

iOS 6 Adoption Stats One Month In - appbot
http://stuartkhall.com/posts/ios-6-adoption-one-month-in

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bobsy
I haven't updated to iOS6. I was worried that google maps would be deleted
from my iPad and replaced with apple maps. I do not want this.

I heard somethings about Safari being buggy.. I didn't really want this either
as I only really use my iPad to surf the web.

I was concerned about the memory footprint. As I understand it app's now
download retina resources whether you have a retina iPad or not. I have
limited space on my iPad. It runs fine at the moment. I didn't see any reason
to update.

~~~
masklinn
> I haven't updated to iOS6. I was worried that google maps would be deleted
> from my iPad and replaced with apple maps. I do not want this.

I'm also waiting for 6.1 at least to see how Apple Maps will evolve, I have no
sense of direction whatsoever so I need maps to show me where I am, and Apple
Maps still seems a bit too risky for now. It's possible to use the Google Maps
site directly, but in my tests it's less responsive and the geolocation
doesn't work as well as in the application itself.

> I heard somethings about Safari being buggy.. I didn't really want this
> either as I only really use my iPad to surf the web.

I've seen developer reports, but no reports of user issues. Quite the
opposite, webkit's been updated in iOS6 so Safari is apparently significantly
faster.

> I was concerned about the memory footprint. As I understand it app's now
> download retina resources whether you have a retina iPad or not.

It's always done that (ever since the release of the original iPad and the
creation of "hybrid" iPhone/iPad applications), the version of iOS you're
running is completely irrelevant to that issue: if you're running an
application compatible with all iOS devices (3GS to iPad 3 at native
resolutions) it may very well bundle 4 different copies of bitmapped assets
(or even 5 for e.g. startup screens, since the iPhone 5 has a different
resolution than the 4/4S). I don't believe iOS AppStore bundles have every
been stripped. I'm not even sure they could be since they're signed (unless
you jailbreak).

~~~
demallien
Just as a data point on this whole Maps thing, Apple Maps in iOS 6 has already
saved me on numerous occassions in the US and Europe. In Europe, I had a
dedicated Garmin Nuvi, but it was Maps that got me to the the tiny village in
Alsace. In the US I had a dedicated TomTom, but it was Maps that was able to
correctly locate sites of interest for Civil War fans (Eastern Theater). Both
dedicated GPSes had had their maps updated in the last month or so.

Make of that what you will, but my personal experience has been that Maps is
actually pretty reasonable. In major cities it maybe isn't quite as detailed
as Google maps, but then, you can always use Google Maps as a web app for
that...

~~~
unreal37
In general, a map will always be good enough until the moment they aren't.
It's extremely localized, and your experience can't be compared to another
persons' 1-1.

There are now entire countries with completely useless maps. Is that fair to
iPhone users in those countries? Even in Canada and the USA, thousands of
small cities that formerly had detailed maps were "wiped off the map" with
this update. So while millions of people think things have gotten better,
millions of people can also legitimately claim Maps is not just "worse" but
completely broken.

For the people who live in cities with turn-by-turn navigation and 3D
flyovers, hey the new Maps is great. Apple has sacrificed a product that was
good enough for most people with one that is great for some and terrible for
others. It's a tough decision for them to make, and they should have still
used Google Maps app for those who are affected negatively since theres still
so much time left on the contract with Google.

~~~
stcredzero
_> It's a tough decision for them to make, and they should have still used
Google Maps app for those who are affected negatively since theres still so
much time left on the contract with Google._

If they had given themselves a year where they made Maps available
incrementally "by region" then they could have given themselves more time to
test and refine the data and enticed users waiting in expectation instead of
disappointing a whole bunch of them en-masse. Everyone outside the SF Bay Area
could have looked on in expectation while us poor saps would look forward to
the day.

~~~
bgramer
"...where they made Maps available incrementally "by region"

I can see where you're coming from but I don't know if isolating map
availability by region would work. Hyper-local travel is used in the majority
of cases, but there are cases of regional travel too. What happens if someone
wants turn-by-turn navigation from California to, say, Oregon, to attend a
conference, weekend getaway, job interview, or just simply meet at a coffee
shop in the new region? I live in Seattle, and often drive to Vancouver BC or
Portland for weekends, just as an example.

IMHO, the real mistake here was setting expectations so that it would be lower
and not affixing the "Beta" label to it (as was done to Siri.) Apple should
also have, side from collecting data logs, ensured there's a more prominent
feedback loop. As to your suggestion, I think a broader approach would work
better, and perhaps work in layers of information, drilling down more deeply
with richer details in regional pockets, one broad layer at a time.

