Last year we published some numbers the day after iOS 6 launched, that showed how traffic to Apple’s updates servers increased as much as nine times .
Today Apple releases the next version of its mobile operating system, iOS 7. While at the time of this posting, you can’t get access to the final code unless you have a developer’s license (if history repeats itself, everyone should be able to get it around 1pm EDT), the update has already begun to make an impact on one fixed access network in North America. How is this? Yesterday evening Apple allowed developers to finally release updates to their applications so that they can take advantage of the new features and design language found in the new OS. My iPad at home has 27 updates, and in looking at my iPhone’s update history, between yesterday and today I have already had 18 updates.
As you can see in the photo above (yes, I’m already running iOS 7), some of the apps publishing updates are among the most popular in the App Store. This means that many subscribers are likely getting prompted for updates already as well.
Below is a chart from a single North American fixed operator comparing Apple App Store traffic yesterday, with that of the previous two Tuesdays in September. The chart shows yesterday’s traffic being fairly average during the day, but then a significant uptick in traffic occurred as iOS 7 compatible apps were released in the evening, with the App Store generating 74% more traffic between the hours of 8PM and midnight EDT.
Major software releases from Apple actually have a larger impact on fixed networks than mobile, because Apple prevents users from updating apps over 50MB (Edit: Looks like Apple raised the limit to 100MB today.) using their cellular radio. This means that major OS updates, and large apps such as games need to be downloaded on fixed networks and then devices updated via Wi-Fi or through iTunes.
When I installed the gold master version of iOS 7 on my iPhone it was 1.2GB in size, and when you combine that with the multitude of app updates developers are pushing out I would expect to once again see a significant spike in traffic to Apple’s update servers today.
Be sure to check back tomorrow, for a detailed analysis on the impact that the launch of iOS 7 made.
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