OS X Mountain Lion overtakes Lion internet share for first time
Apple's newest operating system, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, accounted for more than 32 percent of all internet traffic originating from Apple computers in December, and is nearly doubling the growth seen previously by OS X 10.7 Lion, a recent study found.
Mac OS X version internet share for December 2012. | Source: Net Marketshare
Five months after rolling out, Apple's OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has outstripped the monthly internet share of its predecessor OS X 10.7 Lion, reports web statistics firm Net Marketshare (via TechCrunch), a feat that took Lion nearly ten months to accomplish.
In November, Mountain Lion was nipping at the heels of Lion, both of which were in the 29 percentile range with a difference of only 0.49 percent. OS X Snow Leopard
Data for the intervening months since Mountain Lion was released in July show the OS accounting for a 24.7 percent internet share, third among Mac operating systems behind the installed base of Snow Leopard and Lion, which garnered a 31.62 percent share and 32.14 percent share, respectively.
With the requirement to have Lion running in order to install Mountain Lion, the data suggests a healthy upgrade cycle for many Mac users who either already have the latest OS or are primed to download it through the Mac App Store.
As for overall internet share in December, Microsoft's Windows is the clear leader with Windows 7's 45.11 percent share followed by a 39.08 share for Windows XP. Windows Vista continues to lose ground with 5.67 percent, but still managed to double Apple's Mountain Lion which accounted for a 2.27 percent share. OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.6 Snow Leopard trailed with roughly 2 percent each, while Windows 8 finished the month with a 1.72 percent share, just ahead of Linux machines.
Mac OS X version internet share for December 2012. | Source: Net Marketshare
Five months after rolling out, Apple's OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has outstripped the monthly internet share of its predecessor OS X 10.7 Lion, reports web statistics firm Net Marketshare (via TechCrunch), a feat that took Lion nearly ten months to accomplish.
In November, Mountain Lion was nipping at the heels of Lion, both of which were in the 29 percentile range with a difference of only 0.49 percent. OS X Snow Leopard
Data for the intervening months since Mountain Lion was released in July show the OS accounting for a 24.7 percent internet share, third among Mac operating systems behind the installed base of Snow Leopard and Lion, which garnered a 31.62 percent share and 32.14 percent share, respectively.
With the requirement to have Lion running in order to install Mountain Lion, the data suggests a healthy upgrade cycle for many Mac users who either already have the latest OS or are primed to download it through the Mac App Store.
As for overall internet share in December, Microsoft's Windows is the clear leader with Windows 7's 45.11 percent share followed by a 39.08 share for Windows XP. Windows Vista continues to lose ground with 5.67 percent, but still managed to double Apple's Mountain Lion which accounted for a 2.27 percent share. OS X 10.7 Lion and 10.6 Snow Leopard trailed with roughly 2 percent each, while Windows 8 finished the month with a 1.72 percent share, just ahead of Linux machines.
Comments
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
What is Windows 8 up to now?
Probably more than all versions of OS X combined.
Originally Posted by Cash907
Not surprising, considering Lion was the Vista of OSX.
In what way?
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
What is Windows 8 up to now?
It said about 1.8%, but I think these guys are doing internet traffic, not actual users. The thing that is kind of misleading is that just because someone bought WIndows 8, they might have installed it and then realized it sucks and then went back to Windows 7.. I don't know how ANY of these market research companies can accurately tell us anything, and Microsoft might be including Windows 8 users as follows: Let's say someone buys WIndows 8 Home and then upgrades it to Professional. Does Microsoft calculate this as ONE licenses or TWO to make people THINK they have larger user base?
They said recently that there is 1 Billion WIndows 7 users, but if WIndows 7 is about 50%, then there would be about 2 billion Windows users, but there aren't. Would someone that has two computers, both running Windows 7 (one computer doesn't really work and the other does), Microsoft will calculate this as TWO users or TWO licenses? There are a LOT of users that have more than one computer regardless of OS. Heck some kids have more than 2 or 3 for that matter.
Good points and great questions. I am sure they will count an upgrade from Win 8 to Win 8 Pro as a two licenses because it would have two distinct licenses. Even thought that means the installed base is still just one they should be able to count that as two licenses, but we need to be aware of how these licenses differ than Apple's OS.
I don't think Windows 8 has the Lion's share.
In more ways than I care to list, but window management alone was enough that I wanted to smash to pieces every Mac with lion I had to use; Mountain Lion fixes the worst issues, but in simple usability is still behind snow leopard, but as iCloud sync user with the end of MobileMe there's no choice but to move up to (mountain)lion.
