State of the Mac 2013: OS X Share by Version and What It Means

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FairerPlatform notesthat according to Stat Owl a firm, that gathers web usage data from mostly US sites with a fairly heavy emphasis on commerce and corporate websites, OS X 10.6.x Snow Leopard is still the most commonly used version of OS X, while Apple’s latest version, OS X 10.8.x Mountain Lion, still lags behind in third place, noting that in the current state of the Mac, lots of folks are choosing older versions of the Mac desktop operating system.

However Net Applications, generally the most quoted source for web usage data, has a different take on usage numbers, ranking OS X 10.6 in second place after Mountain Lion.

Whatever, FairerPlatform posits new sorts of digital divide opening up between upgraders, who embrace the new adopting OS X Lion and later, and Mac OS traditionalists who have chosen to stay rooted in OS X 10.5 and 10.6. Another rift is between classic Mac user interface believers and those comfortable with the iOSsification of OS X.

However, with OS X 10.9 just around the corner, 2009’s Snow Leopard, while its had a magnificent run as favored platform second only in duration to that of Windows XP, likely won’t be supported by either Apple or third-party developers for much longer.

FWIW, I have both Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion installed on his anchor Mac, and I like both, but haven’t settled conclusively into using either.

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