Slow Adoption Rate Of iOS Software Updates Suggests Apple Should Drop Tethered Updates

Have you updated already? No? Well, you're not the only one, according to mobile analytics firm Localytics. Most iOS users are very slow to adopt new firmware updates. According to their numbers, only a third of iPhone 3GS owners updated their device in the 24 hours following the release of iOS 4. It then took two more weeks for the next 40% to install it, and even as of today, 20% of iPhone 3GS owners are still running older firmware. This is for no apparent reason, as the 3GS performs just fine on iOS 4, and is just as jailbreakable. Why should we care? Well, of course, you could say that we have no reason to care about laggards. In reality however, I'm seeing an important number of developers having to spend a lot of time to make their apps backwards compatible, which is a waste of their time in most cases. Yet, they have to do it to avoid storms of negative reviews in iTunes. The fundamental problem, is that while more and more tech-unsavy people are getting the iPhone, they're using it independently of a computer like they did with their previous phones. They don't sync, don't install updates, and sometimes, aren't even aware it's possible. The idea Localytics is trying to stress with their data is the would-be superiority of over-the-air updates used by Android systems. Why not send everybody a cryptic message, and while they'll be surprised when their phone reboots after a while, that will save developers some time. Let's do this before Apple puts together a way for us to backup all our apps and their data as well as our other on-device info over the air. Obviously, this is just not a good idea. Anyway, why don't you update?