Every so often I like to look at the trends in the technology our readers use to access the site. What kind of computers, what kinds of operating systems, mobile or desktop, etc. There’s a lot of interesting data in the latest numbers. But for anyone who’s been on the web back into the 90s, here’s the most striking piece of information. Fewer than 50% of the visits to TPM now come from computers running a windows operating system.
That’s a pretty striking number when you consider that as recently as 2007, over 77% of our visits came from a Windows machine. The current number is just under 47%.
As you can see from the chart below, the major factor driving this change is the growth of mobile devices like iPhones, iPads and their various competitors, most of which run on the Android operating system. At present, almost 29% of visits to TPM come from either a Smart phone or a tablet. And overwhelmingly those are devices made by Apple.
It’s worth noting that TPM is a unique site ecosystem. We’ve always had a disproportionate number of Mac users. And that’s carried over to a large proportion of iOS users.
But for all this, it’s a testament to how much Microsoft simply missed the mobile revolution. Remember, there is a Windows Phone operating system. But it currently makes up a quarter of one percent of visits to the site.
(Side Note on Browser usage: Chrome 28%, Safari 25%, Firefox 21.44%, Internet Explorer 13%.)
As you can see from the chart, Mac use grew pretty dramatically for us from 2007 to 2010, from about 20% to 30%. It’s trailed off since then, largely I think because of the migration to mobile. But it’s held up considerably better than Windows. And looking at the big picture, we now get just about as many visits from devices made by Apple as we do ones from machines running windows.
