Although Apple usually updates its iOS adoption statistics on a fortnightly basis, the company had strangely stopped updating its iOS chart last month. As iOS 9 growth appeared to have stalled, perhaps the numbers simply didn’t change significantly in that time. However, this week Apple has updated the chart with a significant jump, now reporting iOS 9 was seen on 84% of active devices as of April 18th. With iOS 10 set to be announced in June (and internal testing gradually ramping — see below), it appears iOS 9 will end up peaking around the 90% adoption mark in line with previous versions.
For the iOS 9.3 chart, the reported change is a jump of 5% over the last reported statistic, a substantial increase. This rise can probably be explained by compelling feature enhancements included in the iOS 9.3 update, such as Night Shift, Touch ID Notes and more.
Moreover, Apple launched a couple of new hardware devices that help to boost adoption numbers, in the form of the iPhone SE and 9.7 inch iPad Pro. As both products are only sold with iOS 9.3 installed, new hardware releases boost overall adoption for the latest operating system version compared to older devices still running iOS 8 or earlier.
In terms of features, rumors about iOS 10 features are still pretty thin on the ground. There is a potential for person-to-person Apple Pay payments to debut, the ability to hide stock apps, and App Store discoverability improvements amongst other changes. Read our roundup about what to expect from Apple’s software at WWDC here.
