Apple provides initial figures for iOS 26
Apple has been tight-lipped about how many upgraders have been to the Liquid Glass operating system so far. Now, information is available for the first time.
Liquid Glass in iOS 26.
(Image: Apple)
After the great confusion caused by faulty Statcounter numbers, Apple is now relenting and has published official information for the first time on the adoption of iOS 26 by iPhone users. On its developer portal, the statistics with a cut-off date of February 12, 2026 have been updated, after they were last updated last year (and still during the iOS 18 era).
Slightly behind iOS 18
The numbers are better than expected: on devices from the last four years that have visited the App Store, 74 percent were already running a variant of iOS 26. A good 20 percent were still on iOS 18, and six percent on older systems. However, if you consider all devices that have visited the App Store at least once, including older models, iOS 26 only reaches 66 percent. For comparison: in June 2025, 88 percent of iPhones from the past four years were running iOS 18, the then-current operating system.
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Comparing the numbers with those for iOS 18 from January 2025, Apple is slightly worse overall. At that time, 76 percent of users of newer iPhones were on iOS 18, and an overall adoption of 68 percent was achieved. On the iPad, the picture is reversed: here, 66 percent of tablets from the last four years are now on iPadOS 26, whereas last year only 63 percent were on iPadOS 18. All iPads are now at 57 percent on iPadOS 26, compared to 53 percent on iPadOS 18 last year. With the update, Apple had further improved window management, which could be one reason for the faster upgrades.
More time allowed for the statistics
Overall, the adoption of iOS 26 on the iPhone is therefore minimally worse, although observers would have expected the redesign of the interface with the controversial Liquid Glass design to lead to even more delays. However, Apple seems to have succeeded in convincing at least people with newer iPhones.
However, one must also consider that the numbers for iOS 18 are from January and those for iOS 26 are from February, so Apple gave its statistics a little more time. Meanwhile, iOS 26.3 is on the market, which has fixed a whole series of earlier bugs and works more stably than iOS 26 in its first version.
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