iosdevradianttap

iPhone models in active use on the App store

My little experiment measuring the influence of downloads to the search ranking gave me an interesting look at current state of iPhone devices in the wild. While 60k is far cry from hundreds of millions of estimated target base, it offers good glimpse into what people that actively look for apps are using as devices.

It also exemplifies how important localization is, which I’ll address first.

Localization drives the downloads

Banca is localized in 9 languages and countries where those languages are spoken dominated the chart:

Localization is worthwhile

Localization is worthwhile

In particular, Spain was very interesting, as about 8k downloads got me into no.10 on the Top All Free chart. What’s missing is Brazil, it’s far lower than the rest.

iOS 7 users upgrade quickly

Since this is iOS 7 only app, it as interesting to note just how often people that have iOS 7 upgrade to minor releases.

iOS 7 versions uptake

iOS 7 versions uptake

Very, very quickly.

Devices in use

Finally, the devices.

Do you see something missing..?

Do you see something missing..?

I noted two interesting facts:

  1. iPhone 4S is still a very significant market, despite iOS 7 performing less than desireable on it.

  2. iPhone 5c is nowhere to be found. Seriously, it’s so small, it does not even register on that chart.

Thus:

All in all, 58% of 4in devices and 32% of 3.5in. That smaller iPhone all of us developers have not used for over a year - it’s still going very strong.