Apple now shows iOS usage share on App Store | Hacker News Reader

Apple now shows iOS usage share on App Store

developer.apple.com

51 pointsnimeshneema54 comments

I've left my iPad on iOS 5, because I still assume that I'll lose the Google Maps integration if I upgrade. Is that assumption still correct?

There is a Google Maps app for iPhone and iPad. It's better than the old one, but isn't as integrated as before (i.e. it isn't the default map app).

Small correction: the iPad version isn't out yet, but apparently they're releasing it this summer.

Depends on what you mean by "integration." Google Maps is now a standalone app available (from Google) in the App Store, but it does have quite a different interface from Maps on iOS 5.

I'm not sure how the Google Maps integration works per iOS6 to be honest. All I know is that Google Maps opens whe I click on "view in maps app" in a variety of third party apps I've installed (real estate apps for example). I suspect that should I upgrade to iOS6, those apps would start opening Apple's maps, and I would severely miss the street view. That concern is currently putting me off, and I see no easy way to downgrade back to iOS5 should I'm forced to use Apple's maps app.

Google announced of it's plans to roll out it's Maps app for iPad during summer 2013

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/05/15/google-shows-off-upcomin...

I waited until the Google Maps app came out before upgrading my iPhone to iOS6. But now that I'm on 6, I find myself using Apple's Maps most of the time anyway. I like the interface better and it works well enough for me to drive around and check traffic.

As measured by the App store.

I would be surprised if the general population is the same distribution. People who go often to the app store probably update more often.

Still for developers it is a relevant number.

At the same time, for a developer, those who never go on the app store aren't really important. But I agree, it is likely misrepresenting actual figures.

That's likely the reason it's hosted on developer.apple.com and not their consumer-facing site. (It's also the same way Google measures their OS usage data, also hosted on their developer site.)

I have this same argument about the Android numbers presented by Google. But as another reply to your post already pointed out, these are the numbers that are probably the most relevant to a would-be app creator.

The problem is that this biases the statistics due to the 14-day window: everyone who buys a new iPhone goes to the App Store in order to download some "staple apps", but after the unitial setup a lot of users might only go to the App Store every three weeks (for example), meaning that newly purchased devices will be over-represented in the statics, and they all have iOS 6.

Honestly, though: even correcting for this new-device bias, this still isn't what you care about... normal users don't sit around browsing the App Store or the Android Market... they open the app when they are interested in a specific download because of some external sale having occurred. Your market as a developer are "people with a device", not "people weird enough to try searching on their device".

Regardless, though, yeah: the reason Apple is showing this statistic is because it is the identical metric reported by Google, and they were making a big deal about these numbers during the WWDC keynote, even to the extent of pointing out that Google had changed the metric in this way (to Market visits) was cheating... comparing, though, the like metrics isn't that bad.

> The problem is that this biases the statistics due to the 14-day window: everyone who buys a new iPhone goes to the App Store in order to download some "staple apps"

How do you know that’s how Apple measures OS version share? Why would Apple limit itself to only measuring when users open the App Store?

Any iOS device that ever connects to the Internet checks in with Apple to be activated and registered. After that, iOS regularly checks for OS and app updates. If I own an iOS device that I never update and never visit the App Store on, that device will still check for updates and will transmit version data to Apple. Also, because every iOS device has a unique ID, more active users won‘t be counted double.

Also if your device is pre iOS 5 you hardly find new apps or updates. So you don't have much reason to visit the store.

Developers cannot support pre-iOS 5 anyway

We most certainly can. I'm still supporting one app which maintains 3.1.3 compatibility.

Don't know where you got your misinformation.

Everyone I've seen has very similar numbers:

https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_frag

http://david-smith.org/iosversionstats/

http://stats.unity3d.com/mobile/index-ios.html

David Smith's numbers throw a few more percentage points to iOS 5, but he's a smaller sample size and his stats are two weeks old. Unity is similar, but it looks from the UI that their data is generated monthly.

Mixpanel's are the most up-to-date and their numbers mirror Apple's.

> Mixpanel's are the most up-to-date and their numbers mirror Apple's.

I just noticed this at the bottom of Mixpanel's graph:

   THIS REPORT WAS GENERATED FROM 79,977,999,480 RECORDS.

That's quite the large dataset – 80B records!

It's not clear what that actually means though. Consider this: every iPhone that has an active data connection regularly contacts the App Store to see if there are updates(i) to apps, regardless of whether or not the user actively visits the store. Are these update checks counted by the graph? What about system updates? Are those counted as going through the App Store?

Regardless, we can be relatively sure that that graph is there to help developers when deciding which versions of iOS they should support. It would not be surprising if Apple decided simply to include only active App Store shoppers, because this is the number that actually interests developers.

(i) I'm not actually sure if this is true if you have never installed an app from the App Store - there is maybe an exception where these phones don't check for updates in this case.

Indeed, it strikes me as a self selecting sample I have an First gen iPod Touch that I still use quite a lot, which can only run ioS 3.x - oddly enough, I don;t buy anything from the Appstore for it because there are hardly any new apps that will run on it.

If they don't use the AppStore, you're not missing them as a potential customer.

For non-apple devs: 93% of users are on iOS 6, 6% iOS 5, 1% other older.

You can get to this page even as a non-registered developer.

Weird, it prompted me to log in.

Yeah, but you can just use a standard Apple account, you don't need to be a developer.

I was able to see it without any login prompt, I don't have any Apple account whatsoever.

I wonder how many of this 6% are non-updated developer testing iphones/ipads.

