Infographic: Microsoft vs. Apple - The History of Computing

1. Windows Smartphone OS has 26% and iOS has 7%? How does that work? Surely he doesn't mean Windows Phone 7, and I lol at the idea of it being Windows Mobile. That's an outrageous statistic.

2. Wikipedia is the first listed source? Come on. Even high schoolers should know not to use Wikipedia as a credible source for stats and reference, as informative as it is...

Yea, there's a lot of incorrect dates in this "info"graphic.
Also, the 90s called and wanted their graphics back...

Factually incorrect, biased and misleading...

Brings the old saying to mind: "figures don't lie but liars can figure."

Wow that pie chart is hard to read. Not only are the colors very close, but the colors are not consistent between the chart and the key! Windows 2003 is the only OS represented by green in the key, but the two greens are entirely different. Same colors for Windows Vista and OS X.

Now, if you take into account and the fact that the colors for Windows 7, Linux, and Mobile are all really close in the key and the fact the colors may not be the same in the chart as in the key... which one is which?

In fact the only thing this chart has made clear to me is that someone read a couple of timelines on Wikipedia and that the majority of computer users in the world are using an OS that's now 10 years old.

The retrospective stock values of each company do not account for stock splits and dividends. Therefore the comparative values are completely invalid.

Yeah, that pie chart really sucks. Too many colors that are too close together.

Wow. This is the ugliest "infographic" I've ever seen. Looks like it was done in PowerPoint or something. Yikes!

There are SEVERAL mistakes in this graphic... For one, the Apple Store launched in 2001 NOT 1997. Also, the current mobile market share data is incorrect. That looks like 2007 data. There are also other factual errors about MS as well like OS/2 (which was IBM, not MS).

The chart doesn't have much to say when it "speaks for itself". The underlying premises are silly: stock price does not equal market cap ; history includes more than successful product releases plus the Zune.

The TUAW "reviewer" appears to be unable to evaluate graphics critically.

Nice graphic, but the stock prices are a little misleading. Both companies have had several stock splits, so even though an AAPL share is sold for around $320 now, that is really worth much more to someone who bought it before splits. Someone who bought one share in 1999 at $40 would now own 4 shares (two 2:1 splits since then), each valued at $322 for a total of $1288 from a $40 investment. MSFT shares have split several times as well. The graphic is just a little deceiving because it makes you think a share of MSFT is worth less today than it was in 1986. MSFT stock has actually split nine times, so a share purchased for $27.50 on the first day of trading would now be 512 shares worth over $14,000. By comparison, AAPL stock has split three times. Both companies have done very well, but simply comparing the current stock price without factoring splits is not an accurate depiction of their market performance.