Home > Surveys > Intro Mac Survey

Introduction Macintosh Survey

The Macintosh Survey looks at the hardware development and usage of important software of international Mac users with Internet access.

• Purpose
• Scope of the Survey
• Background Information

This Mac survey is conducted completely anonymous. All collected data are treated confidential and are only used for statistical purposes.

Apple Macintosh users worldwide can take part in this survey. The findings support mainly providers of Internet services or vendors of Macintosh products, to better understand the hardware and software trends in the Macintosh world. You profit as Mac user e.g. from Web services and products, running on the platform and browser of your choice.

The survey is online for the time being and provides continually results to monitor changes in the used Mac hardware and behavior regarding the Mac OS and browser over a longer period of time.

To answer the questions you need less than 2 minutes. Your information is treated and evaluated completely confidential. You can participate with multiple computers (e.g. with the PowerBook G4 and Cinema Display at home or the new iMac G5 in the office).

This survey started 1st October 2004 and 3'141 persons have participated so far. The results and the user feedback with comments from us are online available.

Have fun filling out the Macintosh survey! Please forward the poll link to interested Mac fans.

Purpose

The goal of the global survey is to study these questions and their long-term trends:

• Desktop vs. notebook: How does the percentage of stationary and portable Apple computers develop?
• How quickly do Apple customers adopt the newest products and technologies (i.e. iMac G5)?
• How is the processor power of the machines in use changing?
• What is the impact of Cupertino's switch from the IBM, Motorola and Freescale PowerPC architecture to Intel Core Duo / Solo and Xeon chips?
• Which Mac OS X cat of prey is most used on today's stylish Apple computers: Leopard (10.5), Tiger (10.4), Panther (10.3), Jaguar (10.2), Puma (10.1) or Cheetah (10.0)?
• How does the penetration of Mac OS X compared to the classic Mac OS evolve (Mac OS 9.2 or higher)?
• Do Apple users always install the most up to date version of the Mac OS X operating system (for instance Tiger)?
• Which are the preferred browsers and with how many browsers do Mac users on the average surf?
• What displays (LCD or CRT), screen sizes and resolutions are common?
• From what countries do the participating persons come from and are there geographic variations?
• How many persons access the Internet wireless with AirPort?
• How many participants use an iPod music player?

The time and geographical analyses of the results is planned. A monthly evaluation and a yearly statistic of the outcomes is scheduled. This includes the visualization as well as the categorization into interesting countries and regions. To the table of contents

Scope of the Survey

The focus of the research covers the following aspects of the daily usage of Mac computers, system software and Web browsers:

• The Apple range of products, the processors (CPU) and the breakdown between stationary desktop and portable laptop equipment.
• The used Mac operating systems as Mac OS X or Mac OS 9 (Classic) and browser (e.g. Safari).
• The screen display characteristics as the number of monitors in use, the build type (i.e. TFT LCD or CRT), the size of the viewable screen diagonal and the set resolutions.
• The regional distribution of the participating Mac heads as well as the penetration of AirPort (wireless Wi-Fi network access) and of iPods (MP3 player).

This poll is for all users with Mac systems on the Internet and tracks the evolution of the Mac community in the course of time.

Despite international coverage a particular attention is aimed at the German-speaking area with Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Europe and North America with the United States and Canada. From the remaining world primarily countries and regions with a strong Apple presence as Japan are of interest. To the table of contents

Background Information

The participation is voluntary and the motivation for the implementation of this survey is independent from commercial interests. The poll is not commissioned by Apple or another organization, that for example sells Mac computers and accessories or applications.

The collected data is shown on the survey form and contains on the server and with scripts determined information as the screen resolution, color depth respectively number of the displayed colors, system platform (Mac, Windows or Linux) and browser with version.

The questioning was designed on a Quicksilver Power Mac G4 with Mac OS 9.2.2, OS X 10.3.9 Panther, BBEdit, PHP, MySQL and JavaScript, and runs on Open Source servers (Swiss made solution). The misuse or manipulation of the survey is constantly monitored. In case of irregularities the appropriate actions are taken where necessary. To the table of contents

The Apple world is changing very fast and the Macworld San Francisco 2006 announcements of the first Intel powered iMac and MacBook Pro (only a prototype was shown at MWSF) with modern Core Duo dual processors were no exception. Goodbye PowerBook G4, G5 and PowerPC while John Siracusa mourns the Power PC.