back to article MOST iPhone strokers SPURN iOS 8: iOS 7 'un-updatening' in 5...4...

Members of the Apple faithful have so far updated less than half of their iPhones, iPads and iPods with the newest refresh of the firm's mobile operating system, iOS 8. Five days after the new mobile OS was released, Cupertino reckons 46 per cent of iThings have been given software updates, where possible – iOS 8 isn't …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Declined?

    I haven't declined, I just didn't fancy doing the update when on the road.

    Never understood all this rush for the latest and greatest OS within days of release anyway. It's usually bugged no matter what flavour of OS you wish to use.

    1. Otto is a bear.

      Re: Declined?

      Me either, but I haven't even been offered it.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Declined?

      I don't understand the problems about space. I ran into that a while back, and all I need to do is to disable music tracks and sync - voila, plenty room. Update, then sync again with music on and all is well. I did that to myself by just buying the 16GB model, so I learned how to cope.

      If people would spend the time *thinking* instead of finding something to whinge about they would not have problems other than maybe some first release bugs, and that too is a matter of deciding to wait and be stable or upgrading and taking into account you may have some quirks to deal with - it's not exactly new, is it? That decision has been around since the beginning of the home computer era.

      Less talk, more thinking. Solves quite a few problems IMHO.

      1. td97402

        Re: Declined?

        I know, right! I also got the smaller iPhone 5s. Plugged it in to my computer, ran iTunes, a little while later I was all updated.

        BTW, no battery problems, have not noticed any WiFi problems. The only issue so far is that some apps displaying lists of items will freeze. No scroll up, no scroll down, have to exit via home button and then go back to app.

        Final thought: I REALLLLLLY LIKE THE NEW SIRI!! Text to speech in real time is fun to watch and seems more accurate then before.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      46%? In one week?

      Proportion of Android users on most up to date OS?

      Proportion of Android users who cannot update to newest OS?

      Proportion of Android users with security issues?

      1. Tom 35

        Re: 46%? In one week?

        I expect that's 46% of users who CAN upgrade to 8. Any apple user with a device too old is guilty of apostasy and no longer counts.

  2. AMBxx Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Stats are meaningless

    By the time you remove the devices without enough space and the devices that are too old, add to that those gathering dust.

    Pointless story.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Stats are meaningless

      The stats aren't meaningless because they're compared to similar stats from when iOS7 was brought in last year. If I recall correctly that worked on exactly the same devices, the update to 8 is rolling out to the same kit, i.e back to the iPad 2 and iPhone 4.

      So what the story is telling us is that Apple stuff is getting updated a bit slower than it used to be. Which is slower than it used to be before the somewhat negative reaction to iOS7. But still much faster than Android.

      That change may be random, or down to changing percetptions of Apple's quality control, or just the size of the update and effort required. Or it might even be down to the conspiracy theory I've sometimes heard that they slow older kit down with updates to get you to buy new ones. I don't buy it as it did happen to my iPad 1, but not to my iPad 3, or work iPhone 5.

      If you're not interested in that, then don't click on the article. But this is supposed to be a site for techies. I am interested, because at some point I'm going to hit the button on my iOS devices.

      I doubt Apple are any buggier than anyone else's new releases. It's just that they seem to often have WiFi and battery bugs on their updates. And have less excuse, given they totally control their hardware and exercise more control than most on the software.

      But they usually fix stuff reasonably quickly as well. So iOS 8.01 will probably be out in the next couple of weeks...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Stats are meaningless

        "But still much faster than Android."

        Really? I get nightly builds on mine and I get to read the Changelog. Fancy having alternatives like Cyanogenmod available. Damn all that choice.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: Stats are meaningless

          Cyanogenmod is great. But for ordinary users having root access to the device isn't exactly a perfect idea. Although it has its good points as well.

          Also from my experience of Cyanogen, now very out of date I admit, it's not always easy. If the manufacturer have cooperated then it's just a download and go. But if they've locked the phone's bootloader you need to jump through all sorts of hoops, that no ordinary user is going to touch with a 20 foot bargepole.

