An annual technology inventory of entering students at the University of Virginia seems to confirm both the pervasiveness and the power of Apple’s iPod music player.
Not only did this year’s survey show that 67 percent of the first-year students at U.Va. own an iPod, but it also found that ownership of Apple computers has increased more than six-fold in just the past four years.
For the past 10 years, U.Va. has questioned every first-year student about the technology they bring to school, such as whether they use the Windows operating system or Mac OS X and whether they own an MP3 player or video game console.
This year’s survey of 3,092 first-years found, among other things, that 20 percent of first-years are using Macs. That is up from just 3 percent in 2002.
Overall, 77 percent of the students have digital music players, and iPods represent 87 percent of those players.
Data from more than 27,000 students surveyed over the past 10 years are available on the U.Va. Web site, presented in graphical form:
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/stuserv/ca/cainventory/compare/
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/stuserv/ca/cainventory/2006/
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bob” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s grip is slipping.
Related articles:
Apple Macs make strong rebound on campuses – October 28, 2006
Nearly half of computers purchased at Harvard this year were Apple Macs – October 27, 2006
Analyst: Apple Mac gains market share, the reason why is significant – October 26, 2006
IDC: Apple Mac attained 5.8% of U.S. market share in Q3 06 – October 18, 2006
Gartner: Apple Mac grabbed 6.1% of U.S. market share in Q3 06 – October 18, 2006
45-percent of computers purchased at Princeton this year were Apple Macs – October 12, 2006
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Since I am on staff at UVa – I like to see that. Those are pretty powerful numbers. I have been trying to get our department to integrate more Macs into the workflow, and these studies over the years have been great in identifying trends and loosening some perspectives. It’s a joy to see.
Wahoo!
Yes here in Charlottesville Va home of UVA you do see the Apple Logo on many auto windows. And yes the Mac is used all over the town not only by students. The bad thing is we have to drive 1 1/2 hrs to the Apple Store in Richmond Va.
Let’s put an apple sticker on all windows.
Good. But we have a long way to go. 500 mac owners out of 3000 (looking at graph). So 1/6 use a Mac. Great. That’s still fairly inconsequential by most views. More than 1/6 have herpes. More than 1/6 of the student body _____ fill in the blank. It’s a minority!
We have a long way to go.
I’m sick of being considered a fringe. The mac is so superior, (see recent thread about MS employees emailing about Tiger) and we are constantly misunderstood, kicked, scorned, ignored, disfavored, etc. It’s disgusting.
Martin, tell me about it! Just moved down from Oakton last summer, spoiled from access to both Tysons and Clarendon stores. Short Pump is such a drag to get to now. I wish they would put one on Barracks Rd.
I don’t know, “mac1984”. 1/6 is a pretty significant number when you’re talking about free-spending college students. Are providers of computer-based services prepared to chuck out 17% of their revenue by making their product Windows-only?
The graph shows: 3088 total computers, 2479 Windows, 605 Macs, and 4 “others.”
That’s not 1/6th for Macs. It’s 1/5th (19.59% use Macs).
That approximately 20% conforms to the installed base of Macs that we have seen mentioned numerous times before. I wish we had more such data for larger and more diverse population segments to get a well rounded picture of the proportion of Macs in use.
It seems the first-year class is getting smarter every year.
(Having taught at that level, I know that is bullshit)
Apple sales reps are measured by units and counted on to grow those numbers.
I would have liked to see the graphs by hardware numbers. Put into perspective Apple’s 20 % looks a lot better against numbers by hardware vendors.
20% or more of the population? Time to start using the honkies’ bathrooms….
…but OSX has 88 million lines of code – it sux!
They should get the sleek and sexy Vista, which checks in at 50 million*.
*not including malware
One-sixth is not “fairly inconsequential.” Mac sales marketshare is something like 5% in the U.S. However, since Macs tend to stay “non-obsolete” longer than PCs using Windows (Tiger works well on my year 2000 PowerBook “Pismo”), and because Macs have a healthy used/refurbished market, the “usershare” of Macs is probably about 10%. If Apple ever manages to get that number close to 20%, it would be a historic achievement for Apple.
Remember that the survey is comparing Macs to Windows PCs. Many companies make “Windows PCs.” Only one company makes Macs.
@ mac1984
Patience grasshopper…
3% of any market is a fringe, but 20% is definitely not. Red Hat Fedora
Core and Ubuntu are on the fringe. Things are looking up for Apple.
And, with all that, OS X runs on about 5% of the nation’s personal computers and half that world wide.
Control yourselves, this ain’t going anywhere. Besides, Apple, Inc. is headed, full steam, into the phone business – computers are yesterday’s news for them and ole Stevie boy has apparently thrown in the towel.
Thanks, guys. I just had to vent…
About percentages, your math is wrong. 500 is one-sixth of 3000. Try it on your calculator.
That’s 16-point-something%. It’s not 20%!
That’s beside the point, we are still a minority and get treated like crap by corporate and wall street and average office environment and decision makers, etc. Everywhere I go I see Dulls, and I see administrators having problems with Winblows, but they never wake up and when I suggest Mac, they treat me like I’m whako from Mars. I’m sick of it. I want some respect!
mac1984
I try to be a Mac evangelist sometimes, and get similar responses from
folks. But SOME others actually listen. The younger crowd is going to
make it all happen as they graduate college. Not stuffed shirts that don’t
want to learn a new platform. I’d like to end with one statement that
isn’t noted nearly enough around here:
Apple’s success does not rely upon Microsoft’s failure. Although MS
appears to be helping in that endeavor. LOL Have a good weekend.
Chump Change
You must be a Dallas Cowboys fan: delusional
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yeah, you said, “..but OSX has 88 million lines of code – it sux! They should get the sleek and sexy Vista, which checks in at 50 million*.”
yeah, but Vista’s lines are more than twice as long
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MDN: “story” as in, that’s my story and I’m stickin to it.
Note that the freshman class number rounded is 20% Mac users. There is a tidal wave growing that favors the Mac in the coming years. And you can bet that recruiting the Mac using students will put pressure on employers to support Macs in order to attract the best students. And I’ll bet the best schools tend to have the highest Mac user percentages.
great more people are joining the Mac platform! can it being anymore beautiful?