Apple has updated its App Store support page for developers this week to reflect new information regarding iOS7 adoption. According to the company’s usage data, iOS7 which is the latest version of the OS is running on 80% of iOS devices accessing the App Store. With more than every 3 out of 4 users running iOS 7 now, that presents a compelling case for developers to either update their current apps to support the new OS or to build for it exclusively, which we have seen a lot of lately.
That’s just a small jump from December of last year, when it was reported that iOS 7 adoption had hit 78%, but Apple said on its earnings call just a few moments ago that it’s enough to make iOS 7 the most popular OS in the world.
This is a bold statement considering that Android is without a doubt the leader in market share world-wide, but when we look at OS fragmentation numbers Apple is definitely doing something right. When we look at the latest Google Android numbers we see the serious fragmentation they are struggling with:
The latest statistics from Google shows:
Roughly 59% of android users are still on Jellybean, which also has 3 various flavors, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3. With KitKat, the latest OS version released November 2013, claiming only 1.4% of devices (accessing the Google Play Store). With the amount of devices that Google has that’s running their Android OS, and taking into consideration the various hardware developers involved it is understandable that the adoption rate is much slower compared to Apple. But, the image above is a clear indication why the majority of App developers prefer developing for Apple’s iOS. Your user base is simply so much bigger, and your compatibility-headache so much smaller.
[Source: Apple iOS7 now on 80% of Devices]
