Apple regularly publishes adoption figures for its iOS devices among iPhone owners, and the latest report indicates a great success for iOS 18, knowing that updates are generally not mandatory and that some users prefer to keep their current version, or even an earlier version.
iOS 18 more popular with iPhone users££££
Thus, iOS 18 is installed on 82% of all iPhones in circulation. However, if we focus only on devices introduced in the last four years, the figure jumps to 88%. This is a significant increase compared to the adoption rates at the beginning of the year, which were comparatively 68% and 76%. Better still, these figures are higher than those of the previous iOS 17, at the same time last year: 77% for all iPhones and 86% for models from the last four years.
iOS 19 (aka iOS 26) on the same trend ?££££
The probable reason for this relative success is the significant addition of Apple Intelligence on iOS 18, allowing iPhones to enter the "AI era" with functions like Genmoji, Writing Tools or Image Playground. It now remains to be seen whether the new features of the very next iOS19 (aka iOS 26) will allow Apple to convince an ever-larger segment of users to update this end of the year.
