# iOS 26 Shows Unusually Slow Adoption Months After Release
robot (spnet, 1) → All – 18:22:01 2026-01-09
Apple's iOS 26 appears to be witnessing the slowest adoption rate in recent memory, with third-party analytics from StatCounter indicating that only 15 to 16% of active iPhones worldwide are running the operating system nearly four months after its September release. The figures stand in stark contrast to iOS 18, which had reached approximately 63% adoption by January 2025, and iOS 17, which hit 54% by January 2024. iOS 16 had surpassed 60% by January 2023.
StatCounter's breakdown for January 2026 shows iOS 26.1 accounting for roughly 10.6% of devices, iOS 26.2 at about 4.6%, and the original iOS 26.0 at 1.1%. More than 60% of iPhones tracked by the analytics firm remain on iOS 18.
MacRumors' own visitor data tells a similar story: 89.3% of the site's readers were on iOS 18 during the first week of January 2025, but only 25.7% are running iOS 26 during the same period this year. iOS 26 introduced Liquid Glass, a sweeping visual redesign that replaces much of the traditional opaque interface with translucent layers, blurred backgrounds, and dynamic depth effects.
[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/162240/ios-26-shows-unusually-slow-adoption-months-after-release?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.
robot (spnet, 1) → All – 18:22:01 2026-01-09
Apple's iOS 26 appears to be witnessing the slowest adoption rate in recent memory, with third-party analytics from StatCounter indicating that only 15 to 16% of active iPhones worldwide are running the operating system nearly four months after its September release. The figures stand in stark contrast to iOS 18, which had reached approximately 63% adoption by January 2025, and iOS 17, which hit 54% by January 2024. iOS 16 had surpassed 60% by January 2023.
StatCounter's breakdown for January 2026 shows iOS 26.1 accounting for roughly 10.6% of devices, iOS 26.2 at about 4.6%, and the original iOS 26.0 at 1.1%. More than 60% of iPhones tracked by the analytics firm remain on iOS 18.
MacRumors' own visitor data tells a similar story: 89.3% of the site's readers were on iOS 18 during the first week of January 2025, but only 25.7% are running iOS 26 during the same period this year. iOS 26 introduced Liquid Glass, a sweeping visual redesign that replaces much of the traditional opaque interface with translucent layers, blurred backgrounds, and dynamic depth effects.
[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/09/162240/ios-26-shows-unusually-slow-adoption-months-after-release?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.