Marco.org

This is a quick update to my iOS device and OS version stats as reported by Instapaper 3.0.

The same disclaimers apply. This sample does not represent all iOS owners. Specifically, it only represents people who:

• Paid $5 for the Instapaper app, and…
• Are using at least the 3.0 release from five months ago, and…
• Logged into the app with an account (or created an account from it), and…
• Connected to the internet long enough for an update request to be received by the service.

So it’s very useful to me, but the usefulness to you will vary.

Here’s the updated data from today:

The biggest differences from five months ago:

• The iPad 2 has sold incredibly well, with its numbers now almost identical to the iPad 1’s among my customers. It wouldn’t surprise me if 40 million iPads have sold already.
• iPad usage has grown from 47% to 56% of my customers.
• Adoption of iOS 4.3 has jumped from 65% to 82%.
• Adoption of iOS 4.0 has risen from 98.1% to 98.4%. I expect this to increase significantly in the next few months as a lot of iPhone 3G owners upgrade to the next iPhone.

Over the last few months, these stats have helped me decide to raise the minimum OS requirement for Instapaper from 3.1 to 4.2 in its next release,¹ due out probably within a few weeks. This will break compatibility for the 0.4% of customers still using original iPhones or first-generation iPod Touches.

Development and testing of the new release with iOS 4’s luxuries has been more productive and efficient than ever. My code is cleaner, I’ve deleted a lot of old hacks, and I’m able to do a lot of new features with far less code (like gesture recognizers). If I get an angry email from every one of my 5.4% of customers who don’t (but can) run 4.2, I’ll feel guilty and will probably have a crappy night, but it will have been worthwhile.