          Cyanogenmod is a minority interest for techies. And a very good one. But what matters is everyday users. And for them you get updates on Apple, and are much more likely not to on Android. Due to manufacturers and/or networks, and Google's decision to let them get away with it.

          It would also be interesting if Apple users were losing faith in their updates. But this data isn't enough to draw any conclusion like that from.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Stats are meaningless

          "But still much faster than Android."

          This is what Apple fanbots constantly bleat. What they don't understand, is the version of Android is mostly meaningless these days. All the functionality is delivered via Play Services, a layer ontop. So whilst they get once a year updates, ALL android owners get once a month feature releases.

          Remote wipe, device location, the gaming platform, Wearables support and so forth. Supported all the way back to Android 2.3

          https://developer.android.com/google/play-services/index.html

          In essence, the Android version matters less than your Linux kernel version, it's everything onto that the user sees and uses, and that's updatable.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Stats are meaningless

        Non fanboi input

        45% this year with the extra devices sold since iOS7 could still be more updates than the 45% at iOS7 release

        Also, I like many i plus non i owners wait for the hardened fanboi test subjects to find and cure the bugs

      3. nanchatte

        Re: Stats are meaningless

        The iPhone 4 has been left behind on this update (prolly for the best), so although the stats aren't meaningless, they are not exactly equal. The iPhone 4 is a very popular device. I still see tons of them around (and no, they do look different)... I'll wager that that is a major factor in the few percent drop from last year.

        1. Oninoshiko

          Re: Stats are meaningless

          wait, I thought ALL apple users where able to update ALL their devices FOREVER. Not doing that seems to be the biggest gloat from them...

  3. TwistUrCapBack

    Apple == Shite

    There - I said it

    1. SuccessCase

      Re: Apple == Shite

      Oooh, you are naughty.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Apple == Shite

      Well it might be, I've no intention of finding out, but the latest update to my SGS4 has fucked by battery life. So they probably aren't the only ones push poop. Still the phone now keep the top of my leg warm.

  4. D@v3

    46% of how many users?

    I find percentages not all that much use when comparing things that are not of exactly equal value.

    Without knowing how many users that 46% represents, compared to the previous 49%, doesn't mean much.

    If the overall user base has increased from (for example) 100 people, to 200 people, then that 46% (of 200) is significantly more actual bodies, than the 49% (of 100)

    (yes, of course there is the possibility that there has been an overall decrease in users, in which case the percentages are equally meaningless)

    Also, it seems that every year I read these stories of it taking people hours to update iOS, and then finding that they have lost half their stuff, and the battery is crap and the Wi-Fi doesn't work, where as every year, it takes me half an hour to download, back up and update, and everything works fine. I can't be the only one, right?

    Saying that though, I am the only person I know that doesn't passionately hate iTunes.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: 46% of how many users?

      D@v3,

      I've had an iPad hang halfway through the update and have to be hard reset. Can't remember which OS, or even which iPad. I had the 1 and now the 3. So I've tended to do my iPads via iTunes since. It wasn't a problem, I know these things can happen, and I'd backed it up, so it just needed to be done and plugged into Mr Pooter for a recovery. But people are likely to squawk a lot louder if they've just expected everything to work, and not backed up immediately.

      Apple can't really complain about that, as they do sell on the 'it just works' idea. So it's then hard to complain when their users don't do basic stuff like backups. Hence having Cloud do it for them.

      On the other hand I've got a work iPhone 5, and that's always updated flawlessly over the air. And I never back it up, because all it has is links to the work Exchange server and a few useful apps. It's never been plugged into my computer.

    2. a53

      Re: 46% of how many users?

      Add me to your list.

    3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: 46% of how many users?

      I think this % thing is an Americanism.

      For example, 'Wall St was down 5% today'.

      That in itself is meaningless without some baseline. 5% of what for F***s sake.

      1. Oninoshiko

        Re: 46% of how many users?

        5% of the close yesterday. It should be bloody obvious from context, I realize this is English, not Japanese, but, my god man, can you really not understand that context matters?

      2. SuccessCase

        Re: 46% of how many users?

