Apple's iPhone 5s ranks as third most popular Google search of 2013

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Dominant search platform Google on Tuesday released its annual list of the most popular subjects sought by its users, and Apple's flagship iPhone 5s appeared third on the list, showing intense interest from consumers.

Google


Apple's third-place finish was revealed in Google's annual Year-End Zeitgeist list, which ranked the top 10 global trending searches of 2013. The iPhone 5s finished behind first-place Nelson Mandela, the South African civil rights revolutionary who passed away earlier this month, and second-place Paul Walker, the Fast and Furious actor who died in a car crash a few weeks ago.

The other smartphone appearing in the top 10 was Samsung's own flagship handset, the Galaxy S4. It came in 8th, just ahead of Sony's PlayStation 3 game console.

The rest of the top 10 subjects, finishing after Apple's iPhone 5s, were: Cory Monteith, Harlem Shake, Boston Marathon, Royal Baby, and North Korea.



Apple's performance on Google's trending searches in 2013 improved over 2012, when the term "iPad 3" ranked fourth. Last year, the third-generation iPad finished behind Whitney Houston, Gangam Style, and Hurricane Sandy.

The company had three top 10 searches in 2011, when the subjects of Steve Jobs, iPad 2, and iPhone 5 (which would actually become known as the iPhone 4S) were all ranked.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    So if those two hadn't died, the iPhone would have been the most searched for?
  • Reply 2 of 22
    Suck on that Google!
  • Reply 3 of 22
    sog35 wrote: »
    I find this VERY hard to believe.  Mandela/Walker is VERY recent news.  How could it overtake other searches that have been going on the entire year? 

    This must just be for the last month or several months.

    Who else died earlier in 2013 that should top Nelson Mandela and Paul Walker?
  • Reply 4 of 22
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post





    Who else died earlier in 2013 that should top Nelson Mandela and Paul Walker?

     

    I would have thought that Boston Marathon, Royal Baby and iPhone 5s would have topped Paul Walker... which makes me believe these results are top weighted to more recent trends.

     

    [... or US weighted]

  • Reply 5 of 22
    #3, that's high. And considering Android users don't browse the web much, this is al the more weird. Possibly Windows users finding something to ogle at work.
  • Reply 6 of 22
    Is there anyone ambitious enough to link to the individual videos in the google ad above? Pretty please?
  • Reply 7 of 22
    scalpernt wrote: »
    Is there anyone ambitious enough to link to the individual videos in the google ad above? Pretty please?

    That's gonna be difficult. Ads have their way of popping up when you don't want them, but when looking for them they cannot be found. Besides, it was a self indulging Google ad...for themselves. Quite pathetic IMO.
  • Reply 8 of 22
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Apple fails to be #1 searched topic. Two deceased people beat iPhone.

    Of course the Fandroids will say everyone knows about the GS4 so they don't need to search as often.
  • Reply 9 of 22
    malaxmalax Posts: 1,598member
    People are weird. Why would I "Google" Nelson Mandela? I would go to his Wikipedia entry or I would search on some particular media site.

    I might have Google the dead F&F6 guy's name because I didn't know who he was when people on Facebook were commenting about his untimely death.

    But as this points out, people use Google for very different things, so as a zeitgeist measure it's pretty bad. Twitter data would be a much better source. And you can do proper sentiment analysis.
  • Reply 10 of 22
    Originally Posted by malax View Post

    Twitter data would be a much better source. And you can do proper sentiment analysis.

     

    Oh, yeah. Radicals sure don’t post on Twitter more than non-radicals; I’m sure we can discern sentiment from Twitter ¡

  • Reply 11 of 22

    Another way to look at it was that the Iphone 5s had more issues so people were searching the web for solutions to their issues. Personally it is not usually a good things to be ranked high on Google trends it usually mean something bad happen and people are trying to find information about what happen like people dying.

  • Reply 12 of 22
    Oh, yeah. Radicals sure don’t post on Twitter more than non-radicals; I’m sure we can discern sentiment from Twitter ¡

    People don't search for truth. They search for statistics that agrees with whatever they already believe.
  • Reply 13 of 22
    maestro64 wrote: »
    Another way to look at it was that the Iphone 5s had more issues so people were searching the web for solutions to their issues.

    How come in 2011, "iPhone 5" was a top 10 search term? The iPhone 5 wasn't sold until late 2012. OOPS THERE GOES YOUR THEORY.
  • Reply 14 of 22
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    sog35 wrote: »
    I find this VERY hard to believe.  Mandela/Walker is VERY recent news.  How could it overtake other searches that have been going on the entire year? 

    This must just be for the last month or several months.

    The 5s did only come out a few months ago.
  • Reply 15 of 22
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    malax wrote: »
    People are weird. Why would I "Google" Nelson Mandela? I would go to his Wikipedia entry or I would search on some particular media site.

    I might have Google the dead F&F6 guy's name because I didn't know who he was when people on Facebook were commenting about his untimely death.

    But as this points out, people use Google for very different things, so as a zeitgeist measure it's pretty bad. Twitter data would be a much better source. And you can do proper sentiment analysis.

    Then you have no idea how dumb people can be. I know people that put web addresses into the Google search bar instead of the address bar and no matter how many times I correct them they still do it.
  • Reply 16 of 22
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,096member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    Then you have no idea how dumb people can be. I know people that put web addresses into the Google search bar instead of the address bar and no matter how many times I correct them they still do it.



    Heh... I constantly have to remind people to stop doing that as well.  At times, I just give up and watch them do it and see how they react.  They try again, and again until they get frustrated to the point they almost give up, then I just point and say "Why don't you try typing it in the right box?".



    People are just clueless to the Nth degree.  



    I wonder if that was the reason why all the browsers now let you input both search and URL's in the same box now.  They probably just succumbed to the stupidity of users as well.

  • Reply 17 of 22
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    sog35 wrote: »
    Margret Thatcher (world wide not just USA)
    Pope resigns
    Boston Marathon

    I understand Mandela but Walker? 

    We are in celebrity centric world. How else would any of the Kardashians be famous?
  • Reply 18 of 22
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    I find this VERY hard to believe.  Mandela/Walker is VERY recent news.  How could it overtake other searches that have been going on the entire year? 

     

    This must just be for the last month or several months.


    Why would Google lie? Especially if it makes Apple look good?

     

    (Three crashes).

  • Reply 19 of 22
    1. Surface 2
    2. Surface
    3. Windows 8
    4. Metro
    5. Awesome Windows 8 Metro
    6. Nokia with Metro
    %u2026%u2026
    8. Walker guy
    9. Nelson Mandela
    10. iPhone 5S
    %u2026
    101. Galaxy

    Search results for year provided by Bing Search.
  • Reply 20 of 22
    Originally Posted by djkikrome View Post

    Search results for year provided by Bing Search.

     

    Sure thing, Microsoft.

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