Over the Air (OTA) updates, like those issued on most Android phones, bring more rapid movement to a new platform than desktop updates like Apple’s iPhone utilizes.
According to Localytics, Android phones who receive OTA updates are much more likely to update to new mobile OS’s than users who must use the desktop to update. The illustration below compares the adoption of a new OS by iPhone 3GS users who must use their desktop to upgrade vs. the Motorola Droid which receives its updates over the air.
Apple enjoyed an unsurprising and early spike with 30% of iPhone 3GS users upgrading in the first two days. Droid owners had to wait patiently for their over-the-air (OTA) upgrades, which were rolled out slowly at the start and then fully released around August 20, more than doubling the number of total upgrades in just one day. By the end of the first two weeks, 96% of Droids had been upgraded to Android 2.2 while just 56% of iPhone 3GS were running iOS 4. Two months after the release of iOS 4, over 20% of iPhone 3GS users still haven’t upgraded to iOS 4.
The issue of fragmentation of OSes is one that comes up often. It is interesting to see that over 95% of Droid owners were on the new OS within the first two weeks, vs. only 80% of iPhone 3GS owners having upgraded after two months.