Apple yesterday released iOS 8 to the public, opening the doors for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners to download and install Apple's latest version of iOS on their devices. According to The Guardian, this release caused internet traffic to surge in the UK by as much as 60 percent compared to the same time the previous day as millions of iOS users rushed to update their devices.
LONAP web traffic data from iOS launch timeframe (blue) vs. previous day (red)
Data from LONAP shows that web traffic surged just as iOS 8 was released at 6:00 PM UK time. Traffic remained strong for several hours, with a peak at 8:00 PM in the UK as more than 70 gigabits per second were being transferred through LONAP's exchange.
iOS 8 adoption from Mixpanel
iOS 8 may have caused web traffic to briefly increase, but the first-day adoption rate of the mobile operating system is relatively low when compared to previous iOS rollouts. According to analytics firm Mixpanel, only 14 percent of the iOS devices that it tracks are currently running iOS 8. Data from mobile marketing company Fiksu shows a similar slow uptake in iOS 8 with the adoption of Apple's latest iOS version trailing the last that of the last several iOS launches.
Fiksu iOS 8 Tracker
The slower update rate may be due to a record number of iPhone owners purchasing new devices. Apple sold more than four million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units in the first 24 hours that pre-orders were available last week. Customers who are receiving a new phone in the coming weeks may delay upgrading their current device, opting instead to prepare the handset for sale.
Another factor may be the large storage size required for the over-the-air updates. Though the iOS 8 update was just over 1 GB in size, it required 4.6 GB of free storage space on an iPhone and almost 7 GB of free storage on an iPad for installation. That's almost half the free space available on a 16 GB device, forcing many owners to decide whether to delete content from their devices or install the update.
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports.
In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Monday December 8, 2025 4:54 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is actively testing under-screen Face ID for next year's iPhone 18 Pro models using a special "spliced micro-transparent glass" window built into the display, claims a Chinese leaker.
According to "Smart Pikachu," a Weibo account that has previously shared accurate supply-chain details on Chinese Android hardware, Apple is testing the special glass as a way to let the TrueDepth...
Monday December 8, 2025 10:18 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the second release candidate version of iOS 26.2 to developers and public beta testers, with the software coming one week after Apple seeded the first RC. The release candidate represents the final version iOS 26.2 that will be provided to the public if no further bugs are found.
Registered developers and public beta testers can download the betas from the Settings app on...
Monday December 1, 2025 2:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Monday December 8, 2025 9:23 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's chipmaking chief Johny Srouji has reportedly indicated that he plans to continue working for the company for the foreseeable future.
"I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon," said Srouji, in a memo obtained by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Here is Srouji's full memo, as shared by Bloomberg:I know you've been reading all kind of rumors and...
Monday December 8, 2025 11:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple and Google are teaming up to make it easier for users to switch between iPhone and Android smartphones, according to 9to5Google. There is a new Android Canary build available today that simplifies data transfer between two smartphones, and Apple is going to implement the functionality in an upcoming iOS 26 beta.
Apple already has a Move to iOS app for transferring data from an Android...
Wednesday December 10, 2025 12:22 pm PST by Juli Clover
The next-generation low-cost iPad will use Apple's A19 chip, according to a report from Macworld. Macworld claims to have seen an "internal Apple code document" with information about the 2026 iPad lineup.
Prior documentation discovered by MacRumors suggested that the iPad 12 would be equipped with an A18 chip, not an A19 chip. The A19 chip was just released this year in the iPhone 17, and...
Apple today announced that Fitness+ is expanding to 28 new markets on December 15 in the service's largest international rollout since launch, accompanied by new language dubbing and a K-Pop music genre.
Apple Fitness+ will become available in Chile, Hong Kong, India, the Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan, and additional regions on December 15, with Japan scheduled to follow early next year....
The requirement of needing 5+ GB free on the device for a download that was less than 2 GB is the dumbest thing.
You do realize the update needs to be extracted, right? It's like downloading a zipped file on your computer and you need zip file space + extracted space on your computer to be able to extract it correctly.
The slower update rate may be due to a record number of iPhone owners purchasing new devices. Apple sold more than four million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units in the first 24 hours that pre-orders were available last week. Customers who are receiving a new phone in the coming weeks may delay upgrading their current device, opting instead to prepare the handset for sale.
Sounds far fetched to me. I think the share of iPhones that is not eligible for the iOS 8 update is much larger than the share of devices not eligible for the iOS 7 update was last year. The iPhone 4 was much more popular than the 3GS.
