Final yr was a big one for Apple’s working programs. Throughout the board, from the iPhone and iPad to the Mac and Imaginative and prescient Professional, platforms had been standardized in each model quantity and look. However not everybody was impressed with the brand new common Liquid Glass design language, usually referred to by an unkind rhyming epithet.
What might in the summertime and fall have been dismissed as a subjective response, the complaints of a vocal minority, can now be quantified. And the most recent adoption knowledge signifies that at the very least one of many late-2025 working programs has been vastly much less in style with prospects than its equal the yr earlier than. Briefly, hardly anybody is operating iOS 26.
In response to StatCounter’s knowledge for January 2026, simply 18.1 % of recognized iPhone customers are operating some model of iOS 26. Greater than 4 instances as many are nonetheless utilizing the assorted variations of iOS 18. Right here’s how the numbers stack up by model:
- iOS 18.7: 33.81%
- iOS 18.6: 25.2%
- iOS 26.1: 10.57%
- iOS 18.5: 5.56%
- iOS 26.2: 4.62%
- iOS 16.7: 2.23%
- iOS 15.8: 1.76%
- Different: 16.24%
January 2026. Supply: StatCounter
(Word that the “Different” section might embody 26.0 and different level updates of iOS 26, though none will individually rating greater than iOS 15.8’s 1.76 %. For simplicity and within the absence of extra element, I’ve calculated the entire for iOS 26 and 18 as a proportion of customers for whom a model is recognized, and excluding the Different section.)
For comparability with the identical second in iOS 18’s launch schedule, I dug up StatCounter’s knowledge for January 1-9, 2025. And the distinction is stark:
- iOS 18.1: 46.82%
- iOS 18.2: 12.88%
- iOS 17.6: 9.18%
- iOS 16.7: 3.47%
- iOS 18.0: 3.46%
- iOS 17.5: 3.26%
- iOS 15.8: 2.83%
- Different: 18.11%
January 1-9, 2025. Supply: StatCounter
Primarily based on these figures, at precisely the identical time of yr, the most recent model of iOS had achieved a 77.1 % adoption fee. (I’ve iOS 18 at 77.1 % of recognized customers, and iOS 17 at 15.2 %.) This clearly exhibits how disappointing it’s for iOS 26 to be caught at lower than 20 % adoption.
So the adoption numbers are closely down on earlier years. However this may not appear to be a lot of a problem for Apple. In any case, iOS updates are free. Even when iOS 26 is a flop, that gained’t scale back the corporate’s income by one cent. (Although it might, conceivably, stop somebody from upgrading or shopping for a brand new iPhone, however that’s tougher to quantify.)
However whatever the monetary issue, Apple actually cares about OS adoption. One facet is safety: if a consumer has the most recent model of iOS, additionally they have all the most recent patches. One other, which is especially related on this case, is gaining the advertising and marketing advantages of iPhones within the wild, being seen with the most recent look and the most recent options. Because of this Apple was so proof against consumer customization: it prefers to select what it considers to be the optimum interface, and for that to be the general public face of the iPhone.
Sadly, the most recent look appears more likely to be at the very least a part of the explanation why iPhone customers aren’t dashing to replace. Simply keep in mind that iOS 26 is about greater than Liquid Glass, and that the worst aesthetic excesses will be toned down by opening the Settings app and going to Show & Brightness > Liquid Glass.
