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Apple may indeed have attracted a much broader audience of upgraders for its redesigned 9.7-inch iPad versus last year, according to new early data from mobile app analytics firms. The iPad Air enjoyed somewhere around five times the first weekend adoption of the fourth generation iPad, according to Fiksu, and just under four times that of the iPad mini, which went on sale at the same time as the iPad 4.

Fiksu found that three days after the iPad Air went on sale, it was being used by 0.88 percent of those millions using the apps of its clients – which is much better than either the 0.15 percent who were on iPad 4 three days after its launch, or the 0.22 percent who were on iPad mini at the same time. The iPad Air has attracted more early adopters than both devices combined, in fact, which, if borne out by device sales numbers, will mean a big win for Apple going into this holiday.

Backing up Fiksu’s tail of spiking early adoption are numbers from Mixpanel, which reports that the iPad Air is responsible for 1.54 percent of all iPad traffic to its clients’ applications as of this Monday. The iPad 2 and iPad 1 seem to have suffered the biggest concurrent drops in usage percentage, indicating possibly that Apple has managed to draw in a group of upgraders who were long-time holdouts on older devices with the iPad Air.

Last year, during its launch weekend of both the iPad 4 and the iPad mini, Apple sold a total of 3 million new tablets. This year, if these adoption comparisons are correct, that number should be quite a bit higher, though there’s not always a direct relationship between usage and sales. Apple traditionally issues a release after the opening weekend of a new device to say how many it managed to sell, but with the recent iPhone launch, it waited until both the iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s were launched before revealing numbers, since it rarely breaks out device sales by individual model.

The iPad is a slightly different story, since Apple hasn’t revealed a firm launch date for the iPad mini with Retina display yet, and since these numbers indicate it may be beneficial for it to reveal Air sales independent of the Retina mini, since both appear to be generating strong consumer demand. Either way, we’ll be sure to let you know what, if anything, Apple reveals about unit sales this time around.

Apple may have found the perfect balance with this iPad launch; a lighter, slimmer iPad Air that appeals to those who are fans of the bigger screen but who haven’t seen a real need to upgrade from first- and second-generation devices, and an iPad mini with a screen that could convince many first-gen device owners to upgrade, too. And staggering the release dates may have worked to their benefit, too – there’s less of a dilemma when one’s available on the other isn’t, and some who opted for iPad Air might later give in and find themselves buying a second device, depending on the reviews and reception of the smaller tablet.

iOS 6.1 arrived just a couple of days ago, bringing little beyond support for new international LTE carriers and movie ticket purchasing via Siri in the U.S., but it’s already been installed on a significant percentage of active iPhones, iPads and iPod touches out there. Onswipe, creators of touch templates for web-based content, have seen adoption of iOS 6.1 rise quickly, from 11.35 percent within the first 24 hours, to 16.92 percent this morning, and up to an impressive 21.81 percent as of 3 PM ET today.

Onswipe is gathering data from over 13 million monthly active users on iOS, which itself represents considerable growth, a 3 million user climb from last month’s 10 million total active users. That means its numbers represent a pretty significant statistical pool to draw from to gather these results. Onswipe CEO Jason Baptiste explained in an interview that his company’s expanded reach is giving the company an even better idea of what’s happening with iOS adoption curves, and that this time around, people are upgrading faster than ever.

Consider that when Apple released its iOS 6 update, it took a week for 44.58 percent of users to get on board. iOS 6.1 is growing at a faster rate, and looks to be on track to top that should its momentum continue. Why? According to Baptiste, it’s likely due to the fact that Apple’s over-the-air update mechanism has been out in the wild for a while now (it’s been built-in to iOS since iOS 5 arrived in October, 2011), meaning users have had time to get comfortable with it and know more or less how the process works.

The fact that users are comfortable enough with the OTA update mechanism to upgrade almost immediately is great news for developers, both of native apps and of web-based mobile-friendly platforms like Onswipe’s since it means that they can create experiences that will be the same for a larger number of customers at once, without having to take into account different software versions with idiosyncratic quirks. Android, by comparison, has just 10 percent of users on Jelly Bean, which was released in July 2012, so it’s clear that Apple’s still way out ahead of the competition in terms of making sure developers don’t face a fragmentation issue.

Two major updates later (three if you count the tablet-exclusive Honeycomb), and Gingerbread is finally starting to falter. According to Google’s latest two week survey of devices accessing the Play store, Ice Cream Sandwich is on the rise, filling out 15.9-percent of the Android user base. That’s a full five points ahead of Android 4.0’s July score, and it’s eating into the OS’ other flavors: Gingerbread (Android 2.3) dropped by 3.4-percent, Froyo (Android 2.2) by 1.8 and Eclair (Android 2.1) by a meager half a percent. Google’s latest confectionery update, Jelly Bean (Android 4.1), made an appearance as well, eking out a shy 0.8-percent of the market. Check out Google’s collection of charts for yourself at the source link below or let us know where your devices falls in the comments.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablet PCs, Software

Ice Cream Sandwich takes a bite out of Gingerbread, represents 15.9 percent of Android devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 22:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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