January was a good month for both the emerging Windows 7 and the venerable Mac OS, according to web metrics company Net Applications.
The Mac OS is now hovering around the 10 percent mark among operating systems accessing the web.
In its Operating System Market Share report for January, Net Applications showed the Mac OS at 9.93 percent, up from 9.63 percent in December. The iPhone also trended upward to 0.48 percent in January, from 0.44 percent in December.
In its recap of the Net Applications numbers, Fortune highlighted the ground gained by Apple's iPod Touch: "The biggest winner in January... was the iPod touch, whose 'explosive' growth in December continued unabated after the holidays, growing 37.5 percent to reach a 0.11 percent internet share... That means that more than one out of every 1,000 web hits in January were made from iPod touches — at least according to Net Applications's data."
Use of Windows 7, meanwhile, surged in January after Microsoft released the public beta of the operating system, the follow-on to Windows Vista that is due around the end of 2009.
The beta became available on 10 January, up to which point Windows 7 stood at about 0.04 percent. Through most of the rest of the month, it fluctuated at between roughly 0.12 percent and 0.15 percent. It closed out the month with a jump to 0.23 percent on 31 January, according to Net Applications's breakout on Windows 7.
That 31 January jump may have come from people who still thought that would be the last day to get the beta. But about a week ago, Microsoft extended the window for the downloads, saying the Windows 7 beta is available through February 10.
But on the whole, Windows continued to inch downward. The Net Applications report for January, released on Sunday, put the Microsoft operating system at 88.26 percent, down from 88.68 percent in December, easily keeping Windows in the number-one spot. Linux came in third at 0.83 percent in January, essentially the same as its 0.85 percent December showing.
Net Applications accumulates its data from 160 million monthly visitors to its network of hosted websites that collect statistics.
Talkback
A lot of these reports tend to be very much UK and US focused. I really doubt that Apple have 10% share world-wide.