Trudge report: iOS 8 climbs to 56% adoption rate

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Apple’s iOS 8 continues to grab more users, and now at a slightly higher rate.

Revealing the latest stats on its App Store Distribution page on Tuesday, Apple pegged iOS 8’s adoption at 56 percent, with iOS 7 at 40 percent and older versions collectively at 5 percent. The new figures specifically indicate the percentage of iOS devices that visited Apple’s App Store on Monday, November 10, over the full 24 hours.

What type of movement do the new stats reveal? On October 27, the App Store Distribution page listed iOS 8’s share at 52 percent and iOS 7 at 42 percent. And on September 21, Apple showed iOS 8 with a 46 percent share and iOS 7 with 49 percent.

Apple introduced iOS 8 in September, along with the big-screen iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and about a month ahead of the iPad Air 2. The latest edition of the operating system delivered goodies such as user-customizable keyboards, a revamped Messages app, and widgets. But the signature feature has to be Apple Pay, the company’s new payment system for buying items on the go, which arrived in October in the iOS 8.1 update along with the beta of the iCloud Photo Library and the ability to use an iPhone as a hot spot.

Comparing Apple’s latest stats with those of the past several weeks shows a minor uptick in adoption. The slight gain in iOS 8 adoption may be a sign that users are growing more confident about the latest version, which wasn’t snagged by users of Apple’s mobile devices as quickly as iOS 7. And of course, more people are likely buying new iPhones and iPads, especially as they dive into holiday shopping.

Since the numbers show only the volume of visits to the App Store, they don’t provide a full picture. But Apple’s stats are almost in line with those of mobile analytics firm Mixpanel, which on Wednesday pointed to iOS 8 with a 58 percent share and iOS 7 with 38 percent. In contast, fellow analytics firm Fiksu on Monday showed iOS 8 with a 52.8 percent share and iOS 7 with almost 40 percent.

Released on September 12, iOS 8 had a small number of technical issues that drove Apple to release iOS 8.0.1 a week later. But that was a major oops. Version 8.0.1 introduced some big bugs that affected the ability to connect to cell networks and the use of Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Apple quickly pulled the new update and pushed out iOS 8.0.2. That version appeared to fix most of the glitches, though users still reported Bluetooth connectivity problems, among other headaches.

Apple seemed to have finally gotten it right when it released iOS 8.1 on October 20. That version fixed the Bluetooth failures as well as other reported issues. Version 8.1 also introduced new features, mostly notably Apple Pay.

On November 3, Apple seeded the beta of iOS 8.1.1 to developers for testing. This new version offers more bug fixes as well as performance improvements, according to its release notes.