iOS 26 is a massive flop with iPhone users, and you can probably guess why

Last year was a significant one for Apple’s operating systems. Across the board, from the iPhone and iPad to the Mac and Vision Pro, platforms were standardized in both version number and look. But not everyone was impressed with the new universal Liquid Glass design language, often referred to by an unkind rhyming epithet.

What could in the summer and fall have been dismissed as a subjective response, the complaints of a vocal minority, can now be quantified. And the latest adoption data indicates that at least one of the late-2025 operating systems has been vastly less popular with customers than its equivalent the year before. In short, hardly anyone is running iOS 26. (Editor’s note: the numbers may not be as bad as first thought. Full explanation here.)

According to StatCounter’s data for January 2026, just 18.1 percent of identified iPhone users are running some version of iOS 26. More than four times as many are still using the various versions of iOS 18. Here’s how the numbers stack up by version:

• iOS 18.7: 33.81%
• iOS 18.6: 25.2%
• iOS 26.1: 10.57%
• iOS 18.5: 5.56%
• iOS 26.2: 4.62%
• iOS 16.7: 2.23%
• iOS 15.8: 1.76%
• Other: 16.24%

January 2026. Source: StatCounter

(Note that the “Other” segment may include 26.0 and other point updates of iOS 26, although none will individually score more than iOS 15.8’s 1.76 percent. For simplicity and in the absence of more detail, I’ve calculated the total for iOS 26 and 18 as a percentage of users for whom a version is identified, and excluding the Other segment.)

For comparison with the same moment in iOS 18’s release schedule, I dug up StatCounter’s data for January 1-9, 2025. And the difference is stark:

• iOS 18.1: 46.82%
• iOS 18.2: 12.88%
• iOS 17.6: 9.18%
• iOS 16.7: 3.47%
• iOS 18.0: 3.46%
• iOS 17.5: 3.26%
• iOS 15.8: 2.83%
• Other: 18.11%

January 1-9, 2025. Source: StatCounter

Based on these figures, at exactly the same time of year, the latest version of iOS had achieved a 77.1 percent adoption rate. (I have iOS 18 at 77.1 percent of identified users, and iOS 17 at 15.2 percent.) This clearly shows how disappointing it is for iOS 26 to be stuck at less than 20 percent adoption.

So the adoption numbers are heavily down on previous years. But this might not seem like much of an issue for Apple. After all, iOS updates are free. Even if iOS 26 is a flop, that won’t reduce the company’s revenue by one cent. (Though it could, conceivably, prevent someone from upgrading or buying a new iPhone, but that’s harder to quantify.)

But regardless of the financial factor, Apple really cares about OS adoption. One aspect is security: if a user has the latest version of iOS, they also have all the latest patches. Another, which is particularly relevant in this case, is gaining the marketing benefits of iPhones in the wild, being seen with the latest look and the latest features. This is why Apple used to be so resistant to user customization: it prefers to pick what it considers to be the optimal interface, and for that to be the public face of the iPhone.

Unfortunately, the latest look seems likely to be at least part of the reason why iPhone users aren’t rushing to update. Just bear in mind that iOS 26 is about more than Liquid Glass, and that the worst aesthetic excesses can be toned down by opening the Settings app and going to Display & Brightness > Liquid Glass.