Vista

15 reasons Macs trump Windows PCs

This seems to be the season of lists, the bread and butter -- however stale -- of journalists facing a slow news day.

This one trods the most familiar ground in computerdom, pitting Apple (AAPL) Macs running OS X against PCs running Microsoft (MSFT) Windows. But it comes from APC, the longest running computer magazine in Australia, and it's unusually insightful.

I post only the intro and the topic headers here because MORE

October Internet use: Vista up, Mac down

How do you explain this one?

The monthly Market Share survey from Net Applications, which had reported steady increases for the Mac OS in the previous two months and sharp growth for the iPhone -- including a 57% surge in August -- showed a very different picture in the October report issued overnight Saturday.

In October, iPhone growth slowed to 3.12% (down from 6.67% in September) and the Mac's share actually fell, MORE

Survey: Programmers shunning Vista for Mac OS and Linux

"Developers," a VP at Electronic Arts once told me, explaining why there were so many me-too Windows applications, "will walk through the desert in their socks to get to an installed base."

True enough. But it doesn't quite explain the results of a survey issued last week by Evans Data Corp. The headline was that most developers are still not targeting Windows Vista when they write new apps. Only 8% MORE

140 million copies of Vista sold. How does Leopard compare?

Apple has no numbers to compare with the 140 million copies of Vista that Bill Gates says Microsoft (MSFT) has sold since the latest version of Windows started shipping in late 2006. (link)

Literally, no numbers. The last time Apple (AAPL) released a Leopard sales figure was Oct. 30, 2007, when the company said that it had sold more than 2 million copies of Leopard in one long weekend (see here). MORE

Report: Mac Market Share Dipped in Oct., Vista's Grew 7%

Apple's (AAPL) market share slipped slightly last month to 6.55%, according to a new report from Net Applications, while Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Vista picked up more than half a percentage point to 7.91% -- a growth rate month-to-month of more than 7%.

The Web metrics firm's monthly tabulations of browser data from the sites of its 40,000 customers offer an imperfect but consistent measure of market share trends. The company's latest MORE

Leopard Reaches 9% of Mac Users in 4 Days

How did Leopard sell?

Very well indeed. In a press release issued this morning, Apple (AAPL) announced that it had sold or delivered more than 2 million copies of OS X 10.5 in its first weekend on the market. OS X Tiger, by comparison, took nearly six weeks to reach the 2 million mark. That makes the launch of Leopard the most successful OS release in Apple's history.

"These numbers show the MORE

The Day of the Leopard

More than two years after it was announced, nearly a year and a half after it was shown to developers, and four months after its original spring 2007 due date, the sixth edition of Apple's (AAPL) flagship Macintosh OS X goes on sale today at 6 p.m. for $129 ($199 for the family-pack).

The authorized reviews are in and they are broadly positive. Boxes containing OS X 10.5 Leopard pre-ordered online MORE