That’s just a few inches up from October 21, when Apple reported an iOS 9 adoption rate of 61 percent, and a slight uptick from the 57 percent adoption seen on October 5. But Apple derives its stats from devices that visit the App Store — third-party analytics firms Mixpanel and Fiksui, which conversely base numbers on app telemetry data, estimate an iOS 9 adoption rate of 72 percent and 65 percent, respectively.
The slowdown prior to iOS 9.1 was likely attributable to iOS 9’s early bugs. Some users experienced “slide to upgrade” prompts that rendered their devices unresponsive, failing alarms and timers, distorted videos, iMessage activation problems, and random screen rotations triggered by notifications. Most of these bugs were squashed in swift, subsequent updates: iOS 9.0.1 on September 24 and iOS 9.0.2 on October 1.
Apple fixed even more bugs in iOS 9.1, most notably CarPlay, Music, Photos, and Game Center stability issues. But there were other, stronger incentives to upgrade: a bevy of new emoji including animals, food items such as tacos, and the infamous middle finger graphic, and a tweak to Live Photos that stops recordings when the iPhone is pointed at the ground.
Recent adoption may not be as meteoric as the days immediately following iOS 9’s September 16 — it reached 50 percent of devices within four days, leading Apple to proclaim it the fastest iOS rollout ever. But the adoption rate is still well ahead of the predecessing iOS, iOS 8, which took a month to reach 52 percent.
Apple’s not stopping to celebrate, though — it released the second beta version of iOS 9.2 to developers on Tuesday. Among other additions and fixes, it contains support for AT&T’s NumberSync, a feature which allows subscribers to make and receive calls and texts from a registered Mac, iPod touch, or iPad without the need for a connected iPhone.
