Five months after launching to the public, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 9 has now been installed on 77 percent of active iOS devices as of February 22, according to the newest chart shared by Apple on the App Store support page.
After iOS 9, iOS 8 is the most popular version of iOS that is running at 17 percent of active iOS devices, with other versions of the iOS still running on 6 percent devices out there. Compared to the first adoption rate status update of the year on January 11, iOS 9 has climbed a total of 2 percentage points from 75 percent of active device installations.
Although adoption has stagnated right now, the numbers are expected to increase in the coming months with new device launches and activations surrounding the rumored mid-March media event. In a similar period last year, iOS 8 sat at 72 percent in early February, and rose to 81 percent in April thanks to the Apple Watch. Later in September, a few days ahead of the launch of the new iPhones and iOS 9, iOS 8 hit an adoption rate of 87 percent.
With the release of iOS 9.3 in March and new products like the iPhone 5se and iPad Air 3 from Apple, it is likely that the iOS 9.3 adoption rate will increase in the next couple of months. Beside bug fixes and stability improvements, the upcoming version of iOS 9 will come with new features like Night Shift, Touch ID protection for Notes, and more. A new beta of this release was released by Apple to developers and beta testers earlier this week.
iOS 9 adoption slowing as it reaches 77 percent of active iOS devices