"Last week, news about the adoption rates for Apple's iOS 26 update started making the rounds. The new update, these reports claim, was being installed at dramatically lower rates than past iOS updates. And while we can't infer anything about why people might choose not to install iOS 26, the conclusion being jumped to is that iPhone users are simply desperate to avoid the redesigned Liquid Glass user interface."
"We've taken a high-level look at all iPhone traffic across all Condé Nast websites for the months of October, November, and December of 2025 and compared them to traffic from October, November, and December of 2024. This data suggests that iOS 26 is being adopted more slowly than iOS 18 was the year before-roughly 76 percent of all iPhone pageviews came from devices running iOS 18 in December of 2024, compared to about 45 percent for iOS 26 in December of 2025."
Statcounter data for January shows iOS 26 on about 16.6 percent of devices, versus around 70 percent for iOS 18. The iOS 18.7 update alone appears on nearly one-third of devices. Headlines have tied slow iOS 26 uptake to user rejection of the Liquid Glass interface. Technical changes in iOS 26 and differences in measurement methods appear to produce undercounts in some trackers. Site traffic analysis across Condé Nast sites for October–December 2025 indicates roughly 45 percent of iPhone pageviews from iOS 26 compared with 76 percent from iOS 18 the year before. Adoption is slower but not catastrophic.
Read at Ars Technica
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