New research has shown that 60% of iPhones are now running iOS 6, Apple’s newest mobile operating system, while iPad and iPod touch seem owners have been a bit slower on the uptake.
Independent research firm Chitika Insights took a sample of millions of mobile ad impressions from its ad network in the US between 18 September and 1 October to determine the iOS 6 adoption rate and how it varied between iOS devices.
The study found that, since its release on 19 September, 60% of iPhone owners have taken the plunge and updated to iOS 6. Either that or they’ve got their hands on a sparkly new iPhone 5, which has iOS 6 pre-installed.
Almost half of iPad owners have updated to iOS 6, and just 39% of iPod touch owners are running the new operating system.
Chitika suggests that the high fragmentation of operating systems running on iPod touch devices is likely due to the first and second generations are unable to pass iOS 4.
“Overall, this data points to Apple doing an outstanding job of keeping their user base up-to-date with the latest OS,” says Chitika. “By comparison, Google’s latest data shows only 22 per cent of its users being on its two most recent versions of Android.”
“Apple’s performance in this area is a great selling point for mobile advertisers, as well as website and application developers, who can all confidently optimise their mobile properties to take advantage of the latest iOS capabilities without fear of shutting out a large portion of the user base,” the report concludes.
According to our poll, 73% of Macworld readers are currently running iOS 6 on their devices, with more than half of respondents updating as soon as it was released.
Just over 15% of our respondents said that they waited a few days before updating, and 5 per cent said that it came with their iPhone 5.
A total of 19% of our readers said that they didn’t update because they don’t want Apple’s new Maps app, which has come under fire for its inaccuracies leading Apple’s CEO Tim Cook to issue a public apology for the service.
Perhaps these iOS users will be more inclined to update to iOS 6 now that Google has launched Street View for Safari’s web browser.
4% of our respondents said that their iOS device doesn’t support iOS 6.
