New Update Latest iOS 26 market share comes as a big surprise for Apple four months after release

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

It's been four months since Apple released its iOS 26 update for supported iPhone models. Thanks to its tight control over hardware and software development, Apple has a high adoption rate for its software updates.

However, it doesn't seem to be the case with iOS 26, at least according to third-party data from StatCounter. The analytics firm published its worldwide market share numbers for different iOS versions in January 2026, revealing that iOS 26 has a combined market share of about 15%, including iOS 26.1 (10.59%) and iOS 26.2 (4.48%).

But iOS 26 differs from recent updates because of the Liquid Glass design language. It's Apple's biggest design overhaul in years, which has been rolled out across all its operating systems.

Liquid Glass brings a fresh coat of paint with glass-like, translucent UI elements that mimic how glass would behave in real life when placed on top of different materials. Liquid Gass didn't become a fan favorite and received mixed feedback from users, which could be one reason for the reduced adoption. Apple has made improvements to Liquid Glass over incremental updates.

Latest iOS 26 market share comes as a big surprise for Apple four months after release

Apple just got a major surprise as the latest adoption numbers for iOS 26 reveal an unexpected result.

www.neowin.net

 

[enaph]

It might not be just user refusal; the rollout mechanism seems less aggressive this time around.
I manually updated my device to 26.2, but my wife’s iPhone is still dormant on 18.6.2 with no prompts to upgrade.
Apple usually pushes these harder if they want the numbers up.