“The portion of people surfing the Web using a Mac has doubled in the past eight months, an Internet metrics analyst said today, and represents an audience that can’t be ignored by Web application developers,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.
“‘The amazing story since last summer has been how well the Mac is doing,’ said Geoff Johnston, an analyst at WebSideStory Inc. in San Diego. ‘For the longest time, Mac hung around 3% of the operating systems using the Web. But it picked up around last summer, and has nearly doubled its market share.’ Measurements from WebSideStory and rival Net Applications of Aliso Viejo, Calif., put Apple Inc.’s Mac OS X at close to or just over 6% of all machines in the U.S. that connected to the Web last month,” Keizer reports.
“‘For the first time since 1999, when we started tracking, the Mac has really made a major push,’ said Johnston. Since August, the percentage of online Macs running Apple’s operating system has climbed from the long-flat 3% to 5.6%, he said. Net Applications data, which splits the Mac’s share between computers running the PowerPC version of Mac OS and those with an Intel edition of the operating system, pegged the total share at 6.2% for April,” Keizer reports.
“‘When you see Mac, or any browser, like Firefox, moving past 5%, you just can’t turn them away,’ said Johnston. Web site designers and Web application developers, he said, had better pay attention to the Mac,” Keizer reports. “‘Macs are starting to erode Microsoft’s market share,’ Johnston declared.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Justin,” “Fred Mertz,” and “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Things are better, but some sites still insists on IE. I blame it on Peterson.
MDM “arms” as in “Up in.”
Since we’re so good at skewing online polls, perhaps we could do something more constructive. If sites such as MDN and other Mac news, news aggregation and blog sites kept an easy to access list of IE only sites (contact pages, perhaps), we could barrage them (politely, of course) on a regular basis to remind them who they are excuding with their lazy coding practices.
Just a thought.
Almost 1 out of 16 (about 6%) and climbing. Looking good – keep the quality and innovation up and the prices competitive and they will come.
I LOVE exponential curves.
@R
I think you are wrong. I blame Zune Tang for IE sites as he left MDN with his Zune between his legs. He is a mumbling, bitter shell of his former self.
…. or Mac users are wasting twice as much time on the web as before. Guilty.
We are an army of one in twenty, they of eighteen in twenty … web designers are supposed to care, why? The admins at the site that hosts my wife’s pod cast (see the .sig) spend an inordinate amount of time fixing things in an effort to make them work with IE, next to none for any other browser. But, then, none of them use IE as their default – Firefox on Linux is favored for that – so, I guess they “test” with that as well. Other browsers are expected to Just Work, regardless of the systems they are on.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page Pod Cast
Yea, some sites still insist on IE and windows( Netflix future downloadable movies: Windows only. AOL TV shows: windows,
Yahoo radio and videos: Windows)
Hoping Mac continues to grow in order to get companies to support Macs as well as Windows.
These companies cry about how they have no leverage with MS but you would think they would support macs in order to gain a large mac user base and…Uh! I don’t know anymore, these people,
I can’t figure out what they’re thinking.
I hope to see macs go well above 10%, Apple needs to keep people excited about getting a mac.
I like where this is going, but it hasn’t got there yet.. 6% is better than 3% but 12% is better than 3%. Hopefully in 6-12 months time we’ll be looking at numbers closer to 12%.
Keep in mind if the Mac is growing in its Marketshare, the online numbers are a trailing indicator because they include computers that have been in use for years. So it will likely take years for the effect of the Mac’s greater market share sales to really show up online.
Hopefully by the time Microsoft realizes what has happened it will be far too late for them to do anything effective to counter it.
Late last year I tossed aside the best online photo printing service I’ve been able to find so far, after I started having trouble uploading very high resolution photography, (sending them hi-res photos over the web had never been a problem before). After emailing their tech support the top requirment listed was that I “must” be using IE. So, they got an email from me stating that I would not be involutarily compelled to use ANY computer products that I chose not to use, and that, in light of the fact that not everyone, even people using Windows, uses IE, or wants to use IE explorer, that they should seriously reconsider the requirements that they impose on their clients on behalf of MS.
Now everytime I see an article showing the continuing slide of IE I pack it up and send it off to them. They still send me discounted printing offers, and I send them really valuable business advise – for free.
We may only be 1 in 17 or so and some people would say that at those levels it’s still too small a number to worry about developing for. And to a certain extent you’d be right, that only makes sense if you can be assured that the other 17 are all gonna want to do business for you. By the very fact that we’re Mac users, it shows that we’re different customer than the others. We might have more money, be more intelligent, or just have different buying requiremens. 6% may not be a lot but it may be the best 6% for all a developer knows. That’s why they should develop for us, and Firefox users, etc.
The online Mac market share has doubled because I keep 2 browsers open.
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I wonder if the BBC is listening?
Good one, Bob.
Where are the tired MDN claims that Mac was 16% of the user base, even before the uptick in sales?
What offends me the most is when government only supports IE. I mean really that should be illegal. And it’s abhorrant that one should be put in a position that they need ton point out the issue or complain.
