Versions
of Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 8, were filled with bugs
for some iPhone owners, including in some cases causing cellphone
service to be disabled.Credit Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images
The release of Apple’s latest mobile software system, iOS 8, was riddled
with major bugs, and Apple customers actually seem to care. They are
adopting the new software update more slowly than they did past
releases.
The company said on a
webpage that as of Sunday 47 percent of Apple mobile devices are running
iOS 8 after it was released about two and a half weeks ago. That is a
much lower adoption rate than that of the previous version, iOS 7,
which was running on about 70 percent of devices about two and a half
weeks after its release, according to an estimate by Mixpanel. The blog MacRumors earlier spotted the statistic.
There are a couple of
popular theories for why people might be picking up iOS 8 more slowly.
For one, they could have heard about the serious bugs, like the one that
temporarily caused some users’ phones to stop working.
For another, the software update requires a significant amount of
storage on the device — about five gigabytes — when it is installed
wirelessly over the Internet.
Why should anyone
care? For Apple, it is a big plus when a large amount of people grab the
latest iOS: The newest system is made to work best on newer phones, and
that encourages people with older devices to eventually buy new ones.
As for third-party software developers selling apps through Apple’s App
Store, it is more efficient to focus on building apps for a single
audience running the same software system.
“If you’re a
developer, you want the largest possible base of devices to be able to
use your app, but if half the people with iPhones are on iOS 7 or
earlier, the addressable market becomes a lot smaller,” said Jan Dawson,
an independent technology analyst for Jackdaw Research.
Apple declined to
comment. But the company is expected to release soon the next update,
iOS 8.1, which will probably be more stable than the current one and
could persuade more people to update.
