Catering to a very small number of devices and almost non-existent fragmentation compared to Android has meant the adoption rate of new versions of iOS is always significantly faster than its Google-made alternative. However, this year, with the release of iOS 11, Apple may have lost a step.
Data from Mixpanel shows the relative market shares of iOS 11 and iOS 10 currently standing at somewhere around 44.74% and 45.39%. Rapid fluctuations in the market share over the the recording period make it difficult to determine if iOS 11 has finally surpassed its predecessor but it is clear that the two versions of iOS are neck and neck at the moment and the new kid on the block will soon overtake its forerunner, if it hasn't already.
What is most interesting, however, is the comparative rate of adoption for iOS 11 in the same amount of time as iOS 10 last year. It's been almost 23 days since iOS 11 launched late last month, a period in which Apple's newest mobile OS has only been able to achieve a 44.74% rate of adoption. By comparison, in the same period of time since it release last year, iOS 10 was able to achieve a 58.65% share.
The slower adoption of the new iOS could be attributed to several factors. For one, the launch of iOS 11 has been mired by several complaints of bugs, crashes and battery life problems that may have discouraged users from upgrading until Apple can smooth out some of its rough edges.
Another reason for the slow rollout could be the fact that unlike last year, not as many new devices with iOS 11 are being activated this time around, likely due to users holding out for an iPhone X. With its release in November, we will most likely see a significant uptick in adoption around that time.
Apple is also working on quickly releasing smaller updates to iOS 11 in order to fix some of the hiccups accompanying its launch and as Apple optimizes the code for the OS, a larger number of users running older generation iPhones will likely also make the switch.
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