iOS devices affecting Mac's web share worldwide
There's a new set of web share stats out in the US, and it appears that on a worldwide scale, the iPhone and other iOS devices are taking a bite out of normal computers' web browsing, but specifically more for Macs than Windows PCs. That's the conclusion in the new Net Applications report, which notes that iOS devices are now up to 1.25 percent of all web traffic, while the Mac has dropped below five percent for the first time in a while. Of course, these are only figures, not actual cause-and-effect, so any actual correlations are speculative. But it makes sense that people who previously used MacBooks to do their web browsing are slowly transferring some of that time over to iPads and iOS devices.
On a US scale, the Mac is actually gaining share right alongside iOS, as Apple's gaining even more of a foothold on device time. Windows still has a huge lead at 83 percent, but Macs and iOS are bigger than ever; together, they make up the largest non-Windows share by far. In terms of actual browsers, Safari is still being beaten handily by Chrome, Firefox, and of course Internet Explorer, but that's mostly business as usual.
Interesting stats -- it's wild to consider that Apple has basically created the iOS market from thin air in the past few years, and it'll be interesting to see if the company can start taking a bigger bite out of Windows users rather than sharing browsing time with the Mac product line.
