Don’t worry, game developers. Many of the people who spend money on your apps are updating to iOS 9.
Apple released iOS 9 earlier this month, and nearly half of all iPhone owners have updated to the latest revision of the operating system, according to analytics company DeltaDNA. The data firm tracks information from more than 20 million iPhones, and it claims that this update rate is even faster than previous iOS releases. At this point in iOS 8’s life, only around two-thirds of iPhone owners had upgraded. This suggests that even though people often hear about bugs and performance issues with new versions of iOS, they don’t care. And that’s especially true for consumers who spend money on in-app purchases in mobile games.
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But the company notes that it’s possible this disparity is due to more non-payers running older iPhone hardware. Three out of five paying iOS gamers own an iPhone 6 where that’s true of only 41 percent of non-payers. And the older the model, the less likely people are to upgrade.
“We would expect much of this nervousness is users on old devices worried about performance,” reads the DeltaDNA blog. “As expected, users on old iPhone 4 models are very reluctant to update, with only 22 percent so far on iOS 9.”
Of course, it makes sense that people who spend more money on mobile games also typically spend more money on smartphone hardware. But developers should see this as a confirmation that putting in the work to support iOS 9 is worth it. The people who support games most with active purchases are making the move, and they are going to want all of their favorite apps to work when they do.