Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

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>From a security point of view, it's really worrying that a lot of users refuse to upgrade software because of the track record of Apple making devices less usable with every upgrade.

A lot of users? iOS has the fastest and widest adoption rate for new releases of any mobile or not OS. Android specifically used to have awful fragmentation issues and phones never updated by the vendor 3 and 4 releases behind.

APPLE IOS 12 HAS SEEN THE FASTEST ADOPTION RATE, RUNNING ON 50% OF IPHONES AND IPADS (Oct 12)

https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/apple-ios-12-ha...

iOS 11 is now installed on 81% of Apple’s over a billion active iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices in the wild, up from the 76% adoption rate reported on April 25. By contrast, Android Oreo versions powered less than six percent of active Android-driven smartphones and tablets that had been accessing Google’s Play Store during a seven-day period ending on May 7, 2018.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/06/05/ios-11-adoption-rat...

50% is "a lot of users". Ranting about Android doesn't change that.

His ranting style is unhelpful but the underlying point is sound—Apple device owners update the operating software at a dramatically higher rate and frequency than any other significant competitor platform. If there is a contingent of iOS device users “conditioned” to avoid upgrades, it would be impossible to prove this contingent exists statistically.

Frequent vocal complainers on internet forums probably only account for less than 0.01% of their installed base.

Does that really mean anything, though? I'm sure win10 users update at a higher rate than that, but that doesn't mean that people are clamoring for Microsoft's newest update.

The Windows ecosystem has a far higher percentage of users running older versions—e.g. 8.1, 7, 2012 R2.

JFYI 50% is an adoption achieved in only 23 days after iOS 12 release [1]

"Apple’s latest mobile OS hitting 50 percent adoption across eligible devices in 23 days (via VentureBeat).

For comparison, iOS 11, released on September 19th, 2017, didn’t hit 52 percent adoption until November 6th of that year, taking 48 days, or over twice as long as it took iOS 12 to hit its own 50 percent mark."

So now it is probably higher, though I didn't find any fresh stats.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/11/17965302/ios-12-install-...

50% in a couple weeks after the release.

Android was 6% after much much longer.

Part of the reason Apple has such high update numbers is due to the dark pattern of presenting "enter your passcode to update tonight" (when you select "later" instead of "install now" on an update alert) in the exact same style as the normal passcode entry screen. I'm sure a significant number of people have inadvertently updated their device through that method.

I mean, it’s much easier to update if you own the entire platform

I never had a problem updating Windows PCs not made by Microsoft. In fact, I was able to just stick a Windows 7 disk in my old 2006 Core Duo Mac Mini and “upgrade” it after Apple abandoned it.

Fragmentation! Lol! The only people who seem to care about "Android fragmentation" are lonely Apple fanbois. It makes no difference to Android users as the version of Android you run and the apps you can install/websites you browse are entirely unconnected.

>The only people who seem to care about "Android fragmentation" are lonely Apple fanbois.

First, "fanbois" is something 15-year olds emotionally invested into "my side is better" would use. Just state what you want to state, and don't assume some magical group of mindless drones or paid shills behind statements that point to deficiencies in a platform. In general, drop "lol", "lonely fanbois" etc from your vocabulary if you want your statements to be taken seriously.

>It makes no difference to Android users as the version of Android you run and the apps you can install/websites you browse are entirely unconnected.

Tons of Android developers have been lamenting fragmentation. It's about having a coherent platform to be able to know what features to count on, and not to have to support several older versions of the OS because most of the buyers are still using it.

Also tons of Android uses have lamented mobile vendors not providing updates for their older models.

https://insights.dice.com/2017/11/16/android-fragmentation-r...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-android-fragmen...

https://hackernoon.com/android-fragmentation-makes-every-and...

"In general, drop "lol", "lonely fanbois" etc from your vocabulary if you want your statements to be taken seriously."

Thanks for the advice but I appear to be immune to this "social networks and digital media causes depression" issue, as I couldn't give a fuck what anyone thinks about me.

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