a few devices out in the wild that are not compatible with the newer iOS versions. But any iPhone that supports iOS 14 is capable of running iOS 15, so that chunk of 26 per cent of iPhones is interesting.
Either some iPhone users are not aware of iOS 15 or they do not want to upgrade to iOS 15 for some reason. Whatever the case may be, the iOS 15 adoption has been slower. For instance, iOS 14 was installed on 81 per cent of iPhones released in the last four years in December 2020, according to Apple’s data. The iOS 15 adoption has been even lower than the adoption rate for iOS 13, which was 77 per cent in January 2020.
Some of the blame for this slow adoption is on Apple because Apple used to list iOS 15 as an optional update for devices running iOS 14. That meant it was up to the user if they wanted to switch to the new operating system or not. But eventually, Apple kind of highlighted that iOS 15 is a necessary update for all iOS 14 devices because it stopped making security updates available to the devices running the old iOS version. Now, the only solution to get security updates for iOS 14 users was to upgrade to iOS 15. And they still have shown some reluctance for whatever reason, per the fresh data.
Apple also revealed iPadOS 15 installation numbers, and they are way lower. Only 57 per cent of iPad devices released in the last four years run iPadOS 15, while 39 per cent of these devices are still on iPadOS 14. 4 per cent of iPad devices released in the last four years are on older iOS versions. If you count all iPads, meaning the devices released more than four years ago, the installation numbers become graver. Only 49 per cent of all iPads run iPadOS 15, 37 per cent of all iPads are still on iPadOS 14, and 14 per cent still run earlier iPadOS versions.
With iOS 15, Apple introduced features such as Private Relay, iCloud+, SharePlay, Digital Legacy, and Digital Wallet. However, many of these iOS 15 features are either still not available because of delays or were rolled out several days after their schedule. And in totality, iOS 15 does not have breakthrough features, largely because iOS is already a mature operating system and there is only so much you can do in terms of innovation. iPhone users seem to have taken all this into cognisance, which led to the slower adoption that we see.
