iPhone installed base upgrade rate.

Question

I am new to iPhone development and have no idea how fast or what percentage of the user community will upgrade to the v3.0 iPhone software release scheduled for mid year.

This question is motivated by the new push feature slated for the new release. Push would be great for my current App in development but if there is no mechanism employed by Apple to persuade users to upgrade that could leave 10 million potential users needing a non push alternative in my iPhone App.

Can any long term iPhone developers remember how quickly the previous iPhone o/s upgrades rolled out into the general end-user population?

Answer 1

I'm assuming most every user will follow the free path to 3.0 (Touch users pay $9.99 which is still compelling).

3.0 feature set will be very very compelling to the user and iTunes makes the upgrade easy.

As far as I know, the vast majority went to 2.0 and most are on 2.1.2 now.

Answer 2

Note that the 3.0 upgrade is free for all iPhone users, but costs $10 for iPod Touch users. I think that means you can probably count on nearly 100% uptake for iPhone users - at least anybody likely to buy an app from the App Store is going to get the free upgrade offered to them every time they visit the App Store. On the other hand, you can probably count on much lower uptake rate for iPod Touch users, because we're cheap bastards less likely to see a need for it.

Answer 3

I wouldn't worry about iPhone users not upgrading to 3.0 For all iPhones its a free upgrade and brings many features users have been waiting years for. When it comes to iPod Touches, I'd suspect many users to pay the $9.99 to upgrade the new OS because it has some nifty features and many applications will require 3.0 to function.

Answer 4

This recent article on Ars Technica gives some numbers about the current (pre-3.0) distribution of iPhone OS versions. This might give you an idea of the update rate.

Answer 5

I would say about 99%, given the feature set added - not only will people want cut & paste, but the new mapping frameworks will enable quite a few interesting applications that until now had been hampered by substandard maps.

That mostly applies to the iPhone, but I think the Bluetooth multiplayer gaming aspect (for newer Touches) will push that adoption pretty quickly as well, for anyone that buys applications on the Touch.