A lot is made of Android platform device updates. Is your phone going to be getting Ice Cream Sandwich? According to the latest numbers, Gingerbread is the dominant version of Android in the wild, with version 2.2 Frozen Yogurt still on more than 30% of all devices. What about Apple? iOS 5 has been available for about three months. How many users have upgraded their phones to the newest platform?
Apple does not publish platform numbers the way that Google does for Android. To determine how many people are using different versions of the operating system we went to app developers and analytics companies to get a clear picture of what version of iOS people are using.
According to Bump, an information sharing app for the iPhone, most users are now on iOS 5. Of users that used the bump app in a period leading up to Dec. 30, 2011, 54.42% were on iOS 5.0.1 and additional 4.74% were on 5.0.0. There was a significant amount of Bump users that had not upgraded, with about 21.2% using various versions of iOS 4.3.x.
While Bump’s data shows a good cross-section of what its users are connecting to the service, it is best not to trust one app of with a comparatively small user base. So, we asked mobile analytics server Localytics about data from its network of app publishers. The numbers, while similar, are probably much more accurate because of a much larger sample size.
5.0.1: 60.41%
5.0: 5.74%
4.3.x: 19.92%
4.2.x : 9.48%
4.1.x : 2.02%
4.0.x : 0.68%
3.x: 1.72%
More than 66% of iOS users have upgraded to version 5.0.0 or above. This cuts across all iOS devices which Localytics tracks. The company has the ability to track to what device a user is accessing apps from, such as an iPad, iPhone 4, iPad 2 etc. We will report on that data next week.
Apple has a distinct advantage in upgrading users to the newest version of the operating system. The source code is pushed from one place and run through iTunes via a wire or (now with iOS 5) a wireless connection. At the same time, it is telling that near 20% of iOS users have not made it past iOS 4.3.x. These users either never open iTunes and sync their devices or are using older devices. Nearly 30% (29.4%) of all iOS users are still on 4.2.x or 4.3.x. That is a number very similar to those still using Android version 2.2 Frozen Yogurt that has been out since for more than a year.
Apple makes it easy to push updates to iOS devices. It circumvents the primary problems facing Android, namely the relationship between the carriers, original equipment manufacturers and Google. At the same time, some people do not know or care that it is time to upgrade or find the process too cumbersome and do not bother upgrading their iDevices.
