[NewsPoster]

Just days before its replacement is to be officially revealed for the first time, iOS 7 has achieved an 89.7 percent adoption rate among Internet-active iPhones in North America, an ongoing study by mobile ad marketing and analysis firm Chitika has revealed. The survey also revealed that iPad adoption of iOS 7 has grown rapidly in the last three months, reaching 84.8 percent of US and Canadian web traffic from iPads.

The adoption numbers for iPhone and iPad owners increased 5.4 and 6.3 percent (respectively) since the previous survey in February. While iOS 8 is expected to be revealed to developers during Apple's WWDC keynote announcement on Monday, but may not be released to the public until after the next set of iPhones and iPads are announced, expected to be some time in the fall. At its present growth rate, iOS 7 will approach 96 percent adoption among active web users by the time iOS 8 is formally unleashed.

Adoption of iOS 6 among iPhone users was actually slightly higher at this same point last year, reaching nearly 93 percent (83 percent for iPad users, slightly below current iPad adoption). The results are drawn from millions of North American online ad impressions seen by iOS users between May 22 and 28.

[Paul Huang]

It's because of the FORCED upgrade scheme, not because people want it.

[Spheric Harlot]

You're confusing "making it easy" with "forcing".

[revco]

Hardly.

[Charles Martin]

In point of fact, there is no forced upgrade. As the percentage of people still on iOS 6 should make self-evident.

[drbroom]

Hear.. Hear Paul!!! THE ONLY REASON I UPGRADED WAS BECAUSE I WAS FORCED TO!!!! Screaming intended!

As a tech consultant, many, if not most of my clients are asking me about what is envolved in making the switch to an Android based phone. What I have told them is that I am waiting for 8 however if I don't see a paradigm shift back to a "user" focused iOS (ie "the human interface guidelines" ) then I will lead the way in to making the move myself.

db (used to bleed in 6 colors, now crying in 6)

[drbroom]

Oh and Chas-m... have you had a phone crash yet? Because there is no signed copy of 6 that will work on an iPhone 5! If you have to restore for any reason you are FORCED to up grade!

So Yes FORCED!! is the only word anyone can use if they want to use their phone.

db

[DiabloConQueso]

Jeeze, drbroom, you sound like you were probably just the life of the party back in the 68k to PowerPC days, the PowerPC to Intel days, and the OS 9 to OS X days, huh?

[Charles Martin]

Let me state for the record that I was an iOS 7 skeptic. I didn't like the early photos of the design, thought (and still think) that they use too much white space (which has to use more battery, you know?) and that their were rough edges. Then, two things happened:

1. I actually used it with an open mind (something too many "Apple fans" have decided they don't need anymore) and

2. I remembered all the times when something really new came out (OS X itself, Intel-powered Macs, iMovie 7, FCP X etc) and how they all had rough edges that over a few point releases became far better tools than what they replaced. This is how Apple has always worked -- it is the price we pay for the progress we get and the risks they take. It is, however temporarily annoying things like "natural scrolling" are, the very reason we get such outstanding software: because Apple doesn't always play it safe.

So I used it with an open mind for a while and surprise, surprise ... I thought it was way better than I was anticipating. Definitely some rough edges (still) but huge improvements in each iteration. Now, iOS 6 looks primitive by comparison (it probably helped that I also upgraded to an iPhone 5s shortly after iOS 7 came out, but I had no issues with it on my iPhone 4 either).

I have generally found that if you don't go into things with a chip of preconception on your shoulder, life is smoother and happier and my iOS 7 experience reiterates this. I expect iOS 8 to do for iOS 7 what Snow Leopard did for Leopard: polish it up into a solid and excellent experience.

[drbroom]

Diablo:

Well I was writing code back then... and yes at Apple soo yea life was a bit of a party! lol and I still have my 96 hr tea shirt. As to being the life of the party well not me, but I did hang with a few of the guys who really were.

Chas:

I have used almost every OS (MacOS, OS X, Windows almost every version, BE OS, OS2 and a whole lot others almost now one here has ever heard of... totally geeking out now) and with each and every one I have had an open mind. With that, I can say without any hesitation that OS X 10.6 and iOS 5 were the best OS ever done (so far) from the point of view of the user experience.

My problem from the current crop of Apple OSes stems from the departure from an underlying "standard" principle. The standard in what developers agreed to when they first started programming for the Mac... Standards!

As a developer myself We were taught that just because you had a better way of doing something don't forget to consider that people have learned a standard and if you change that standard it better be so simple that it is thought of just "the natural way of doing it". Also we were taught that since we were writing software when ever possible we should keep the old way of doing something and add the new way. I mean think about it, in the Mac software (including the Finder) there is almost always 2 ways of doing everything, and usually 3 or more. So the question must be raised why all of a sudden is Apple forcing us to do it their way?

If you have ever read Donald Normans book "The Design of Everyday Things" you may remember the stories about people who have designed new phones and how many of them have failed. Why because while they may have been smarter they didn't adhere to standards people have lived with and in some case learned to count on. In the case of the origional iPhone it succeeded because was just so simple it seemed natural.

The true brilliance of Apple products isn't the wonderful design of the hardware but the simple elegance of the past software. Again I turn to one of the "founding fathers"... Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini ("The Human Interface Guidelines") taught us and anyone interested in human interface that when we test a user experience we need to focus on the users expectations. These days it just seems to be more about "let's do this cause it's cool".

Now I realize I may be screaming at the wind these days and many here may feel I have just passed my prime when it comes to technology but I believe that "when you paint a fence paint the back as well even if you don't see it" why? because elegance wins and make others want to use and see your work. Just my $0.02 but Apple seems more like let's just push it out rather the doing things "The Macintosh Way" (Guy Kawasaki... yet another OLD reference!)

[Grendelmon]

It's a forced upgrade if you want to continue using FaceTime.

[Paul Huang]

I will just say, for the record, that whoever came up with this lame color scheme has no bloody idea about tonal/value scale works against hues and vice versa. You will start to see changes as they realized how stupid they are.

[testudo]

Technically, it's a forced upgrade in the sense that, if you updated and then decided "Wait, this looks like I put windows 8 on my phone!" you couldn't go back.