        Of course it doesn't need a baseline to mean something. Otherwise if you heard Wall St. is down 100% you would still bother to make the journey to work in the morning.

  5. Rufus McDufus

    Safari

    It's the changes to Safari that bug me. The irritating autohide address bar for one. Plus Safari seems to hang frequently. The pinch-zoom crash bug isn't fixed either.

    1. johnnymotel

      I quite like the autohide thingy, makes more space. But I agree it was a bit annoying at first.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Safari

      Constantly reloading when you switch tabs is the biggest issue with it. Never used to happen. Does it constantly now on my ipad.

      1. td97402

        Re: Safari

        Actually I've been seeing that for at least a couple of months now on my iPad. Of course, I keep tabs around forever, sometimes I'll have a couple of reference pages loaded for weeks that I occasionally switch to and they reload if I haven't viewed them for a day or so. Probably an automatic page refresh feature

    3. Chairo

      Re: Safari

      It's the changes to Safari that bug me.

      No problem, just install another browser that suits you better...

      (obvious trolling)

  6. Pen-y-gors

    Strange

    I would have thought that getting 46% to upgrade in 4 days was an incredibly high percentage. Given that most new software has problems, whoever makes it, people have to be either really brave or really stupid to upgrade until a few million other schmucks have given it a whirl and let the manufacturers sort out their cock-ups.

    I'll leave it to the reader to decide how the 46% of Apple earl adopters are split between really brave and really stupid.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Strange

      Stupid is unfair.

      A combination of ingorant and uninterested is more accurate. I know people who really don't want to care about how pooters work. They just want to get on and do stuff. They're intelligent enough to understand them, but just don't want to. I don't really understand that, given how dependent we are on the damned things. But on the other hand, not everyone can understand every area of modern life or technology. There just isn't sufficient time. And people have things to get on with doing.

    2. Preston Munchensonton

      Re: Strange

      46% early adopter rate may be incredibly high, but we know from the last time that it's a falling rate. The question that no one can answer yet is whether this represents the downward death spiral that world+dog predicted for Apple upon the death of Fearless Leader. I'm not so sure it is, mainly because there's not remotely close enough evidence to draw such a definitive conclusion.

      And of course, anyone who rushes to get the bleeding edge has NO right to be shocked when they end up bloodied on some level.

    3. TheOtherHobbes

      Re: Strange

      I don't know if it's an incredibly high percentage.

      I do know it's an incredibly huge amount of bandwidth. Isn't it 1Gb per update? Multiplied by how many millions of users?

  7. heyrick Silver badge

    Why I didn't update

    iPad Mini, 16GB. I'd have to remove how much to install iOS8? And how much extra space will the OS claim for its own use, out of the 16 on board?

    My iPad works quite nicely, I don't plan to fix what isn't broken...

    1. Pet Peeve

      Re: Why I didn't update

      It's only if you install the update on the device itself. Not really a surprise that if you do that, there has to be free space for the download on-board. The download isn't a tiny incremental file like point releases, it's the whole iOS 8 image.

      If you do it through itunes, it's not an issue. Given the size of the update, it's worth doing it while attached to a computer anyway.

      1. returnmyjedi

        Re: Why I didn't update

        But that means using iTunes, which is something I try to avoid at all costs.

        1. chris 17 Silver badge

          Re: Why I didn't update

          @returnmyjedi

          there really is no pleasing some people!

          either update from the iPad over the air (requires free space on the device)

          or plugin to a pc and use iTunes, you know the tool apple built to service iDevices.

          Not sure how Android or Windows does it but Apple have covered all the bases with their update procedure.

          What would be your third option?

          1. Peshman

            Re: Why I didn't update

            The Third option you say?

            How about letting people use iFunbox to install the OS from a file sourced from a direct download link via an https login page?

            I F**king hate iTunes!

            1. Peshman

              Re: Why I didn't update

              Two down votes by two overzealous fanbois who don't really want to hear the truth? I have an iPad 3 and want to use it the way that I want to use it. Dare say, I use it the way that it suits my life. I can watch mkv files without transcoding them and copy stuff to and from it almost as easily as I can with my Android phone using iFunbox.

