15% of all iOS devices are now running iOS 6

In 24 hours, iOS 6 has penetrated 15% of all iOS devices

Tomorrow is the big day.  The iPhone 5 is scheduled to hit shelves and fanboys are lining up en masse.  And why shouldn’t they?  It’s taller!  (I want one but have no room in my budget at the moment, so I’m being passive-aggressive.  Don’t hate me.)

Another big release—iOS 6—became available on Wednesday, and Apple users are jumping on it in record numbers.  A report released Thursday by ad network Chitika shows that iOS 6 is already on 15% of all iOS devices only 24 hours after its release. 

By comparison, Android’s latest OS, Jelly Bean, took two months to reach an adoption rate of 1.5%. 

When compared with Apple’s last iOS update, iOS 5 took five days to get a penetration rate of 20%.  And only 3.2% of Mac users were using OS X Mountain Lion within the first 48 hours after it was released.

Chitika got its numbers by sampling a few of the millions of ad impressions that came out of its ad network between September 19 and September 20.  The growth rate of iOS 6 was then compared with total iOS Web usage.  The data shows a steep climb just over the course of a few hours.

The new iOS 6 comes with more than 200 new features and a new and improved Siri that can now clue you in to all the latest sports info.  And Siri can now make reservations for you and help you leave reviews via Apple’s new partnerships with Yelp and OpenTable.  She (because Siri has a virtual vagina) can also tell you what movies are playing, bring you reviews, and even show you trailers.  Siri will also be able to launch apps for you (i.e. “open mail,” or whatever you want to go into), and it has added a bunch of languages, including Spanish, Italian, French, German, Korean, Mandarin, and Cantonese.  Siri will also work on the new iPad.

And as anticipated, Apple revealed iOS’s new integration with Facebook.  Now you can log in once and post to Facebook from Safari, Maps, and Photos.  It’s also been integrated with Siri—presumably so that you can post directly through Siri, and you can also “like” apps.

The Phone feature also got some cool new updates, including the option to reply to incoming calls with a text message (automated or custom-written), or a reminder to call them back later.  There’s also a new “Do Not Disturb” feature, which still allows notifications and texts to be pushed to your device, but it won’t light up your screen.  

Mail is getting some new updates, most notably in the form of a new VIP service that allows you to select certain people as VIPs, and then when they email you, you can get a notification as you would with a text message.  You can also now insert photos when composing emails instead of emailing photos from the photo app.

And of course, there is the much anticipated new Maps app, which hasn’t made quite the splash everyone was expecting.  Apple is now doing its own cartography and the new version of maps has 100 million local listings, complete with Yelp integration for local search.

Image source: chitika.com