iOS 8 upgrades grind to a halt

It appears that the excitement over iOS upgrades has waned as huge swathes of iOS 7 users appear to be reluctant – or unable – to upgrade to iOS 8.

Data released by Apple shows that 56 percent of users accessing the Apple App Store are currently running iOS 8 or above, with 40 percent still clinging onto iOS 7. The needle has barely shifted since the end of October when iOS 8 adoption hit 52 percent.
Since the end of October iOS 8 usage has only increased by four percentage points.
At its peak, iOS 7 hit 78 percent adoption.

There are a number of obstacles in the way of people upgrading their iOS device. The first is that the OTA – Over The Air – download is many gigabytes, making it problematic for people with a slow internet connection.

Then there's the fact that the update requires a huge amount of free space to install, forcing users to delete apps and data. Depending on your hardware, you'll need between 4.7GB and 6.9GB of free storage space, and that's massive, especially for devices that started out with only 16GB of space in the beginning (minus what iOS takes when installed).

This problem can be overcome by doing the update through iTunes on a PC or Mac, but many users no longer connect their iDevice to a computer.
Then there was the iOS 8.0.1 update that wreaked havoc for new iPhone 6 Plus owners. This incident, albeit rather limited in scope, dented confidence in Apple being able to deliver problem-free updates.
While 56 percent adoption in 40 days is slow for Apple, put in the context of Android it is excellent penetration. Android 4.4 KitKat, debuted at the end of October 2013, is still hovering at around 30 percent a year later.

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Report: China Mobile, Steve Jobs Have Discussed iPhone Deal

The world's biggest carrier, China Mobile, could be getting the iPhone. In a news conference following its quarterly earnings report, the company said it has met with Apple CEO Steve Jobs several times about the possibility of creating an iPhone for its network, Reuters reports.

China Mobile devices run on its own homegrown TD-SCDMA standard, a network not supported by the iPhone. However, even though the phone isn't available on this network, there are still 7.44 million iPhone users on China Mobile, the company said. They just don't get 3G speeds.

But if the talks are any indication, that could soon change. The news from Reuters corroborates a previous rumor from CapitalVue, a Chinese financial news site, that claimed Apple had already signed a deal with China Mobile to launch the iPhone 4 on the carrier by the end of October. CapitalVue claimed that iPhone negotiations between China Mobile and Apple began back in 2007.

Currently, the iPhone is only officially supported on China's second-biggest carrier, China Unicom. Earlier this month, however, Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said a deal between Apple and China Telecom is "imminent ... paving the way for the carrier to participate in the iPhone 5 launch in the fall."

In its earnings report last month, COO Tim Cook called China "very key" to its quarterly revenue and said that sales in the country have increased by more than six times in the past year. China generated $3.8 billion in revenue in the last quarter and $8.8 billion in the last year.

Apple products have become a status symbol in China, and their popularity has reportedly caused a spike in smuggling to satisfy the huge demand for these products. These smugglers are apparently taking extreme measures to sneak iPhones and iPads into China, too. Earlier this month, authorities discovered a group of people trying to smuggle iPhones across the river from Hong Kong to Shenzen on a 1,000-foot wire with a bag and pulley attached.
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