People Have Pretty Much Stopped Updating Their iPhones To iOS 8

Business Insider ^ | 10/07/2014 | James Cook

[SeekAndFind]

Apple has updated its App Store to show new statistics for iOS 8, its new mobile operating system. It's not looking good.

9to5Mac reports that iOS 8 adoption has increased by just 1% since Apple last published statistics on the operating system. To make things worse, the statistic that Apple published on its developer site excludes a large number of users who are known to be slow in updating to the latest operating system.

Since Sept. 21, the percentage of mobile devices visiting the App Store running iOS 8 has increased to 47% from 46%.

Here's Apple's old iOS chart. On the right is the new statistic:

9to5Mac

The slow adoption of iOS 8 could be due to the broken update that Apple published on Sept. 24. The iOS 8.0.1 update was meant to include improvements and fixes for the iPhone, but instead it stopped users of the new iPhone from making calls and disabled the Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

We're only a few days into iOS 8 adoption, so there is still a long way to go. But the way that more than half of Apple's customers have balked at new systems shows that the broken update was much more serious than perhaps previously believed: A large number of Apple customers are resisting the update because they saw the news that the newer version disabled people's phones. It's rare for Apple's customers to show such mistrust of Apple's new products.

Having all its customers on the same, current platform is crucial for Apple. Microsoft foundered during the mid-2000s when customers grew tired of updating their Windows PC operating system to ever more glitchy versions. And Google's Android platform is regarded as a second-place format by app developers

[RegulatorCountry]

You’re not supposed to point that out, you’re spoiling the FUD.

[kevkrom]

I updated. My wife didn’t, nor did we update the older (eligible) phones we use as hand-me-down iPod Touch-like devices for the kids. Honestly, unless there’s a specific feature in iOS8 you want or need, it’s not worth the hassle.

Yet.

All that changes in about 2-3 weeks when OS X Yosemite comes out. Because that’s when the Continuity and Handoff features really start coming into play, and that will give many of the “hold outs” a reason to finally upgrade.

[kevkrom]

Tried to update my Iphone and it would have required me to delete apps, photos, etc. to make enough room for the bloatware update. Forget about it...

It requires a lot less space if you use a computer with iTunes to do the update instead of over-the-air.

[minnesota_bound]

I was prompted over the weekend to update to android 4.4.4 Kitkat. It updated without a hitch. So there : )