Comparing Windows to Macintosh, Mobile to Desktop

There are plenty of articles written about the rise of Apple from the ashes of the 1990s. I don’t plan to go that route, not in depth anyway. Still, something amazing has happened over the last decade.

I was in Google Analytics today looking through a variety of my clients and my own websites to get an idea of where I should start to focus some of my web design efforts moving forward.

The most interesting thing I saw is that for many of the sites, nearly as many users are accessing the site on mobile as desktop. And they’re coming from iOS. When I combine iOS with OS X, devices created by Apple sneak into the lead as far as usage.

Here’s a general rundown from a travel site I manage:

Windows
39% of traffic
iOS
27%
Mac OS X
18%
Android
14%

Those operating systems make up 98% of the total traffic. Windows Phone, Linux, Blackberry and Chrome OS users trickle in the remaining amount. These are the most interesting stats I gather from this data:

  1. Windows is still king, but the king may not live much longer.
  2. iOS + Mac OS X equals 45%. Since Windows Phone is less than .25%, this puts Apple products as the winner when it comes to overall traffic.
  3. 41% of total traffic is coming from mobile.

Notes: The site in question is a travel site, and so it stands to reason that many travelers interested in content are accessing the site from a mobile device at a larger percentage than other sites.

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