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iOS 12 already running on 50 percent of Apple mobile devices

Apple's latest mobile operating system was released less than a month ago.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil
2 min read
iOS 12 Public Beta

iOS 12 is now running on half of all Apple mobile devices.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Half of all iOS devices are now running the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, less than a month after it was released.

As of Thursday, iOS 12 has been loaded on 50 percent of all iOS devices, which includes iPhones and iPads , according to Apple's App Store Distribution page. The adoption rate climbs higher for Apple mobile devices introduced in the past four years, hitting 53 percent.

By comparison, the latest version of Google's rival Android operating system -- Oreo -- was released more than a year ago but is still loaded on only 19 percent of Android devices, thanks to fragmentation. The operating system suffers from having a number of hardware and carrier partners that like to add their own flourishes to the software and release their own updates at their own pace.

iOS 12 debuted on Sept. 17 with the introduction of the iPhone XS and the XS Max. The biggest changes to the software are a new Memoji feature, improved handling of notifications, a revamped Do Not Disturb feature and a Measure app.

Apple also added new parental controls for those who want to keep a child's device locked down, and its Screen Time feature lets you monitor your kids' or your own device usage. 

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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