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Just a small catch up of Mac OS X’s trends and market value.  It does not contain anything of value about the iPod, iPhone, or AppleTv.

In 1997 Apple’s stock was near collapse.  Very few had any faith left in the company.  Being asked a question, if he was the one in charge of Apple,  Micheal Dell responded:  “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

A month later, Steve Jobs responded to Dell’s remark, “We’re coming after you, you’re in our sights.”

This was the beginning of a new Apple, a new road map put forth.  6 years later, in 2003, Apple’s market finally became steady and growing.  From a few bucks per share to almost $80 in January of 2006.  This was the month that the industry finally started to notice Apple once more, for Apple had just surpassed Dell in market value.  It wasn’t the end however; a year and a half later Apple doubled Dell’s value, six months later Apple tripled it.  This wasn’t just about Dell however,  Apple also surpassed others like Sony, HP, Nokia, and Intel.

From 2006 to now,  Apple’s Mac market has more than doubled.  It’s iPod is still number one in media players, the iPhone has taken over the smart phone market, and AppleTv is now taking over the media center market with triple sales from last year.

So is Mac OS X a vital platform to develop on?  Is there enough users now?  It’s hard to estimate the total number of Mac users.  People tend to just use a percentage, like 10%.  This however is to unpredictable to take into consideration.  I found some information that says NetApplication generates the market share data from roughly 160,000,000 visitors.  10% from 160 million is 16 million.  This can’t be right considering that Apple sells roughly 10 million Macs a year now.  In 2006 it was estimated that the user base was around 16 million, in 2007 it was said to be around 22 million.  Other tests show much different results, including a total number of 50 million Mac users worldwide.

I would have to say, it’s impossible to tell how many Mac users there really are.  However a good tool to use is the trend of marketshares.  Is it increasing? and by how much?  This is what developers should be looking at when creating applications.  This is what all companies including Apple and Microsoft should be looking at.  NetApplication’s trends show Windows and Internet Explorer dropping steadily in a linear path since 2006. In the same time Mac OS X, Safari, and Firefox trends are increasing by the same numbers.

In 2007 Apple had a 6.4% marketshare, in 2008 it grew to 7.46%, in 2009 it’s now at 9.93%.  Going by this trend, Apple’s growth is growing at about  a 35-43% increase.   This is close to Apple’s month over month market sales.  That means, by 2010, Apple could have a market share of 13.5%. Below it continues:

  1. 2007:  6.38%
  2. 2008:  7.46%
  3. 2009:  9.93%
  4. 2010: 13.43%
  5. 2011: 17.43%
  6. 2012:  24.58%
  7. 2013:  34.80%
  8. 2014:  49.30%
  9. 2015:  69.89%

Moving over to Microsoft Windows’ market share we see almost the complete opposite. the percentage between each decrease is roughly 44%,  1% above Apple’s.  I believe this is due to Linux and other OSes.  Here is Windows from 2007 to 2015:

  1. 2007:  93.05%
  2. 2008:  91.58%
  3. 2009:  88.26%
  4. 2010: 83.46%
  5. 2011: 76.35%
  6. 2012:  64.63%
  7. 2013:  50.30%
  8. 2014:  29.70%
  9. 2015:  0.50%

What you see above are trends, current (real) and future (computed).  You should not take this as a correct prediction, but as a perspective in the way the market is shifting.  I’m not positive, but I hope many companies and users notice this happening.  As Apple’s market share increases it will slow down, the computed data above does not show this.  At this point in time, Apple is now a big player once more  even Microsoft should get its act together to make sure it can fight against this large threat (This is a remark I make based on Steve Ballmer, who still throws out childish taunts at Apple).

Many companies, including game developers have begun developing on the Mac platform, the idea that OS X is not compatible with most software is fading away, and now there are companies that are discontinuing Windows development and shifting all resources to Mac OS X.  One such company is Apogee, although this is just a few drops of water to the beginning of the big flood.