Brian Garner
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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90 Comments
Wow, amazing that significantly more people are willing to download a free upgrade, as opposed to a paid one.
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.