In particular, I am most impacted by the federal Australian Taxation Office. I am a consultant and in business we have to do these quarterly GST returns. Well, if you have a Windows computer and use Windows IE (which I refuse to do even in virtualisation) you can do everything online.
I am always getting barraged with expensive advertising about doing the online thing. It pisses me.
Save $ on the adverts and get your act together ATO!!
This is anonymous right?
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ShadowMac: Never underestimate the ability of any government do less with more money.
re: shadowmac
“What offends me the most is when government only supports IE. I mean really that should be illegal.”
As per the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), it *is* illegal, unless they’ve gotten a “J&A” (Justification & Approval) signed.
Write your Congressman & ask him for instructions on how to submit a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, for the express purpose of getting a copy of ever J&A that applies to the sole-source selection of Microsoft Products.
From there, as soon as you find any Federal website that demands IE, you can then cross-reference it to the FOIA-obtained J&A’s that you have already received.
When there’s a website with no applicable J&A, you’ve found a violation of the law.
Happy Hunting.
-hh
I, for one, refuse to do any kind of business with sites that are IE only…unfortunately, my accountants don’t feel the same way and keep going to Wachovia’s small business site even though the menus on the site are ActiveX menus.
Who the heck uses ActiveX for their menus? Dumb.
I wonder when we’ll reach the magic statistic that UB40 made famous…
I am a One in Ten, a number on the list,
I am a One in Ten even though I don’t exist.
I am the one in ten
A number on a list
I am the one in ten
Even though I don`t exist
Nobody knows me
Even though I`m always there
A statistic, a reminder
Of a world that doesn`t care
My arms enfold the dole queue
Malnutrition dulls my hair
My eyes are black and lifeless
With an underprivileged stare
I`m the beggar on the corner
Will no-one spare a dime?
I`m the child that never learns to read
`cause no-one spared the time
Classic Track
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Funny how the people defending IE the most are doing just that — defending, coming from a defensive posture. IE has stagnated and all the real innovation is coming from elsewhere.
Just curious, does anyone know if statistics like these can discern the difference in operating systems between the Firefox browser on a Mac and Firefox on Windows? Or are they just counting hits from Safari?
Islandgirl, the figure is for all Mac browsers. Last I heard the figure for Safari was about 4%.
All of this inspired me to do a little quick look up of web browser usage stats, and the bottom line is that, this month between 21 and 28% of the browsers being used are NOT IE. In all cases over that last five years IE has been on a slow and steady decline without regard to computing platform.
This is one I think we can enlist our Windows using bretheren and sisteren on. People in general who use the internet are getting tired of being forced to only use IE. Over the last year I’ve written many emails to the online vendors that I like to use and reminded them, and referred them to articles like the one posted here, that their respective business models should not trap people into using software that they chose not to, while MS continues to profit from the efforts of online vendors, and at the expense of those same vendors who certainly give up a significant number of potential costumers.
Make sure your online service providers and vendors know that you want a platform and browser neutral shopping environment, and share kudos with those that already have an established committment to platform and browser neutrality.
Peace.
Splurgable. Ticka splurgable.
re: -hh
A useful comment on MDN? Wow. The percentage of useful comments on this site is still far below 6%, though.
efffwerd: It would have been useful if the comments were referring to the correct government of Australia and not the U.S.
Nice thought, though.
I can’t give you more than a 0.1 out of 10 for your rant, seeing as you’re castigating the wrong country.
It’s not just the Mac. You can’t fail to notice that the buzz around Linux is also increasing by the day. So many people have talked about looking for alternatives for the past two years, and now it looks like they’re finally doing it.
IE’s market share is already below 80%. Windows could be heading the same way.
The tipping point is 10%. As soon as it gets there, M$ becomes the next Roman empire.
Bad news for those lazy, incompetent web developers that refuse to support anything but IE and Windows users.
Guess they haven’t yet figured out that Mac users as a rule have more disposable income and are generally better educated and more successful than your average Joe SixPack Windows user.
That translates into more sales for those companies who “GET IT” and support the Mac in their web designs.
I wonder how they intend to count iphone users who surf the web via wi-fi?
I wonder how iphone use of the web will increase the net usage of Mac surfers?
I wonder how zune users will feel about their zunes standing next to iphone users?
I just cannot help but wonder on all the wonders Apple Inc creators create
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“Bad news for those lazy, incompetent web developers that refuse to support anything but IE and Windows users.”
That’s the weird thing. Once you show a web developer how CSS works in a Gecko browser they soon start raving about it. Before you know it, they’re ditching ASP for Java, making the website platform-agnostic, and slagging off IE every chance they get.
All it takes is someone to open their eyes a little and they jump.
“I wonder how they intend to count iphone users who surf the web via wi-fi?”
It uses Safari. The web share for Safari (and thus, the Mac) will be astounding once the iPhone is out in the millions. IE only developers will have to wipe the drool off their chins. They will suddenly realize that they need to recode sites or find other jobs. Lazy bastards.
Amen, Dave H. Well said.