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Friday, December 18, 2009, 07:00 pm
iPod touch users slow to upgrade mobile OS - study
While nearly 95 percent of iPhone users have upgraded to iPhone 3.0 or greater, only 55 percent of iPod touch users have done the same.According to numbers compiled by online advertiser Chitika, only 55 percent of iPod touch users have paid the fee to upgrade their devices to OS 3.0 or higher. Nearly 95 percent of iPhone users have made the free upgrade. These numbers were based on the sampling of traffic across the Chitika advertising network.
Chitiaka attributes this, aside from the obvious price difference, to OS 3.X having little to offer the typical iPod touch user. "Push notifications? MMS? Tethering? Essentially useless on a device that relies on WiFi for a connection. iPod touch users are essentially asked to pay for copy/paste, in-app purchases, and the ability to buy a segment of the latest apps from the app store."
Apple released iPhone Software 3.0 in June, adding MMS, cut/copy/paste, landscape keyboard, and Spotlight Search among others. To upgrade the iPod touch's OS, one must pay $5 to $10, depending on the time at which they purchased the device.
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Previous Comments View All
Perhaps now that Apple is using different accounting rules, the next upgrade will be free for touchies as well as the iPhonies. Then, we'll see if there is a change in uptake of updates.
Given the information stated and the apparent greed for nearly nothing in return, it's really doesn't come as a shock to me that so few have upgraded.
I also suspect that a lot of people bought the iPod Touch as a MUSIC DEVICE, thinking it's the "latest iPod" and such haven't quite used it for anything else.
I had to tell several friends who bought the Touch that it can access the internet nearly like a computer. They don't see the sense in surfing with such a small screen.
A suspect a lot of Touchs went to kids, with no credit cards, thus not able to buy much of anything for the device.
So many people I know still click the "Big E" for internet, oblivious what that thing is that slides out of the front of the computer tower and they have to push it back in.
I hope the executives at Apple who favor not charging for incremental updates gain ammunition from this report. One of the very significant advantages of the iPhone/iPod touch platform for developers is its homogeneity. If large numbers of customers opt out of upgrades, that invites all sorts of self-inflicted tech support problems.
It does not seem that anyone is buying the story about accounting issues forcing Apple to charge since none of its competitors seem to have that problem. Just quietly change the policy and gain a decided advantage over competitors by leaving behind as few customers as possible.
I was adamantly against upgrading my second-generation Touch to OS 3.
Then I happily downloaded some application updates and ... P'oh.
App upgrades really like 3.x.
Pah.
Wow, amazing that significantly more people are willing to download a free upgrade, as opposed to a paid one.
I totally agree. Isn't this common sense. iLove my Apple, but iSorta feel touch users get the short end of the stick with these paid updates. Though correct me if I'm wrong, Apple did allow users of the touch to upgrade for free depending on what build of the OS they were running!? Which was announced at the September 2009 event (aka Return of the Jobsian ) (soooo glad he's back)
I have an iPhone now, and don't have this problem, but when I had a Touch, I got really mad that they wanted $10 for an upgrade that didn't add much. I don't mind paying for a new OS if it is really an new OS, but for upgrades that should have been on the original, it really gets my goat. Apple should know that keeping people updated on the OS keep the app store more accessible to those customers, makes for a better user experience, and makes people buy new Apple products later down the line.
I was adamantly against upgrading my second-generation Touch to OS 3.
Then I happily downloaded some application updates and ... P'oh.
App upgrades really like 3.x.
Pah.
For 3.0, the developer changes were so radical that it seemed useless to continue development on iPhone 2.2.1 or earlier. Add to that the fact Apple pretty much forces all developers on Snow Leopard to use 3.0 or later, and you can't blame developers for only developing for 3.0 and later.
For 3.0, the developer changes were so radical that it seemed useless to continue development on iPhone 2.2.1 or earlier. Add to that the fact Apple pretty much forces all developers on Snow Leopard to use 3.0 or later, and you can't blame developers for only developing for 3.0 and later.
It's true that if you use iPhone OS 3.0 you get way more goodies as a developer, but it's not true that Snow Leopard forces you to 3.0. You can easily target 2.2 with all your builds in XCode, which makes you compatible with iPhone OS 2.2.
For now, a lot of developers are doing so and adding in special code/libraries to make their apps work under iPhone OS 2.2. However, increasingly apps and their upgrades are going to require 3.0 to make them smaller, faster, easier to maintain, and more feature-full. That will likely drag the last iPod Touch 2.2 users kicking and screaming over to 3.0.
That will likely drag the last iPod Touch 2.2 users kicking and screaming over to 3.0.
I wouldn't be kicking and screaming if the update to 3.0 was free.
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Wow, amazing that significantly more people are willing to download a free upgrade, as opposed to a paid one.