Net Applications: Macs hit a record OS share in December, iPhone up 33%

Wait a minute, the Playstation? Where are they getting these numbers from? Apparently Net Applications gets these figures by monitoring browser information from sites tracking their hits through their products (of which Hitslink is one). So a jump for "Mac" systems doesn't mean a jump in sales figures, or even ownership-- all it means is that more people whose browsers reported them as Macs visited Hitslink sites in December than in November. And more people whose browsers reported them as the iPhone did the same. Not quite the definitive numbers they first claim to be, but Net Apps says (of course they would) that these numbers do correspond to trends found by more objective studies.
And as long as they're firing up the flames on both the OS wars and the gaming platform wars, Net Apps goes ahead and swings for the triple play-- they also report that, according to their numbers, the map of people reporting as Mac owners corresponds extremely well to the blue sections of the red/blue maps of the last US elections. Um, yeah-- we're not touching that one. You guys can fight it out in the comments.
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Fortune has the latest market share figures for December (according to a survey by Net Applications), and it's good news all around for...
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The Left Coast sure does love its Macs. So do Hawaii and Vermont, over 15%. Wowzers!
January 03 2008 at 1:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyTUAW's totally predictable comment about "Nothing compared to the iPhone" is exactly how Apple feels too. Leopard is nothing compared to their new flagship product, which happens to run a hacked version of OS X, but forget that, IT HAS A TOUCHSCREEN! That means it gets its own category, right?
January 02 2008 at 12:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyDon't taze me bro, but I've got 9 macs and I'm definately no Commie ... probably too small of a sample size.
January 02 2008 at 10:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI wonder why they don't report the iPhone as part of the OS X numbers. After all, it is an OS X device. Not like Windows Mobile where the only thing it shares with XP or Vista is part of the name.
January 02 2008 at 9:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyUm . . . definitely a "red" guy and I have a Mac. I think their comments were total BS.
January 01 2008 at 9:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhat version of OS X does the iPhone report? Is it listed as 10.5, or something special and able to be separated from the Desktop OS?
January 01 2008 at 5:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe "blue" areas of the country also correspond pretty well to population density, if I recall correctly. It would be pretty easy for any statistic of a tiny sample size to seem to map to the "blue" areas of the country.
January 01 2008 at 4:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe thing is that they are talking market share which is a percentage. Population density does not matter in that case. What is interesting is the fact that higher population density areas as you noted have a higher blue and mac demographic.
January 01 2008 at 4:47 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyMacIntel? Mac OS? What do these mean? Is the iPhone grouped with other? Why not iPhone,
January 01 2008 at 4:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyBrowsers report info about the machine they run on, and part of this is the processor. For example the user agent prefpane for Camino lets you appear as running a number of browsers on your choice of PPC or intel to whoever is on the other end. So, MacIntel could refer to the users running Intel machines and Mac OS could refer to PPC machines. That's what I'd assume, anyways. Whatever it means, this is not a reliable way to test OS or hardware market shares.
January 01 2008 at 6:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAnother comment about the background - way better and way faster.
January 01 2008 at 4:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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