When it comes to giving the latest update to its smartphones, Apple has been way ahead of Google and Android. With iPhone users getting timely updates, they often switch to the latest version and not on older versions. Apple released its official iOS adoption numbers and it revealed that about 72% of all iPhones — launched in the last four years — have now got iOS 15 installed. iOS 14 is installed on 26% of devices whereas just 2% use an older version of iOS.
The numbers are impressive if you look at ‘older’ iPhones as well. About 63% of iPhones launched more than four years ago have iOS 15 running on them. 30% have iOS 14 whereas 7% of older iPhones use an earlier version.

How Google and Android compare

Google had stopped revealing Android adoption numbers frequently. However, in November 21, it was revealed that the most popular OS version on Android phones was Android 12. Online reports suggested that 26.5% of Android phones have Android 10 running. Android 10 was launched in 2019 and still remains popular on a quarter of smartphones. Android 11 came in second with about 24.2% of devices running the version. Android 12, which is the latest release by Google, at that time didn’t figure on the list. But quite a few brands have started rolling out Android 12 updates though it’s still a rather slow adoption process.
Older Android versions still remain quite popular on devices. Android 9 Pie was on 18.2% of devices whereas Android 8 Oreo was on 13.7% of devices. Looking at the numbers, a lot of older versions of Android seem to be still on many phones. For instance, the 2018 version of Android — Pie — is on 18.2% of phones whereas Android 8 Oreo is on 13.7% of smartphones.
A lot of brands follow their own timelines when it comes to rolling out Android updates. They have a roadmap that usually involves the premium phones getting the latest Android update first with other models getting slightly late. Apple clearly doesn’t have any such problem and continues to have an edge over Google and Android.