iOS 13 is a huge success for Apple. The new mobile operating system has seen huge adoption among iPhone owners worldwide, according to new statistics published by the Cupertino-based company.
It’s not all that surprising that millions have flocked to get their hands on the latest iPhone and iPod Touch upgrade. After all, there are a boat-load of new features in the operating system update, including a system-wide Dark Mode.
In a nutshell, Dark Mode makes iOS easier on your eyes at night by swapping out all of the eye-wateringly bright white parts of the user interface for dark greys or pitch-blacks. This has the added benefit of boosting battery on handsets with OLED panels, as these don’t need to illuminate any of the black pixels. Unfortunately, iOS devices with LED displays won’t get this particularly benefit.
Elsewhere, iOS 13 also gains more granular privacy controls, a redesigned Reminders app, in-depth analysis and insights on your health data within the Activity app, an overhauled Photos app that uses AI to pick the best shots to summarise your memories. There’s also new video editing tools within the Photos app, the ability to switch Wi-Fi networks within Control Centre, and lyrics that play in-sync with your favourite track within the Music app.
All of these improvement seem to have rallied iPhone fans, with 55 percent of Apple smartphones launched within the last four years now running iOS 13, while 38 percent are still running a version of iOS 12. Rounding out the data, just 7 percent are powered by an operating system earlier than iOS 12, Apple says.
That’s ever so slightly more than iOS 12 at the same time last year, which saw 53 percent of iPhones released within the last four years running the new update. And when comparing all iPhone models – not just those launched within the last four years – iOS 12 and iOS 13 adoption is identical at 50 percent.
It’s worth noting that last year’s figures include iPads, which aren’t included in the iOS 13 statistics from this year. That’s because Apple launched its first dedicated operating system for its best=selling tablet range this September, dubbed iPadOS.
According to Apple, some 41 percent of all iPads introduced within the last four years are running iPadOS, compared with 51 percent still running iOS 12 and 13 percent on an earlier version of iOS. When those figures are broadened to include all iPad models, it drops to 33 percent of all iPads on iPadOS, followed by 51 percent on iOS 12 and 16 percent on earlier releases.
Apple bases its statistics from visits to the App Store as of October 15, 2019. The Cupertino-based company introduced the “within the last four years” caveat for its figures last year. Presumably, this is to avoid older hardware which is unable to update to the latest operating system dragging down the statistics.
By providing both, it offers a nice insight to how many users have rushed-out to upgrade to the latest features… and how many aren’t fussed about Dark Mode, new privacy controls and the like. The latest figures from Apple suggest that iPhone owners haven’t been dissuaded from upgrading due to iOS 13 due to the bugs.
Apple has been playing whack-a-mole with bugs and glitches across iOS 13 and iPadOS this year, launching its big-quashing iOS 13.1 update by six days in a bid to get the fixes into users’ hands as soon as possible. And it’s not over yet.
Earlier this week, iOS 13.1.3 launched with fixes for Bluetooth connectivity issues. It also solved a problem that stopped the phone ringing during incoming calls. Some iPhone users have complained about poor battery life since the upgrade to iOS 13, something it’s believed the new update will square.
Apple is also beta-testing iOS 13.2, which includes more than 200 new emoji, a number of performance boosts and big fixes (and an accidental AirPods 3 design reveal). It’s likely that we’re see a massive uptick in iOS 13 adoption after this update lands as it will not only have solutions for many of the earlier bugs, but updates new emoji tend to some of the most popular in Apple’s software launch cycle.