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Apple's Market Share Hitting Highs
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While it is nice to see the improvement in numbers for Apple, I think it is more indicative of the lack of necessity to upgrade existing hardware on the PC side. Lots of users with PPC Macs are seeing the need to upgrade, but Pentium IV PCs from around the same time are still functional, so there isn't the same volume of sales.
Very true. Pentium IV with 1 gig of ram and winXP is still very very fast for basic use!
Well, with the Mac, things change a bit b/c of Parallels/VMWare and/or Boot Camp. But most users use either Mac OS X or Windows, all the time. And they don't want to have to restart into Mac OS X or into Windows to use Microsoft Word. Anyways, this is only one example.
There are many other reasons why Linux can't go mainstream: my basic gripe is that all the window managers feel so much like they're tacked onto a command line OS, rather than the default way to use the system. End users don't typically understand the command line, and they shouldn't have to. The reason for this is that Linux excels at only one thing: servers and workstations for highly specialized tasks. Linux was never meant to be a mainstream desktop OS, and I think it's good that way; more efforts are focused on making Linux a great, free server OS.
"We"? Speak for yourself. I have a Mac because it's the best platform, not because of how many or how few other people use it.
Why not? What's wrong with your Mac?
--Eric
Well, it's truth. I bought my Touch a week and a half ago and I only unwrapped the headphones that came with it two days ago. "Oh yeah! It plays music too!"
The majority of the time my Touch is surfing the web, visiting Gmail or Facebook, and (hacked) apps like weather and Google Maps. Wait till I get the Mail app going... it's going to be great.
The airline joke made me laugh. Haven't seen that in years (and Linux Airlines was far more crude when I'd last seen it).
I have a friend who swears by Linux for his household even though it drives him and his household crazy. For some reason he's blind to it. We're all trying to convince him to get a Mac (or at least a Windows PC! Sheesh!) but no luck yet. I'll ask him how his weekend went and he'll basically recite what you've written in your post -- he got a new video card, spent hours reading Anandtech forums trying to find the best driver, couldn't get it to go, botched the install, re-installed his distro, tried a new window manager, finally got his all-in-one printing... if only he could find a working scanner driver...
I honestly don't see why he puts up with it. It's not even like he needs the flexibility or stability of Linux, he's not running a server or custom software. You could argue he doesn't want to spend his time removing viruses or spyware, but the entire weekends spent tinkering with drivers is no worse...
That's a dead analogy.
Whether it's OpenSUSE, Debian 4.x.x, Ubuntu/Kubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, the configuring is done for the systems.
Package management is sound.
Like OS X, tools that include Apache 2, PHP, other development tools and what not aren't configured to be thee solution for you.
On all those systems, they give example configurations for you to choose from and to implement.
When they get to the level of "It Just Works" you'd better have a new analogy to draw upon.
The Just Works slogan is what we expect from OS X and when it doesn't "Just Work" ala OS X Leopard's bug ridden Installer Apple does what they should do: FIX IT.
I've used NeXTSTEP since '94, worked at NeXT and Apple, used OS X since before it was OS X, and have used Linux daily since 2000.
The beauty of OS X resides in it's Cocoa Frameworks and Development Vision.
Getting rid of the past Carbon kludge is what is helping Apple expand and be able to back up that It Just Works.
Until I start seeing Universities teaching Cocoa/ObjC classes in their Curriculum I don't expect to see OS X crack above 10% market share.
Yeah but my Linux box dual boots XP and runs XP through VM Ware. I can also edit any *.doc file in plenty of Linux apps just as easily as I can edit it in Pages on my mini. You really should take a fresh look at the Linux desktop these days. Many distros (Suse, and Ubuntu as examples I'm most familiar with) have fully integrated highly polished GUIs. When it comes to the day to day running of desktop you don't need to know that the command line exists. I've also found that I can do ~90% of management without opening a terminal. You are correct that if Linux wants to be a viable desktop for the masses that number needs to approach 100%. Where you are wrong is that a fully configured Linux box is just as viable of an alternative as a Mac for anyone wanting to move away from Windows. The fundamental difference is anyone can go down to the Apple Store and pick up a Mac where as it will take someone who knows what they are doing a few hours to get the Linux box set up. After that both are going to require a learning curve. After all there is no "start" menu in OS X, but you can have one or not in Linux (ditto for a dock).
Windows on a Mac Machine!
These numbers could be flawed. I didn't see how they came up with the information. Remember many of the Apple computers out there are running Windows, is that included in the data?
I mostly use Windows on my Macbook and rarely go into the Mac partition.
These numbers could be flawed. I didn't see how they came up with the information. Remember many of the Apple computers out there are running Windows, is that included in the data?
I mostly use Windows on my Macbook and rarely go into the Mac partition.
Right. Having one girlfriend, getting a second one would be an increase of 100%. If, on the other hand, a sheik who has a harem of 100 wifes marries another one, that amounts to an increase of only 1%. Still, he'd have more than 50 times more girls than I do.
The statistics estimate the percentage of people who are using a browser under a particular OS. So, because more Mac owners use windows than PC owners run OS X, the statistics do underestimate the number of people using Macs to browse the web.
Nonetheless, the 26% (not 21% as someone else posted) year over year growth in people using OS X to browse the net correlates well with Apple's sales figures showing about a 25-30% year-over year growth. So we can expect these numbers to be about 8.57% for OS X usage if the current trend continues.
That's operating systems.
Apple sells a lot more computers than Microsoft.
Apple sells a lot more music players than Microsoft.
Apple sells a lot more music than Microsoft.
Apple just has overtaken Microsoft in the mobile OS market.
Microsoft sells a lot more game computers - but Apple has been about $3bn more profitable in that market (Apple: $0. Microsoft: -$3bn).
_Can_ you even buy a new video card for the Mac??? If Linux and Windows would support only a single hardware configuration, both systems would be just as stable and easy to install as OS X.
Not quite true. Windows Mobile has a market share of about 17% (very small compared to the market share of Symbian). The iPhone probably hasn't even reached 1%, yet, but we'll have to wait for reliable studies. Just because more iPhone owners are browsing the web with their phone doesn't mean that there are more iphones out there than Windows mobile phones. And, once the novelty of the new gadget has worn off, people will stop browsing the web with the iPhone that much...
My font may be smaller than yours, but at 26% annual growth, Apple will overtake Microsoft in nine years.
Will Apple EVER surpass Windows/Microsoft???
What are your honest opinions???
I hope Apple kicks Microsoft's @$$
Apple FTFW
What are your honest opinions???
I hope Apple kicks Microsoft's @$$
Apple FTFW
Yep, I agree
These numbers are somewhat blurry considering the differences in trends for upgrading between Mac and PC users.
I'm happy with the progress. Hopefully their QC will improve with their growth.
Meh....I know 3 people who have bought Mac's who are running XP, and one Vista, exclusively on it. I seriously question some of those numbers. Just because someone owns a Mac doesn't automaticly mean they are running Windows. Yes I'm betting in 90% of sales that IS the case but definitely not 100%.
Buy low sell high
Say what?
I bought 6000 shares at $35. At what price should I sell?