Are people avoiding iOS 26 because of Liquid Glass? It’s complicated.
Ars Technica • • general
Key Points:
- Initial reports suggested iOS 26 adoption rates were dramatically lower than previous updates, with Statcounter data showing only 16.6% adoption compared to around 70% for iOS 18, fueling speculation that users dislike the new Liquid Glass interface.
- However, these reports are misleading due to a change in iOS 26 where Safari freezes the iOS version in its user agent string to 18 to reduce fingerprinting, causing analytics tools like Statcounter to undercount iOS 26 devices.
- Analysis of Condé Nast website traffic indicates iOS 26 adoption is slower than iOS 18 but not as severe as Statcounter suggests, with about 45% of iPhone pageviews from iOS 26
