Mac OS limited popularity dwindling, data suggests

Andy Merrett Computers
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The Inquirer rather bluntly headlines a report “Mac OS fails to interest anyone” based on a recent survey of data collected by Net Applications which shows that the Apple Mac operating system has fallen in worldwide market share from 4.35 to 4.33 per cent, with the ageing Windows XP taking more ground with 84.18%.

Unless something major happens, I don’t see Mac OS X ever being more than something of a niche operating system. Yes, it could theoretically find its way legitimately onto PC desktops, but even after all these years of banging on about security holes, flaws etc. in Windows, it hasn’t made a real impact.

That must in part be due to the premium attached to owning the machine that runs it. Even though Macs are more attractively priced now, like iPod in the portable music player market, there’s a certain ‘luxury price tag’ attached to it. Whereas PCs are ten-a-penny and Windows XP is pretty much what has to sit on them.

Having a better OS doesn’t count for much if the hardware isn’t in majority use. Even Linux struggle, purely on numbers, and they’re on the same plaform. But then, I suppose, so are Macs now. Vista will probably become the next standard OS for the majority of the world’s PCs, however good the alternatives might be.

Read: Mac OS fails to interest anyone

Andy Merrett
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8 comments

  • this does nt surprise me’s microsoft iz liek sooo much better than apple as far as i know. all ma homeez oo got an apple mac told me’s dey were really wack alrite!

  • Apple Laptop market share is over 12%.

    Laptop market share is now over 50% of computers sold.

    Thus, with laptops alone, Apple holds 6% market share of personal computers. Add in the 4-6% share of desktops, and Apple has about 8-9% of current market share, and it is growing!

    That means that as time moves on and more and more older XP boxes die, the OS X market share will HAVE to grow, not shrink, statistically. Installed OS is a lagging indicator as computers have a useful life of about 3 years.

  • This is a bunch of crap. The data that Net Applications gathers is from websites that are typically visited by only PC users. Net Applications is NOT a reliable measure of this sort of thing. Apple’s laptop marketshare is now at 12% in the U.S. and growing.

  • Um, where they get these numbers from is same place Iran get’s its stalling tactics.
    A big hole. And it doesn’t smell like flowers.
    Fact: many mac users that are using Bootcamp also bought windows XP licenses.
    Fact: XP purchases are also upgrades or OEM licenses sold. Not necessarily so, but built and sitting in boxes or replacing Win98 or Win2K.
    Fact: Most new users of OS X are new machine purchases. But no one tracks the “handmeDown” of their prior macs; which are still being used.

  • What a bunch of hooey! The fact is, people are getting plain tired of Windows. Microsoft has been displaying the same arrogance that the American passeneger railroads did in the forties and fifties, when they milked their cash cows and limited “innovation” to tired window dressing.

    One of these days, people are going to wonder what the hell they were doing when they drank the Microsoft Kool-Aid…

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