iOS 8 likely to reach this number even faster, if current trends are any indication

Apr 8, 2014 09:50 GMT  ·  By

Apple today confirms that 87% of the iDevices found in the wild are using iOS 7, as measured by the App Store during a 7‑day period ending April 6, 2014. On March 25, that number was 85%, meaning iOS 7 has gained two more share points in just two weeks.

The numbers may not sound like much, but when you consider that iOS 7 still rakes in thousands of users each day months after the update was deployed publicly, you start to see the bigger picture.

In Apple’s camp, most users (and by most we mean almost all users) are running the newest version of the company’s mobile operating system.

This is in stark contrast with the Android install base, where there are five separate flavors installed on smartphones and tablets, with the majority of users running an outdated build of the Jelly Bean iteration.

Company watchers say every new iOS release is downloaded and installed faster and by more users compared to the release before it. As such, analysts believe Apple will achieve even greater numbers in even less time with iOS 8, the upcoming major version of the mobile operating system powering iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch players.

iOS 8 is expected to land at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (held June 2 – June 6 at San Francisco’s Moscone West) as a developer preview. The public release isn’t expected until later in fall, perhaps alongside an all-new version of the iPhone, and maybe even the iWatch.

By only including the pie-chart as a side-note on its App Store Distribution site, Apple doesn’t seem to be making a big fuss about these numbers. However, come WWDC14 and the opening keynote will be spotted with references to user adoption trends. In fact, this is what starts every Apple presentation.

To give you more perspective regarding the actual versions installed on iDevices, on March 7 (three days before iOS 7.1 was deployed) research and monetization firm Onswipe released a report according to which iOS 7.0.6 was currently generating 50.06% of all traffic coming from iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches.

Three days later, search-targeted advertising firm Chitika reported that iOS 7.1 had been downloaded and installed on 6% of iDevices in the first 24 hours since release.

“At 5.9%, North American iOS 7.1 adoption has progressed at a very similar rate to iOS 7.0.6. 24 hours following that release, iOS 7.0.6 users generated 6% of total iOS traffic, averaging to about 5% over the course of the full day,” the firm said.