iOS Passes Linux to Become Third-Most Popular Internet Browsing Platform

[MacRumors]

As noted by Computerworld, Internet research firm Net Applications has calculated that Apple's iOS has passed Linux to become the third-most popular Internet platform, surpassing Linux to trail only Windows and Mac OS X. According to Net Applications, the milestone came in July, when the release of the iPhone 4 apparently created a surge for iOS past 1% market share while Linux dropped below 1%. The trend continued in August, with iOS taking a 1.13% share compared to Linux's 0.85% share.

"It's something to take note of when a mobile operating system passes something that's been around forever," said Vince Vizzaccaro, a Net Applications vice president, talking about iOS overtaking Linux. "Mobile's growth curve is strong, and mobile is becoming quite a phenomenon on the Internet."

Net Applications, which measures data from actual browser usage based on network of 40,000 websites that it monitors, found that mobile platforms accounted for 2.6% of the overall Web usage last month. The data also revealed much strong Web usage for iOS than for Android, which clocked in at only 0.2% share.

Android devices made up just 0.2% of the operating systems that powered browsers Net Applications tracked last month. "Whatever the sales are, we're seeing iOS totally dominate the market on the Web," Vizzaccaro said. "iOS has nearly a 6:1 advantage over Android."

Article Link: iOS Passes Linux to Become Third-Most Popular Internet Browsing Platform

 

[george6000]

since when is linux a mobile browsing os

 

[Becordial]

Nice scale... 1% of nothing.

 

[lkrupp]

Just wait until Linux Mobile hits the web. Game over man!

 

[thejadedmonkey]

No, the article is saying that iOS passed Linux, the desktop version. Although considering that Linux is either for enthusiasts or enterprise servers, it doesn't mean much.

Just wait until Linux Mobile hits the web. Game over man!

Isn't that android?

 

[lkrupp]

since when is linux a mobile browsing os

It's not about mobile browsing. It's about the web itself. There more iOS devices on the web than Linux anything. We're still wating for Linux to take over the desktop from Windows and OS X. Linux fanboys are right up there with the Amiga OS crowd. They are convinced Linux is vastly superior, and it may well be for all I know, but it's not an OS for the common user.

 

[DARKJ3DI]

so Apple controls 2nd and 3rd place. Time for iOS and Mac OS to take on Windows!

 

[twoodcc]

wow, this is amazing news! i think this shows how apple started this revolution, and everyone else is just trying to follow them

 

[Genghis Khan]

since when is linux a mobile browsing os

Nice scale... 1% of nothing.

The whole graph would include Windows OS and Mac OS X (~90% and ~10% of web activity). The point of the article was to highlight that a mobile OS has overtaken a desktop OS for internet activity.

It indicates that the world is increasingly moving towards mobile computing. Although, we're still at the very beginning...

And that's exactly what Apple's been focusing on the last few years

 

[Swampie]

Meanwhile from the same people, they show that Windows dropped from 92.52% to 91.34%, Mac dropped from 5.27% to 5.00%. However Java ME increased from 0.35% to 0.86%.

http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9

Seems bizarre to think that iOS device share is over 1/5 of the Mac share.

 

[Satori]

so Apple controls 2nd and 3rd place. Time for iOS and Mac OS to take on Windows!

And become the top target for malware writers? No thanks!

 

[notabadname]

since when is linux a mobile browsing os

It doesn't state that Linux is a mobile platform. Just that the mobile platform of IOS has surpassed linux as an internet browsing platform.

I don't see why this would be viewed as negative.

 

[Diode]

It's not about mobile browsing. It's about the web itself. There more iOS devices on the web than Linux anything. We're still wating for Linux to take over the desktop from Windows and OS X. Linux fanboys are right up there with the Amiga OS crowd. They are convinced Linux is vastly superior, and it may well be for all I know, but it's not an OS for the common user.

Well technically iOS is based on darwin which is a port of unix.

Linux originally got it's start as a port of unix so they are somewhat similar

 

[goobot]

"when the release of the iPhone 4 apparently created a surge" to me it looked like it was going that way without the iPhone 4 by the graph.

 

[Arcus]

wow, this is amazing news! i think this shows how apple started this revolution, and everyone else is just trying to follow them

Started the revolution of what? Browsing the web?

 

[smetvid]

so Apple controls 2nd and 3rd place. Time for iOS and Mac OS to take on Windows!

Thats not hard to hold 2nd and 3rd place when there are only five places to hold in a comparison and when the 4th place is something only nerds love like Linux. Don't get me wrong I also like Linux and have used it a bit and I cheer on it's success.

The thing I find the most interesting is how the world sees the relevance of web support on IOS devices when they make up 1% of internet users. With the way you hear about iPhones, iPods and iPads in the news you would swear it must be higher then 1%. That is some damn good marketing to make a 1% market share device seem so valid in the world.

Finally I would not expect to see the Android numbers this low for very long. IOS has had a couple of years head start against Android but Android has surged ahead of iPhone this year and I expect it to continue to do so. Like Android or not the fact is there are 10x more Android devices and multiple carriers out there and after a year or two of sales I expect Android to surge past IOS.

 

[ElusiveMind]

As I own both an Android and iOS phone... I will say the web browsing experience on Android is an epic FAIL compared to iOS. The Android web browser I'm using (that comes with the phone) is really inferior to Safari. I find the whole android experience inferior to iPhone, but as I develop apps for both, I must have both,

 

[-=XX=-Nephilim]

In super large bold letters:

THIRD MOST POPULAR BROWSING PLATFORM

and then in mega small letters:

with just over 1% of market share...



Also, even kid knows that Android will over take it within 12 months...

Yawn...

Next news please...

 

[thetexan]

I remember how every year from 2004 until 2009 was supposed to be "The year of Linux". The reason Linux never took off is it's a PITA to use, even some of the simpler distributions. I tried it once and I spent hours trying to get it to work with my video card. Even though the community was helpful I got tired of editing text files just to get a stupid GUI to work right. I threw Windows XP on and spent 10 minutes installing the drivers. Now that Windows 7 has such a large native driver database I just install the OS and run automatic updates and spend 0 minutes installing drivers.

 

[oliversl]

You can read this news as:
The iPad is used more that netbooks to browse the internet. So the iPad is indeed killing the netbook?

 

[LagunaSol]

As I own both an Android and iOS phone... I will say the web browsing experience on Android is an epic FAIL compared to iOS. The Android web browser I'm using (that comes with the phone) is really inferior to Safari. I find the whole android experience inferior to iPhone, but as I develop apps for both, I must have both,

Uh oh, I hear the rumble of the Fandroid Army approaching...

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-gb; Dell Streak Build/ERE27) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

Good to see continued growth in iOS. Long may it continue!

 

[-=XX=-Nephilim]

You can read this news as:
The iPad is used more that netbooks to browse the internet. So the iPad is indeed killing the netbook?

What on earth are you talking about!?!?!

But I don't blame you since the way news is reported it almost sounds that way...

Thanks Eric for not explaining things properly to you...

 

[shartypants]

Not surprising.

 

[smetvid]

You can read this news as:
The iPad is used more that netbooks to browse the internet. So the iPad is indeed killing the netbook?

HUH.

Where in the heck did you get that from? Very few people run Linux on a netbook. They are in fact mostly Windows. I really don't understand where you pulled netbook data from.