iOS 10 began rolling out last month and at this point, it has already trounced iOS 9 and all other iOS versions as the most used operating system in the United States.
The data came from two third-party tracking organizations, AppLovin and Mixpanel. Both firms reported that iOS 10 has breached the 50 percent mark this week, with the former citing 55 percent adoption rate. The global figure is also not far behind at 48 percent.
Handsets running on iOS 9 currently constitute 42 percent as of Oct. 1 according to Mixpanel.
The recent development did not surprise industry observers. Mere hours after the operating system was first released, for example, millions have already updated. The rate has never faltered and is likely to continue in the coming days, effectively lumping iOS 9 within the older iOS category. Older iOS versions currently claim a measly 3 percent.
The fast adoption has been consistent with previous iOS releases. The same was true in the robust performance of iOS 9, for example. This is mainly attributed to the fact that Apple exclusively controls the devices that run the operating system. This is in contrast to the highly fragmented Android ecosystem. Once Google rolls out an OS update, it must pass through the different handset manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC and LG. Each of these companies implements their own proprietary skins on top of the stock OS, making the rollout significantly slower.
This is primarily the reason Android Marshmallow, which Google released last year, can only boast of 19 percent adoption rate as of Sept. 7. Android Nougat, Google's latest update released in August is still practically nonexistent in the Android universe, with close to no one using the OS to date.
The rate of iOS 10's adoption can also be attributed to the excitement among users who want to take advantage of its new features. They were first revealed during this year's WWDC keynote. For those who have not updated and thus unaware of the changes, there is one particular feature that they are missing. iOS 10 has introduced new apps that take advantage of the new iPhone 7 hardware.
Certainly, Apple's latest iOS version is still plagued by bugs and glitches but they are swiftly being addressed. For example, the company is now testing a beta build that leads to significant performance improvements for the iPhone 7 Plus. Owners of the device, which sports 3 GB of RAM, has previously complained that they did not experience any change in speed despite the RAM upgrade.
