Rory Hansen

When developing apps for the iPhone, there are a few lasting decisions you’ll need to make with regards to overall application architecture. These generally have to do with API and core features available in the new version 3.0 iPhone operating system that don’t exist in version 2.2 and lower. One such example is Core Data.

Our startup company needed to decide if we were going to write our apps for the 3.0 OS only or support the older OS versions as well. But we wanted to make an informed decision, so I went hunting for data.

Luckily, AdMob has collected a lot of this data in their monthly reports. Here are a few facts that I’ve gleaned.

iPhone OS Adoption

So, what does AdMob tell us?

Overall, about 84% of iPhone OS devices (iPhone and iPod Touch combined) are running 3.0 or higher.

But:

We still see a significant difference between iPhone and iPod touch users upgrades, which isn’t surprising given the $5 upgrade requirement for the iPod touch. 91% of iPhone requests are 3.0 or 3.1, compared to only 35% of iPod touch requests.

Via: iPhone OS Adoption

iPhone vs iPod Touch Paid App Purchases

This actually surprised me! My gut feeling was that iPod Touch users would buy, on average, less paid apps per month than iPhone users. But, clearly, from the data that AdMob has collected, my assumption was wrong. iPod Touch users are just as likely to pay for apps.

Via: July 2009 Metrics Report

So, why does all this matter?

If only 35% of iPod Touch users have the iPhone 3.0 OS, but they tend to pay for apps just as frequently as iPhone users (who are largely on the 3.0 OS already), is it worth ignoring them, just to use Core Data?

In our case, we went with ‘Yes, it’s worth ignoring them’, if only because, overall, 84% of iPhone OS devices are on 3.0. And, over time, that number will continue to get higher and higher, as even the new iPod Touch devices come pre-installed with 3.0.

What would you do?