It’s official: Apple sells more computers than all Windows PCs combined

[RandySF]

Apple’s Mac desktops and laptops may still count for a fraction of the global market for PCs, but when you tally up all the computers (iPhones, iPads, etc.) on which people actually get things done, the number of computers sold by Apple exceeds the number of Windows-based PCs shipped worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Or as Andreessen Horowitz mobile analyst Benedict Evans put it:
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This is a pretty good illustration of the scale of mobile: Apple limits itself only to the high end of the mobile market but still sells more units than the whole PC industry.
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There are two ways of looking at this: One is to say, well, so what? What does it mean to compare these two very large numbers (mostly, how many iPhones Apple is selling) to the number of Windows PCs sold worldwide, when these are somewhat arbitrary device categories?
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But the counter-argument is that the tasks we used to conduct on PCs are now being carried out on an ever-expanding variety of other devices, pretty much all of them mobile. And this trend will only accelerate: What share of the world’s “computers” will Apple ship when it unveils its (still rumored) iWatch?


http://qz.com/176380/bings-chinese-search-result-glitch-still-reeks-of-censorship/

[blogslut]

1. okay

Still won't get me to switch but cool.

[progressoid]

2. Kind of an odd comparison.

Why not compare Ipads to other tablets. IPhones to other smart phones.

BTW, your link goes to some Chinese censorship story.

[Downwinder]

3. To be fair how many Unix based devices are out there?

[Locut0s]

6. All the ones that count? ;)

Unix/Linux runs the world's "can't fail" computing services. Most of the backbone of the internet and what makes the computing world go round relies on Unix/Linix

[defacto7]

8. Tis true.

[TM99]

4. Bogus comparisions.

iPads and iPhones when compared to Android devices?

Windows & Linux/Unix OS desktops & laptops when compared to Apple desktops and laptops?

Just more fan-boy reality distortion, sadly.

[defacto7]

9. It's just the usual claptrap

we come to expect.

[dawg]

5. Microsoft's enemy isn't Apple. It's Google.

Apple is doing the same thing with smart phones and tablets that it did with laptops and desktops: carving out a large, highly-profitable niche at the upper end of the market.

On the other hand, Google is giving away their operating system for free. This essentially blocks Microsoft from gaining any serious traction in tablets and smart phones.

But it's kind of a bad deal for Google, too. They get to be the dominant player, but only by giving away Android for free.

[Locut0s]

7. Agreed, actually...

Actually both MS and Apple have been playing catch up with Google for a while now. While MS may have 90% of the OS market and Apple may have managed to brand themselves as the next must have chic device, Google has managed to corner the market in advertising revenue, distributed computing power, digitization of global "knowledge" and much more. These later achievements, while less tangible, are arguably much more important and harder to compete against. With the rise of Google of course comes the rise of the fear of "big brother" despite their "do no evil" company moto.