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I wonder how that varies regionally. I spent a couple of years traveling and working at coffee shops, and my observation is that most places, similar to where I

I wonder how that varies regionally. I spent a couple of years traveling and working at coffee shops, and my observation is that most places, similar to where I live in Minnesota, have a high degree of MacBook usage in coffee shops. When I go out here, it's usually about 80% macs. A website I've run for several years is now visited by 30% Mac OS, growing from 18% in 2008.

Encosia 13y ago
When it comes to website traffic, it definitely depends on your audience. I have a consumer-facing website that serves a few million pageviews per month and has never cracked 5% OS X visitors (3.6% last month). On the other hand, my blog sees nearly 10% OS X traffic even though it has a lot of content targeted toward Microsoft developers.
hrktb 13y ago
The battery life of the Macbooks may skew the number of machines seen in open public spaces. I see a lot of coworkers with windows notebooks lugging their power cable everywhere they go and getting the computer out only if they secure a power outlet.
- Encosia 13y ago
  I recently moved from a MacBook Air (running OS X, not Windows) to a Samsung Ultrabook and haven't seen any noticeable difference in battery life pro or con. That's with it driving a 3200x1800 display and a Core i7 processor too. There are definitely $400 PC laptops out there that just suck from start to finish (including battery life), but good Wintel laptops are pretty easy to find these days.
  - anologwintermut 13y ago
    Yeah, but if you are looking for a good windows laptop, you might end up buying a mac and running windows on it.
    - josteink 13y ago
      Macs have weird keyboards with non-standard layouts and keys. They consistently drive me mad every time I'm forced to work with them. If you're not going to run OSX you have no reason to ruin your workflow with a keyboard not matching the expectations of the running OS. There's seriously no reason to ever buy a Mac unless you want to run OS X, a OS specifically designed to not run well on other hardware.
    - Encosia 13y ago
      I think there was definitely a time when Apple made the best hardware to run Windows on. It's a compromise though. MacBook keyboards are weird to use in Windows and the hardware drivers were never optimal. I ran Windows 7 on my MacBook Air, off and on for years, but could never get it to run as well as it did on the similarly-spec'd Dell m1330 that I had before. Now that there's Apple-quality (better in some aspects, I'd argue) Wintel hardware readily available, it doesn't make sense to deal with those drawbacks if all you want to run is Windows.

Encosia 13y ago

When it comes to website traffic, it definitely depends on your audience. I have a consumer-facing website that serves a few million pageviews per month and has never cracked 5% OS X visitors (3.6% last month). On the other hand, my blog sees nearly 10% OS X traffic even though it has a lot of content targeted toward Microsoft developers.

hrktb 13y ago

The battery life of the Macbooks may skew the number of machines seen in open public spaces. I see a lot of coworkers with windows notebooks lugging their power cable everywhere they go and getting the computer out only if they secure a power outlet.

Encosia 13y ago
I recently moved from a MacBook Air (running OS X, not Windows) to a Samsung Ultrabook and haven't seen any noticeable difference in battery life pro or con. That's with it driving a 3200x1800 display and a Core i7 processor too. There are definitely $400 PC laptops out there that just suck from start to finish (including battery life), but good Wintel laptops are pretty easy to find these days.
- anologwintermut 13y ago
  Yeah, but if you are looking for a good windows laptop, you might end up buying a mac and running windows on it.
  - josteink 13y ago
    Macs have weird keyboards with non-standard layouts and keys. They consistently drive me mad every time I'm forced to work with them. If you're not going to run OSX you have no reason to ruin your workflow with a keyboard not matching the expectations of the running OS. There's seriously no reason to ever buy a Mac unless you want to run OS X, a OS specifically designed to not run well on other hardware.
  - Encosia 13y ago
    I think there was definitely a time when Apple made the best hardware to run Windows on. It's a compromise though. MacBook keyboards are weird to use in Windows and the hardware drivers were never optimal. I ran Windows 7 on my MacBook Air, off and on for years, but could never get it to run as well as it did on the similarly-spec'd Dell m1330 that I had before. Now that there's Apple-quality (better in some aspects, I'd argue) Wintel hardware readily available, it doesn't make sense to deal with those drawbacks if all you want to run is Windows.