Stats show slow adoption compared to iOS 14

Dec 24, 2021 15:16 GMT  ·  By

Apple rolled out iOS 15 in September, and as it happens every year, the company praised this new software update, explaining it comes with an impressive mix of new features and additional polishing that would eventually make an iPhone feel like new.

And while iOS 15 indeed brought several goodies, it looks like these weren’t able to convince the entire iPhone owner-base out there to install this update.

Statistics provided by analytics firm Mixpanel indicate iOS 15 is currently running on just a little over 65 percent of the supported iPhones out there. In other words, only approximately 6 in 10 iPhone owners out there installed iOS 15 since its debut in September.

The numbers aren’t necessarily bad at first glance, though they are much worse when looking at the early adoption of iOS 14.

Last year, Apple released iOS 14 as another major operating system update, once again promising new features like home screen widgets and picture-in-picture support. The adoption of iOS 14 was much faster, as by this time last year, more than 80 percent of iPhones out there were already running it.

Both iOS 15 and iOS 14 support the same lineup of iPhone models.

iOS 16 preview in the summer

In the meantime, Apple isn’t only working on additional polishing for iOS 15 but also on the next major version of the operating system.

iOS 16 is projected to launch in September, though the first preview will be offered by Apple in the summer at WWDC. The new operating system version is expected to drop support for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, two devices launched in 2015 and still in use today.

As a result, Apple will start recommending users to upgrade to newer iPhone models, an approach that’s expected to make more sense once the new iPhone SE 3 launches in the spring.