Nearly four months after its release, iOS 26 is seeing significantly slower adoption than previous versions, according to Statcounter data, as the majority of iPhone users continue to remain on iOS 18.
Ryan Christoffel for 9to5Mac:
Statcounter has been tracking usage data for browsers, OS versions, and search engines for years.
And its latest reporting on iOS 26 adoption tells a very clear story: the vast majority of iPhone users are still running iOS 18.
Global iOS version data as of January 2026 shows the following iOS 18 usage among active iPhones:
• iOS 18.7: 33.8%
• iOS 18.6: 25.2%
• iOS 18.5: 5.6%Here are the percentages for iOS 26 usage:
• iOS 26.1: 10.6%
• iOS 26.2: 4.6%
• iOS 26.0: 1.1%So four months after its release, iOS 26 is only in use by about 16% of iPhone users, while iOS 18 remains over 60%.
In January 2025, over 60% of users were on some version of the latest iOS 18 software — roughly four times as many as are on iOS 26 in the same timeframe. In 2024, iOS 17 similarly had over 50% adoption already…
As a second reference point, TelemetryDeck has iOS 26 adoption performing much better, with around 60% of users on the latest software and about 37% still on iOS 18. Clearly, the two services have differing methodology in tracking user data.
MacDailyNews Take: Regardless of TelemetryDeck’s stats, unless Statcounter changed their methodology since January 2025, iOS 18 adoption four months in outperformed iOS 26 adoption four times over. But, at least iOS 26 is doing far better than iOS 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25. 😉
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iOS 26 really screwed up some things.
I’ll take them at their word but it seems really odd. Who in the world would still use iOS 18? Maybe they have old iPhones that can’t be upgraded?
It’s easing people into AI. I’m not a fan of the glass look. It’s an update but not really a “must have” update.
I’m guessing many are waiting for the promised, cleaned up iOS 27.
iOS 26 isn’t as bad as many would like to think. At first it was annoying because it had a massive drain on the battery but that has been fixed and a lot of the visual effects can be turned off. It’s kind of like when iOS 7 came out and some people loudly complained about the removal of the skewmorphic effect and flattening out of the screen. Things change guys, it’s up to 26.2 and it’s quite stable.
The unwelcome forcing of AI has kept me on IOS 18 on my iPhone14. I have nointention of using AI on Mac, ipad or iphone. I have a brain that is far superior to AI garbage “intelligence”.
iOS 26 sucks in lots of little ways that makes it a clear step backwards. if I could downgrade, I would without hesitation. Sad times.