              So, justify to me what iTunes does better than a tiny bit of software that "Just works"

          2. qwertyuiop

            Re: Why I didn't update

            "or plugin to a pc and use iTunes, you know the tool apple built to service iDevices" - and there was me thinking that iTunes was the product they acquired when they bought SoundJam MP in late 2000.

            1. chris 17 Silver badge

              Re: Why I didn't update

              @qwertyuiop

              yes Apple acquired SoundJam and rebuilt it into iTunes. What's the big deal? i don't see any soundjam competitor still out there that are as ubiquitous as iTunes.

              i really don't understand this fascination with highlighting things that apple bought/acquired and made successful.

              when i look under the bonnet of my car i see loads of items made by other manufacturers, i don't hear people banging in about how the car company didn't make it themselves though.

  8. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge
    Devil

    still waiting

    They're probably still waiting for the update to download - have you seen the size of that thing?

  9. Toothpick

    At least the Apple faithful .....

    .... were given a choice to update. Unlike the Android faithful who may get an update when the manufacturer and/or carrier feels like it.

  10. t.est

    I upgraded from ios6 on my iPad to iOS8 just to get continuity

    ...now that doesn't yet work. Bummer.

    In ios 8 you can make the interface look good if you turn on grayscale, and then invert colors. Problem is it inverts and grayscale everything, like pictures and content. If it only did so for interface that's how I would run it.

    Back to iOS 6 design, I liked imitation of paper and leather, not necessarily that the interface also imitated the analog world, but the looks were good.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    good phone

    but spectacularly overpriced.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: good phone

      I'd say that's true of all the high-end phones now.

      My friend has a Motorola G, and it's really rather nice. Another has a Galaxy Note 2, and that's also excellent. Can't you pick them up for under £250 now?

      If I was paying, my next phone would probably be a mid range Lumia. 725, or whatever they're up to now. But if you don't like that UI, then there's plenty of great 'Droids to choose from at sensible prices. And I just think all the top-end phones over £400 are now a rip-off. One that only works because people aren't actually seeing the phone prices in their contracts, and can avoid noticing they're paying for an expensive hire-purchase with their data contract.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: good phone

        You might want to avoid the Lumia if you do anything but use it to make calls.

        They are still REALLY buggy. Bluetooth audio is choppy, they reboot pretty often, they get insanely hot when they are in low signal areas, and battery life can suck horribly. They are still very much alpha products.

        You can get a Nexus5 for a great price these days, and soon be updated to the latest Android L. The camera is really good (even more so with the new high speed camera hardware APIs in the L preview).

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          Re: good phone

          I think you may have a faulty phone.

          I had a Lumia 710 and the bluetooth audio worked perfectly. It got slightly better signal than my work iPhone if anything, and I don't recall it getting warmer than any other phone. The only phone I can recall getting toasty was my old HTC Wildfire after a hard workout. And it was never that bad.

          Actually the bluetooth problem could be your speakers as well. Given how piss-poorly unreliable I've found bluetooth to be over the years. When it works, it's great. When it doesn't it's a bastard to diagnose - and random multiple reboots and re-pairings seem to be the only way to go. Except for a sledgehammer...

          I've not read any reviews saying any of this, alhtough I've not looked that hard. And they're on their 4th (5th?) generation of Lumia phones now. As for the software it has its faults, but then so do Android and iOS. The People hub is way better designed than Apple or Google's efforts, and better than any of the other contact managers I've tried on Android. It's horses for courses.

          If I go Android it'll probably be something with a stylus. So that's LG or Samsung I think.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    4S killer

    A friend with a 4S installed IOS8 and it slowed his phone to an utter crawl. Unusable.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 4S killer

      Doesn't seem to be the case on a 32GB version, at least not heard much complaining beyond the usual moaning about downloading the best part of a gigabyte and waiting for the installation to complete.

      1. Matt Bridge-Wilkinson

        Re: 4S killer

        My 64gb 4S runs like a dream, sadly the battery meter can be seen moving as soon as you start using any apps. When not in use battery drain seems the same as iOS7. So good as long as I use it quickly and not for any length of time :/

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