What iOS 8 version should I use on my iOS 8 test device?

It's decision time. With the iOS 9 public release imminent, Apple will soon stop signing 8.x. My current designated iOS 8 test device, an iPhone 4S, is currently running 8.0.2. Should I leave it there or update it to 8.4.1 while I still can? Will 8.0 or 8.4 be a more useful iOS 8 version to have running on hardware? Or is it a moot point, since all devices that support iOS 8 will also run iOS 9 so virtually everyone will upgrade to iOS 9 anyway?

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junkpile
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The good source for a decision might be analytics from your own apps, which would tell you what version of iOS most of your users are currently running and how fast they upgraded from previous releases.

But here's one random stat found on via a web search:

https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_frag/from_date:0,to_date:0

which shows a lot more iOS 8.4.1 users than 8.0.x users.


Note these stats also show about 4% of users stuck way back on 7.1.2, but with a even tinier percentage on 7.0.x.

It's quite possible that something similar might happen with the ratio of iOS 8.4.1 users vs. 8.0.x users some period of time after iOS 9 is released.

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hotpaw2
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I don't keep such analytics. Maybe I should.


In any case I updated it to 8.4.1 a couple of days ago so the die is cast 🙂

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junkpile
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