Hartley Charlton (Slashdot):
Usage data published by StatCounter (via Cult of Mac) for January 2026 indicates that only around 15 to 16% of active iPhones worldwide are running any version of iOS 26 . The breakdown shows iOS 26.1 accounting for approximately 10.6% of devices, iOS 26.2 for about 4.6%, and the original iOS 26.0 release at roughly 1.1%. In contrast, more than 60% of iPhones tracked by StatCounter remain on iOS 18, with iOS 18.7 and iOS 18.6 alone representing a majority of active devices.
Historical comparisons highlight how atypical this adoption curve appears. StatCounter data from January 2025 shows that roughly 63% of iPhones were running some version of iOS 18 about four months after its release. In January 2024, iOS 17 had reached approximately 54% adoption over a similar timeframe, while iOS 16 surpassed 60% adoption by January 2023.
[…]
In the first week of January last year, 89.3% of MacRumors visitors used a version of iOS 18. This year, during the same time period, only 25.7% of MacRumors readers are running a version of iOS 26 . In the absence of official numbers from Apple, the true adoption rate remains unknown, but the data suggests a level of hesitation toward iOS 26 that has not been seen in recent years.
I want to believe this is because people are choosing to avoid Liquid Glass, but the difference in curves is so stark that I assume it must be due to a measurement problem or a change in how strongly iOS’s Software Update is pushing new versions.
Dave Polaschek:
This, even given that Apple has made the 18.7.3 installer [and its security fixes] unavailable for anyone not an Apple Developer and in the beta program.
Previously:
Update (2026-01-12): Jeff Johnson (Mastodon):
The MacRumors stats appeared to provide some independent support for the StatCounter data. I made the mistake of starting to believe the story based on this, without checking the facts myself. In my defense, I’m not a news media outlet, so that’s not my job, and moreover I didn’t publish an article about iOS 26 adoption, until now.
The only site that got it right, eventually, is Pixel Envy by Nick Heer, who pointed out that the Safari browser User-Agent was partially frozen on iOS 26, as discussed in a September WebKit blog post[…]
[…]
Although Apple forces all web browsers on iOS to use WebKit, the User-Agent OS version is frozen only with Safari, not with other browsers, so third-party browsers still accurately report the iOS version.
[…]
By the way, I’m a bit puzzled by Apple’s partial freezing of the Safari User-Agent on iOS, because Safari is always inseparable from the OS, so it’s possible to derive the iOS version from the Safari version, which continues to be incremented in the User-Agent.
Brent Simmons:
I was curious about iOS 26 adoption for NetNewsWire. I looked at the 30-day-active-users numbers, separated by iOS version.
Current adoption is 84% for iOS 26.
René Fouquet:
I’m slowly getting to the point where I realize that it’s close to impossible to have an app that works reliably both on iOS 18 and 26. Something is always broken. You fix one thing, it breaks something else. Apple’s solution is obviously to support 26 only, but I’m not doing them this favor.
iOS iOS 26 Liquid Glass
Ryan Ashcraft:
Up until iOS 26, tab bars were fixed on the bottom of the screen and spanned the full horizontal space. Now, tab bars are capsule-shaped and inset from the screen edges.
[…]
Search tabs are separated visually from the rest of the tab bar and have a circular shape. When switching to the search tab, there’s a morph animation from the circle to the search field, which is now on the bottom of the screen. The new placement is convenient for reachability, a major selling point of the new design system.
[…]
Since the search tab looks like a button, developers and designers are treating it like one. Specifically, they’re using it (or emulating it) for their app’s primary action: the single most important action in an app, like composing a message or adding a new entry.
[…]
Apps have solved this in two ways for over a decade: embedding buttons in the tab bar (like Instagram’s 2011 camera button) or floating them above it (formalized by Google in Material Design 2014). Apple has never officially supported either. The Apple Human Interface Guidelines says tabs are for navigation, not actions. Yet these patterns are near-universal in successful iOS apps.
Previously:
Design iOS iOS 26 Liquid Glass Music.app Search
Dr. Drang:
That the default route’s Go button is gray while the alternates are green is a stupidity addressed by Sage Olson and Joe Rosensteel, so I won’t bother.
What I will address is that whichever route you choose, you have to tap its Go button. Even though the full description of each route looks like a button, the only part that’s tappable is the part that looks like a button inside another button.
Is this just as stupid as having a dull color as the default and a bright color as the alternate? Yes. And Apple has known that descriptions should be click/tap targets since the very beginning of the Mac. Here, courtesy of Infinite Mac, is MacWrite 1.0 running on a simulation of an original Macintosh.
Previously:
Apple Maps CarPlay Design iOS iOS 26 Liquid Glass
Keith Stuart (tweet, Hacker News, Reddit, Wikipedia):
The co-founder of Sega, who remained a director of the company until 1996, was instrumental in the birth and rise of the video game business in Japan, and in the 1980s and 90s oversaw the establishment of Sega of America and the huge success of the Mega Drive console.
[…]
For the next 15 years, Sega innovated in the arcade sector, switching from importing games to designing its own, and moving on from jukeboxes and pinball tables to electromechanical arcade games such as the submarine shooting sim Periscope and, in 1972, Killer Shark, a shark hunting game which would briefly feature in Jaws. Sega also began to set up its own arcades allowing the company close control over every facet of its business.
[…]
While Nintendo was all about family entertainment, the titles doing well on the Master System were teen-focused brawlers, such as Golden Axe and Shinobi. When it came to release the new Sega Mega Drive console in Japan in 1988, Rosen insisted on changing its name to Genesis for the US launch, emphasising a new beginning and a more mature outlook.
[…]
Spurred on by Rosen’s vision, Katz marketed the Genesis as a games console for teenagers, not children, using TV ads which combined video game visuals with flashing images and rock music and the immortal phrase: Genesis does what Nintendon’t.
Previously:
Business Game History Japan Rest in Peace Sega
