Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Technical factoids

According to Blogger, this blog gets 2,000-3,000 pageviews per weekday. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the big boys, but it's probably enough to get reasonable results in regards to the popularity of different computer operating systems that people are using these days to browse the internet.  


Shown above are the statistics for the past week, which are similar to the last month and last year in percentage terms. To summarize:

Windows    63%
Mac            15%
iPad              8%
iPhone          7%
Android         2%
Linux            2%
Others          3%

To further summarize:

Microsoft      63%
Apple           30%
Android         2%
Others          5%

Apple has gone from relative obscurity 10-15 years ago to now accounting for almost one-third of the traffic to my site; Apple's growth has come mainly from former Windows users. The world has lots more Android smartphones than Apple smartphones, but lots more Apple tablets than Android tablets. Yet Apple devices account for 15 times more traffic than Android devices!

Either I am effectively catering to iPhone users and/or disparaging Android users, or this says something profound about the type of people who gravitate to the Apple mobile platform vs. the Android platform. All smartphone and tablet users are not created equal. Comments welcome.

8 comments:

skydude said...

I often visit this website from either my iphone 5 or my macbook when I am at home. I switched from windows based laptops to my macbook 5 years ago and I was extremely pleased.

Recently I needed a new laptop. I work as an airline pilot so I just wanted one to travel with. The $999 for the cheapest macbook air was a bit steep for a "bang around" laptop. I purchased an Asus running windows 8 for $329. I've been pleasantly surprised.

If windows computers get much cheaper they'll be paying people to use them. With the software bundling windows does this is a possibility. Then Apple will face a real challenge!

randy said...

I would separate mobile and non-mobile, but the result leads to the same conclusion.

On mobile, roughly 86% are iOS if you count both iPhone and iPad.

Roughly 20% of non-mobile is Mac.

It makes sense that your readers would be more likely to have the cash to get what they want - which seems to be iOS.

On non-mobile it's a little trickier because so many people are tied to what their work requires, and most general business users still use MS. I loved my mac, but doing a lot of terminal server stuff to our MS network, it was too much of a headache - switched to a MS laptop. I think enterprise apps like MS Exchange tie a lot of people down too.

William said...

I am kind of locked into a PS because I use Adobe CS3 Dreamweaver for my website and professional Photoshop as well.

However because of my current extended road trip out West (USA), I recently bought an iPhone 5 because of its smaller size and high quality camera. I also bought a Samsung Chromebook (Google) for $220 on Amazon.

I converted my Microsoft Office Outlook, Calender and Contacts to Google GMail, Calender and Contacts for my iPhone and for the Chromebook. I use Google Maps on the iPhone and the Chromebook.

Personally I didn't want Apple to take over my life with their frequently emails advertisements and urgings to use iCloud for everything.

I don't want to be entirely in Apple or Microsoft or Google's world since they use everything they learn about you for advertising and profit.

William said...

Scott will love this; well maybe not:

"The big story here is that entitlements (“government social benefits to persons”) has soared from less than 5% of national income in the early 1950s to recent record highs around 17%.

The federal and state governments are currently redistributing income at an annualized rate of almost $2.4 trillion, which slightly exceeds the sum of federal income and payroll taxes. In effect, every tax dollar collected from workers by the federal government is redistributed."

http://blog.yardeni.com/2013/09/government-support-increasingly-boosts.html

david obront said...

the answer to web traffic is to think of STOCK (installed base) vs FLOW (current market share of sales) ... Apple has been selling iPads much longer than any Android tablet has existed so your web traffic is correlated with installed base. but the best predictor going forward is the current market sales as well as the trend in those sales

WimpyInvestor said...

Demographics of Apple vs. Microsoft users. Baby Boomer investors at home using Mac vs. Gen X corporate guys using Dell / Toshiba / Lenovo laptops?

Try installing Google Analytics to the site, and you can get more detailed data. I am always surprised by the number of non-US readers I get on the site. Also, the search engine (Google, Bing) vs. Referral traffic matters a lot. I post a lot of images, and perhaps Google image search drives people to my Diary.

Rob said...

Scott, as you may recall, I used to be an iPhone user but got fed up after the 4s battery kept running out several times a day ! I have been using a Google Nexus 4 for some time now, at first didnt think I would adjust to it, especially the size. But I went into Apple store the other night and looked at the new 5s .. sorry to report but I just won't be going back .. for a fraction of the price I have a phone that works beautifully in so many ways, eg the Googlesphere and automatic uploads of photos and videos to Google+ (to which I am now addicted) .. I may upgrade to the Nexus 5 when it comes out ... All that said, I mainly read your blog on my iMac and also own a Macbook Air and iPod / iPad ... but Apple and smartphones just aint what it was, sorry.

George Jr. said...

I use a Windows laptop when at home and doing other work, and my iPad when just reading. The laptop is just easier to use for everything else I do, but for reading, it's the iPad or an iPhone if I can't get a free WiFi connection.