Lack of keychain sync, iCloud etc. are also downgrades, and the transition from MobileMe to iCloud with a time when it was impossible to sign up for one while the other wasn't rolled out yet were also giant support nightmares. ML is bearable, but SL (a few bugs aside) was much better from a GUI POV. Similar the new iTunes is not as nice to use as the older version in some ways too, even if in others it's better. e.g. lack of cover flow for a visually oriented person is a huge step backwards.
Apple always seem to engage in this two steps forward one step back pattern; I wish they would learn to skip the back step...,
I upgraded 2 of my Macs to Lion and kept on going. Things were different, but once you got used to them, better. (and this from a long time Mac user -- started in '84 using other people's Macs, got my first own Mac in '89).
Now those same two machines are at Mountain Lion (one has been since ML came out, one just was done a couple weeks ago) and things have only gotten better.
I upgraded another one of my machines, that was at SL 10.6.8 to 10.8.2 Mountain Lion.
(and AppleInside, NO, you do NOT have to upgrade to Lion first. You can upgrade directly from 10.6.8 according to the AppStore and I in fact did just that with my Mac mini)
Quote:
Originally Posted by rcfa
In more ways than I care to list, but window management alone was enough that I wanted to smash to pieces every Mac with lion I had to use; Mountain Lion fixes the worst issues, but in simple usability is still behind snow leopard,
<snip>
ML is bearable, but SL (a few bugs aside) was much better from a GUI POV.
I realize you are just expressing your personal opinion, but no, Snow Leopard is not much better from a GUI POV and is not ahead in simple usability.
Things are different in many respects, so people entrenched in their ways may get frustrated (a point I can well relate to since I first started using Macs with a 128k Mac in 1984 [friends, labs at school, etc. I was a college freshman in 1984 and my school was one of the original 24 Apple Consortium schools], bought my first Mac in 1989, and used OpenStep at work, then Rhapsody, and have been an OS X user since the first external betas). But that does not make the old Snow Leopard ways better or easier. Lion and Mountain Lion change some paradigms. Once you get used to them, and understand what they are aiming for, you see that things actually work better in many cases. Is everything better in ML? No, they are still working and iterating on things to improve them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rcfa
Apple always seem to engage in this two steps forward one step back pattern; I wish they would learn to skip the back step...,
That's true, they release big new versions and are not afraid to drop features from the old version. But over time they eventually bring most of them back. I think this is due to software engineering reasons. Periodically you have to update your underlying platform and there are costs but it puts you on a better path going forward. If you don't make these periodic sacrifices and keep piling stuff on the old platform eventually you end up with bloatware that's hard to modify and has security problems.
If only there was some relevant example of this we could use.
Originally Posted by graxspoo
I'm still on 10.6.8 and will be indefinitely the way things are going.
Wonder how many people still run Mac OS 9. Wonder if you'll feel like them in three years.
Yep, 4.2.1 sucked, for sure¡
Cool that you still have a bootable OS9. Do you have many images of the older OS's? And what about OSX - all 9 versions?
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
Cool that you still have a bootable OS9. Do you have many images of the older OS's? And what about OSX - all 9 versions?
It's a lot of fun trying to get OS 9 to run on OS X, the programs to use are Mini vmac or Sheepshaver if you're interested. That OS had a fun factor (whimsical icons etc) which encourages creativity I think, which modern OSes (even Apple ones) lack somewhat.
That said I would not trade it for the security you need on today's Internet that only OS X provides. But it would be nice if Jony Ive would bring the fun factor back to OS X (he is the new iOS/OS X gui designer) but I fear he will be stark and minimalistic.
In the way it was so chok-a-block full of bugs that it was less functional than the previous version. Networking issues, graphical issues, interface issues, sandbox issues, etc etc etc. What's more, it also removed legacy support without offering new features or improved speed to compensate for the loss. True that Vista excluded legacy hardware whereas Lion excluded legacy software, but the point is both left many users in the cold for no reason whatsoever other than to force them to waste money on unnecessary upgrades, which was best case scenario, as many legacy apps and hardware were end of life and no upgrade was available.
Beyond that, adoption statistics clearly show users are leapfrogging over Lion for Mountain Lion, much like Windows users waited for 7 before upgrading from XP.
Up to no good I'd guess
Wow that looks cool, Apple has color now? Would I have to upgrade my 128K RAM for that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by graxspoo
And Snow Leopard STILL has more share than Lion. I'm still on 10.6.8 and will be indefinitely the way things are going.
"STILL" is not exactly the right word here. If you look at this graph, you can see that Lion surpassed Snow Leopard some time ago, that Snow Leopard is in a steady decline, and that Lion use is only less than Snow Leopard use now because of Mountain Lion adoption.