~~~
stcredzero
_> I can see where you're coming from but I don't know if isolating map
availability by region would work. Hyper-local travel is used in the majority
of cases, but there are cases of regional travel too._

No duh. It wouldn't "work" in the sense of excluding absolutely 100% of
people. So what? From Apple's perspective, it would be fine if it worked just
85 to 90% of the time. The point is to avoid a massive amount of customer
dissatisfaction.

 _> IMHO, the real mistake here was setting expectations so that it would be
lower and not affixing the "Beta" label to it (as was done to Siri.)_

No disagreement there. Doing both things would have been even better.

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mjs
1\. Graph is a bit suspicious--why does the adoption rate sometimes go down?
(Some quite large drops as well.) 2\. Any equivalent graphs for other
versions? 3\. Adoption rate pretty flat since about two weeks after the iOS 6
release. 4\. What percentage of devices can be upgraded to iOS 6? (Probably
95%+, since the 3GS is supported--?)

~~~
appbot
Nothing to be suspicious about, that's just we are seeing, can't tell you if
it's representative of what others are seeing (although the %'s seem to be in
the right ballpark to what others have reported). Spikes seem to be related to
when an update for one of our apps come out, e.g. around the 2nd (the big
spike) is when our update to Discovr Music came out
([https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/discovr-music-find-new-
music...](https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/discovr-music-find-new-
music/id412768094?mt=8)) I guess people who updated to that are more likely to
of updated to iOS 6. In that actual release (2.6) we are seeing more like 75%
iOS 6 usage.

~~~
smackfu
Yeah, that would be interesting to also show what percentage of people are on
the latest version of your software. A lot of less techie people just never
update anything, unless it breaks.

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jareds
Could someone please describe this graph in detail? Unfortunately there are no
numbers to go along with it which is challenging for those like me who are
totally blind.

~~~
haeric
The graph shows percentage of users having installed iOS6, one bar per day.
The bars are very close to 1-2% in early september (beta testers), then around
the release 19th of September, the bars quickly rise each day: 30%, 35%, 45%,
47%, 50%, and from there on a quite steady (but jumpy) rise towards about 60%
today. There's one weird peak at about 1st of October at about 65%, but that's
probably just happenstance.

Edit: The difference in the numbers me and the fellow who posted just at the
same time shows how coarse the percentage-axis was ;)

~~~
brian_cloutier
I think I like yours better. Much more succinct, with pretty much the same
data.

~~~
jareds
Thanks to both of you for your descriptions.

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mibbitier
Have they fixed the ridiculous "Only one connection allowed at a time to an
http server" change yet? :/ As far as I'm aware, the browser is fairly
unusable because of this.

~~~
pilif
This limitation doesn't exist. Safari happily opens up to 4 connections per
server.

There is however a bug with long-polling connections: If you fire off the XHR
for the long-polling endpoint (or Server Site Events endpoint for that matter)
before window.onload has fired, then Safari will not fire onload (nor load any
other external resource) until the long-polling connection closes or returns
something.

What you are seeing is people not updating their scripts yet to take this bug
into account.

~~~
lazugod
> What you are seeing is people not updating their scripts yet to take this
> bug into account.

Why? Shouldn't the expectation be that the bug gets fixed?

~~~
pygy_
Because meanwhile, your users/customers experience the bug, which for you
means lost page views, mindshare and probably revenue...

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smackfu
Another source shows the same plateau at 65% or so: <http://david-
smith.org/iosversionstats/>

I am a bit surprised from those numbers that there weren't more people left on
5.0, since 5.1 was an OTA update like 6. But maybe this is more of an "I don't
want the update" thing than a "I don't know about the update" thing.

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dusing
My ex wife's iPhone 4 is still using ios4 since I'm not around to do it for
her. I chuckle a bit every time she sends me a text message.

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blahpro
I’d be really interested to see iOS 6 adoption stats compared against previous
releases of iOS. Does anyone know if there’s anything published on this?

~~~
graeme
This is a very good question. For example, I haven't upgraded because my phone
is jailbroken. As of 2009, 10% of idevices were jailbroken with Cydia
installed. Couldn't find any more recent stats.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia>

~~~
kzahel
Yes, from what I have read there is still no "untethered" jailbreak for iPhone
4 iOS6. That's what's keeping me from upgrading.

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SeppoErviala
I wonder how many of non-adopters use jailbroken devices.

