For the first time since releasing iOS 18 this past September, Apple has revealed user adoption figures showing that iOS 18 or another version of iOS 18 (such as iOS 18.2) is currently installed on 68% of all iPhones. Now, if we limit this to iPhone units introduced over the last four years, iOS 18 can be found running on 76% of those devices. Breaking down the numbers, we get the following:
All Active iPhone models
Current
iOS 18—68%
2024
iOS 17—66%
iOS 16—23%
iOS 15 and earlier—11%
2023
iOS 16—72%
iOS 15—20%%
iOS 14 and earlier—8%
Devices introduced over the last four years
Current
iOS 18—76%
iOS 17—9%
iOS 16 and earlier—5%
2024
iOS 17—76%
iOS 16—20%
iOS 15 and earlier—4%
2023
iOS 16—81%
iOS 15—15%%
iOS 14 and earlier—4%
So what can we make of these numbers? Surely Apple Intelligence, which was first released with iOS 18.1 and heavily expanded with iOS 18.2, comes into play somewhere within the raw figures. However, the limited release of Apple Intelligence in terms of countries and devices severely restricts the influence that Apple’s AI initiative has on iOS update adoption. Forgetting Apple Intelligence for a moment, the iPhone models that support iOS 17 (which date back to 2018’s iPhone XS) are the same ones that support iOS 18.
Apple also has made it easier for those who don’t want to update to the next major build to stay on the old one and still get security protection. For example, Apple released iOS 17.7 for those who didn’t want to update to iOS 18 because they were afraid of potential bugs on the new build ruining their iPhone and thus wanted to stay on iOS 17. The iOS 17.7 update gave these users exactly what they wanted while keeping their iPhones secure.
iPadOS 18 adoption
Current
iPadOS 18—53%
iPadOS 17—28%
iPadOS 16 and earlier—19%
2024
iPadOS 17—53%
iPadOS 16—29%
iPadOS 15 and earlier—18%
2023
iPadOS 16—50%
iPadOS 15—37%%
iPadOS 14 and earlier—13%
Devices introduced over the last four years
Current
iPadOS 18—63%
iPadOS 17—27%
iPadOS 16 and earlier—10%
2024
iPadOS 17—61%
iPadOS 16—29%
iPadOS 15 and earlier—10%
2023
iPadOS 16—53%
iPadOS 15—39%%
iPadOS 14 and earlier—8%
What we can see from the iPadOS adoption rates is that not only are they more stable (note the minor difference between the current iPadOS adoption figures and last year’s numbers), but fewer tablet owner feel compelled to update their software.
All of the figures are based on the devices that had transactions on the App Store on January 21, 2025.
