iOS versions market share in September 2023

'twas the eve of new iOS! All systems are go for the iOS 17 launch!

Daniel Jilg

Daniel is TelemetryDeck's co-founder and technical lead
Stylized Charts

Every month I take a look at the TelemetryDeck data set and compile the most helpful insights about the ecosystem in a blog post like this. At the beginning of September, iOS 16 dominates the landscape with almost all iOS devices are running that major version.

Unless you have really good reasons not to do so, I'd recommend setting your minimum deployment target to iOS 16.

The most used iOS version in September 2023 is iOS 16.6

iOS Versions over Time

Sampled on 2023-09-04

iOS 16.6 has has reached the majority of all iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads. Around one third of all iPhones are running iOS 16.6. If an iOS device is running any version of iOS 16, changes are very good (74%) that it is running the newest version.

There's an Apple Event on September 9 that will very likely introduce this year's new iPhone models as well as officially launch iOS 17 to the public. Find out just how quickly people are adopting iOS 17 by subbing to our newsletter.

Almost all iPhones are running iOS 16

As of September 4, 2023, these are the market shares of major iOS versions in the TelemetryDeck data set:

iOS Major Versions

Sampled on 2023-09-04
  • iOS 17: 3.18%
  • iOS 16: 91.54%
  • iOS 15: 5.19%
  • iOS 14: 0.07%
  • Other

The overwhelming majority of iPhones and iPads are running iOS 16, but now they're running slightly newer versions. We're beginning to see developers installing and testing iOS 17 on their development devices and the author if this article is only barely resisting installing the beta on his carry phone.

iOS 14 is now a negligibly small percentage of the TelemetryDeck data set, and iOS 15 is pretty unimportant as well.

The iPhone 11 is the most used iPhone model

iPhone Models

Sampled on 2023-09-04

In general, more people seem to use a non-Pro iPhone than a Pro iPhone, and more people use the regular size than use the Max versions. A surprising amount of people is using iPhones mini – good news for fans of the small size.

iPad Models over time

Sampled on 2023-09-04

The most used iPad right now seems to be the iPad 9, with the iPad Air 5 a close second.

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Biases in the TelemetryDeck data set

  • Our data set currently skews towards small and independent developers, who in turn tend to have more technically minded users.
  • The oldest iOS version our SDK supports is iOS 12, so we have no data before that.
  • We use the aggregated data from the 2090 apps we manage and around 3 million monthly active users. These charts will be more accurate as we grow.
  • Our data set is mostly American and European apps –things might look different in other regions. Below is a chart of our combined locales over time:

Top 20 Locales

Sampled on 2023-09-04