Apple’s newest mobile operating system, iOS 6, has shown unprecedented adoption rates by Apple users. Following our study on the early adoption rates of iOS 6, Chitika Insights was interested in seeing how the adoption rate varied between iOS devices.

To quantify this study, Chitika Insights took a sample of millions of mobile ad impressions coming out of the Chitika Ad network ranging from September 18th to October 1st 2012. The growth rate of iOS 6 was then split by device and compared to total iOS Web usage to illustrate the differences in adoption by device in the chart below:

Our data shows that since the release of iOS 6, iPhone users have exhibited the highest rates of adoption, with iPad users close behind and nearing the 50% marker. iPod users are the least likely to have updated to iOS 6, but still post a remarkable 39% adoption rate just 11 days following the operating system’s (OS) release.

Extracting a single day’s worth of data for each of these devices reveals similar iOS distributions for both the iPhone and iPad, but a more fragmented one for the iPod Touch. The charts below reflect each device’s OS distribution as seen on September 30th, 2012 within the U.S. and Canada:

The higher degree of fragmentation seen with iPod Touch devices can be largely be attributed to first and second generation iPod Touches not being able to update past iOS 4. While the same is true of older iPhones, cellular companies offer discounted upgrades as part of contracts, encouraging turnover within this market.

Overall, this data points to Apple doing an outstanding job of keeping their user base up-to-date with the latest OS. By comparison, Google’s latest data shows only 22% of its users being on its two most recent versions of Android. Apple’s performance in this area is a great selling point for mobile advertisers, as well as website and application developers, who can all confidently optimize their mobile properties to take advantage of the latest iOS capabilities without fear of shutting out a large portion of the user base.

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