iPad Passes 1% of all Browsing, Can Apple's Rise Ever be Halted?

Mike Halsey MVP
Jul 6, 2011
Updated • Jan 4, 2018
Apple, Companies
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5

The iPad's rise and rise has now surpassed 1% of all web browsing, according to figures released by NetMarketShare.

While Internet Explorer, in its various guises, has dropped again in market share to just 53.68% of the overall market, Safari owns 7.48%. This means that Safari and Google's Chrome operating systems are the only web browsers currently gaining market share.

The reason for this is tablets and the iPad's success is significant. 1% of total web browsing may be a tiny percentage overall, with Windows still occupying 88.29% overall, but Android figures are difficult to determine as they're mixed in with Chrome on PCs and Macs.

Also iOS's overall share of the operating system market sits at 2.63%, which is almost 50% the total share of the Mac.

In web browsing then Apple are beating, not just Microsoft, but every competitor out there. ANdroid has 0.72%, Palm currently sits at less than 0.009% percent and Blackberry devices at just 0.17%. For the iPhone and iPad to have claimed such a significant share of the overall computing market then is a huge achievement for Apple.

So how has this happened and can it be stopped? Well there are several factors that have contributed to Apple's success. The first of these, by some significant margin, is great design. If you take the current generation iPad, it is thinner and lighter than any of its competition. Apple are literally streets ahead of every other technology company on the planet, and in the position that Sony held ten to twenty years ago.

The next biggest factor is customer goodwill. Apple has a fantastic name and reputation, and with that comes an enormous volume of goodwill. This is the company's Achilles heel though as the old adage goes "the bigger they are, the harder they fall". There have been rumours of anti-trust cases for anti-competitive behaviour. Similar cases for other companies, Microsoft in particular, caused enormous resentment with loyal customers because of all the negative publicity they generate. Should an anti-trust case be brought against Apple, which is now looking like a possibility, there will be negative headlines about the company every week for, possibly a couple of years.

Even so it might be difficult to erode this much customer goodwill. Apple has ridden out the iPhone Antennagate scandal and criticisms over the profit slice they take from apps.

There is one more thing though that can potentially bring the company down, and that is the loss of Steve Jobs. It's possible that sooner or later he may have to retire, or at least take a permanent semi-retirement on health grounds. Jobs has been hugely important, and personally influential in turning around Apple's fortunes and bringing the company from the brink of bankruptcy to the position of the wealthiest technology company on the planet.

There can be little doubt that, no matter how important everyone may think Jobs is, from the Apple board and employees to shareholders and customers, he will always put his own health first as this is the most important thing. However a departure from Apple would certainly hurt the company considerably, and everyone knows it, which is why shareholders recently sought assurances he wouldn't be leaving.

No matter what happens though it's clear that there really isn't much that can harm Apple, at least not in the short-term. The rise and rise of the iPad's browsing figures are an example of the way the company is growing generally. This will get more significant as we move more towards mobile devices and "the computer in your pocket". It is here that Apple will seriously begin to do harm to Microsoft and I predict that Apple could have an overall operating system market share of 35% by 2015.

These figures are good for Apple, indeed they're positively fantastic. The rest of the world had better take note of what Apple are doing and raise their game very quickly, if they have even the remotest chance of denting them.

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iPad Passes 1% of all Browsing, Can Apple's Rise Ever be Halted?
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iPad Passes 1% of all Browsing, Can Apple's Rise Ever be Halted?
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The iPad's rise and rise has now surpassed 1% of all web browsing, according to figures released by NetMarketShare.
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Comments

  1. The Dark Lady said on July 9, 2023 at 11:19 am
    Reply

    Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.

    Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).

    For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.

    You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.

    If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.

    1. E. Fromme said on September 29, 2023 at 1:32 pm
      Reply

      EMRE ÇITAK posts are useless because they are fraught with inaccuracies and are irrelevant.

  2. KeZa said on August 17, 2023 at 5:58 pm
    Reply

    AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI

  3. Database failure said on August 18, 2023 at 5:21 pm
    Reply

    Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.

    Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.

  4. Howard Pearce said on August 25, 2023 at 12:24 pm
    Reply

    Don’t tell me!

    Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!

    Bring in the dictatorship!!!

    And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe

  5. Howard Allan Pearce said on September 7, 2023 at 9:13 am
    Reply

    GateKeeper ?

    That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!

    But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!

  6. owl said on September 7, 2023 at 9:50 am
    Reply

    @The Dark Lady,
    @KeZa,
    @Database failure,
    @Howard Pearce,
    @Howard Allan Pearce,

    Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.

    The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
    >> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
    Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
    >> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
    As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
    How to display only articles by a specific author:
    Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
    >> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033

    By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
    RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
    >> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme

  7. Anonymous said on September 14, 2023 at 6:41 pm
    Reply

    We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.

  8. Anonymous said on September 18, 2023 at 1:31 pm
    Reply

    “Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”

    Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.

  9. sean conner said on September 27, 2023 at 6:21 am
    Reply
  10. Sherry Grant said on September 29, 2023 at 7:47 pm
    Reply

    What does this article about Musk/Tesla have to do with computing, devices, phones?
    More irelevant filler.

  11. Anonymous said on September 29, 2023 at 8:47 pm
    Reply

    yeah sure… they are always the victims and it is only against them ????

    Believe them 100% and never question anything. This lawsuit sounds like the type you heard when people were eating batteries.

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