iOS 8 Slow To Gain Traction

Two weeks in and several bug reveals (and patches) later, iOS 8 is not seeing the speedy adoption that Apple’s previous mobile operating systems have enjoyed.  According to data released on Apple’s website and spotted by MacRumors, 47 percent of those carrying Apple mobile devices have officially made the switch to iOS8.  That is quite a steep drop off from iOS 7,  which at the same point after its initial release was up and running on 70 percent of Apple devices.

Why the slowdown? Two popular theories abound, reports The New York Times.  First, the initial release of iOS 8 was accompanied by a series of bugs, one of which actually prevented phones from making or receiving calls–essentially rendering every iPhone it touched a very small tablet.  The software update requires a significant amount of storage on the device when installed wirelessly over the Internet— about five gigabytes.

“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 has declined to comment on the slow adoption and is instead pushing ahead with plans to release 8.1–which will fix many of the technical issues spotted with 8.0.  With the release of 8.1, users will also officially be able to start using Apple Pay once retailers start to accept it.