Apple has officially revealed how many iPhones and iPads are running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 currently. The numbers are very interesting.
iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 Official Adoption Numbers Show Update Installed on 74% of All iPhone Models and 57% of All iPad Models
I’ve seen Apple do a lot of strange stuff over the years, and iOS 7 was right up there until iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 showed up. It’s a polarizing update, to say the least.
Keeping the general opinion of everyone in mind, you would expect a ton of users to resist iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 for as long as possible. After all, you just have to ignore the update as long as possible until Apple rolls back certain changes, right?
However, Apple has shared the official iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 adoption rate numbers, and compared to iOS 18 and iPadOS 28, they’re very, very interesting. In fact, they’re very close to each other in terms of adoption in the same time period.
According to Apple:
74% of all devices introduced in the last four years use iOS 26.
66% of all devices use iOS 26.
66% of all devices introduced in the last four years use iPadOS 26.
57% of all devices use iPadOS 26.
Now, here comes the fun part: during the same time period, iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 had eerily similar adoption numbers. For example, 68% of all iPhones were running iOS 18, and 53% of all iPads were running iPadOS 18 in the same time-frame.
Given how vocal people have been regarding Liquid Glass and other changes, you expect some resistance. Turns out, that’s not the case at all.
I’ve been having a lot of fun using iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 on my iPhone Air, and both my M1 iPad Pro tablets. Sure, there are certain things that need refinement, and I’m sure Apple will eventually iron out more bugs as time goes on, as iOS 26.3 and iPadOS 26.3 have clearly demonstrated.