I suspect they are mostly iPad 1 devices. My iPad 1 still sees regular use.

6% is 36 million devices. There are less than a million iOS developers.

This is clearly a follow up to the marketing push to developers that began at WWDC. An unsurprising addition given the fact that there's really no solution to the iOS 7 UI revamp without making Apps iOS 7 only.

It was my impression from the sessions that applications which use mostly system UI can be done in a way that works (and looks nice) on both OSes by relying on AutoLayout. And if you made a completely custom UI, it'll look as foreign to iOS7 as it looks to iOS6 now.

The trouble is the people in the middle. They used system UI where possible, but then rolled their own where Apple didn't have a good solution. If you recompile those apps against iOS 7 SDK, your app looks like junk, and it's a lot of work to fix it. If it's not a super-profitable app, are you really going to go back and get new art done, or are you just going to keep it the same, by using old XCode or something.

The other trouble is that a lot of devs don't use AutoLayout, because it's historically been very hard to get working right. And transitioning your app to it hasn't had many benefits in the past.

CityMapper have recently launched a new UI which is very ios7. Looks great on ios6

When you have a million users, 70,000 of them is a pretty big number to neglect.

edit: numbers

Or other way around, cost to support 7% of your users may be to high to neglect. Sometimes it makes sense to spend that time and effort on the rest 93%.

Except that when Apple themselves were the 7% their view on whether you should support that % of the total audience was that, unequivocally, you should.

Apples and oranges.

Neglect might not be the right term.

Usually older devices are on older OS because they can't update. If they can update and haven't then it will probably be because they don't know how or because they don't want to.

If your app needs features in iOS 6 to run, then so be it. If not then make it runnable on iOS 5 and 4.

If your app used to work on iOS 4, but some new features require iOS 5, then your old customers won't get any more updates but should still be able to use the app. Those stuck on iOS 4 wanting to buy your app won't be able to.

Case in point - iTunes is Apple's only OS X app which still officially supports OS X 10.6. If there's money to be made, Apple suddenly doesn't mind the maintenance :)

Part of that 7% are people who choose not to upgrade, they aren’t neglected. iOS 6 runs on devices as old as 4 years. Meanwhile, every day new Android models are launched that come with years old system software and will never see an update.

> iOS 6 runs on devices as old as 4 years.

It's an interesting side effect of Apple selling old hardware as a new lower cost option for several years. Apple isn't being altruistic or noble by supporting those devices... they are giving normal support for a device that someone can still buy new with a two-year contract.

Once Apple actually retires a product, like the iPad 1, it stops getting updates pretty quickly.

It’s also a RAM issue. iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2nd gen only have 128MB RAM. That’s why those models can’t run iOS 5 or later. iPad 1st gen has 256MB RAM but it has to drive a much larger screen. It can officially run iOS 5.1 but the experience isn’t great; it’s better to keep it at iOS 4.3.

As for the upcoming iOS 7: it will run on almost all the devices that can run iOS 6 (except iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 4th gen). That means Apple is actually extending the period during which devices receive major updates.

Assuming iOS 7 will be released on September 20[1] and iOS 8 will be released a year from then, that means iPhone 4 will be able to run the latest OS version for 4 years and 3 months (I’m also assuming iPhone 4 won’t be able to run iOS 8).

[1] http://www.cultofmac.com/232580/when-will-the-next-ios-7-bet...

> iPhone 4 will be able to run the latest OS version for 4 years and 3 months

Right. My point is that another way to look at it is that an iPhone 4 bought in August 2013 on a two-year contract will probably stop getting OS updates while it is still under contract.

It will get OS updates (patches and bug fixes), but it probably won’t be able to run the next major release after iOS 7 (an upgrade, not an update).

But your point is valid, and it’s why I wouldn’t recommend anyone to buy the current entry level iPhone (iPhone 4). I’m hoping Apple will change their strategy of discounting older iPhone models and create a separate entry level iPhone. That model should not compromise RAM and CPU so that it will be able to keep up with future OS releases, but it could compromise in other areas such as screen size, battery size, and choice of materials.

Did anyone else notice? Header: iOS 6.1 and Xcode 4.6.2 Text : Make sure your devices are running iOS 6.1 and your Mac has Xcode 4.6.1

And I'm currently on Xcode 4.6.3

nitpicking, just kinda amusing.

Xcode 4 also requires Lion or Mountain Lion. I wonder what percentage of apple computers are still running Snow Leopard (or earlier).

I can't update to 4.6.3 because I'm running Mavericks, I get the 'your OS is too new' dialogue.

Xcode 5 DP is nice, if a bit crashy.

I can't wait to switch to XCode 5, so many goodies.

There isn't any equivalent usage share data for OS X provided by Apple (AFAIK).

The presented statistics for market share is based on App Store downloads from iOS devices and similar criterion used to judge OS X install base might not be highly reliable as there are other ways to get apps(applications) installed on OS X.

Xcode 4.6.3 is just a bug fix release and it came out just a week ago.

At the time this page was updated, 4.6.2 must have been the latest version.

Is this the US app store or regional app stores, all over the planet, averaged?

It's highly likely that it's all over the planet, averaged.

It makes more sense that way.

Shame they only showed the major versions

Agreed. There is an incredibly annoying bug with iOS 6.0.1 that causes a crash when using the photo picker or game center in a specific orientation. And the workaround requires supporting all orientations and editing every view controller in your source.

Knowing how many people are actually affected by this would be incredibly helpful.

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