iOS versions market share
This is the first post in a new series I'll call "Orbital Survey", because I love space metaphors! It'll look at how the various operating systems we offer SDKs for are faring.
As of November 13, 2022, these are the market shares of major iOS versions in the TelemetryDeck data set:
- iOS 16: 51.9%
- iOS 15: 36.5%
- iOS 14: 2.3%
- Other: 9.3%
Unsurprisingly, the newest operating systems, iOS 15 and 16, are the most used. What is surprising is just how quickly the newest iPhone operating system has surpassed its predecessor.
iOS 16 is growing quickly
Adoption of iOS 16, which was released to the public on September 12, 2022, was fairly quick. After just one day, more than a quarter of iOS devices in the TelemetryDeck data set were running iOS 16.
(Also note the long tail at the left end: Apple seems to very actively run a large number of apps on the App Store on internal beta builds of upcoming OSes to ensure compatibility)
On October 20, 2022, just 39 days after the public release, more devices were running iOS 16 than were running iOS 15, at 46.5% running iOS 16 and 44.5% of devices running iOS 15.
As of November 3, 2022, more devices are running iOS 16 than any other iOS version.
See below for a list of our biases. Want updated information about iOS or Android adoption rates? Subscribe to our newsletter!
State of iOS versions in November 2022
This chart shows how quick to update iOS users are. Every time Apple releases a new version, be it a point release or a major new version, an overwhelming majority of users are very quick to update.
Case in point: on 2 June 2022, before iOS 16 was released, over 80% of iPhone users in the TelemetryDeck data set were using the current active version, iOS 15, with around 6.8% on iOS 14 and the rest on even older versions or betas.
This is excellent news for developers and users alike: users who run the latest versions of the operating systems not only get all the new features (and emoji 🫠) but also tend to be more safe from malware, spyware, and security leaks.
And of course this is wonderful news for developers: it means that many developers can require current versions of iOS earlier, allowing them to use new features and provide new capabilities in their apps.
Want a personal analysis? Add TelemetryDeck to your app today!
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 1317 apps we manage and around 23.5 million monthly active users. These charts will be more accurate as we grow.
- Our data set is mostly American and European apps (our most used locales are en_US at 43%, followed by de_DE at 6.5% and en_GB at 5.6%) Things might look different in other regions. Below is a chart of our combined locales over time:
