Apple’s iPod touch a big winner this Christmas

“Apple’s iPhone probably had a good Christmas — we’re seeing them everywhere. But its iPod touch — which it’s marketing as a gaming device — seems to be on fire,” Dan Frommer reports for Silicon Alley Insider.

“We’re not the only ones who saw a big spike in traffic on Christmas Day from iPod touch users: Web metrics service Net Applications says the iPod touch’s Web browser market share soared on Christmas day to 0.21%, up fourfold from its mid-December share around 0.05%. It’s staying up since then, too — 0.16% on Dec. 26, 27, and 28,” Frommer reports.

“Meanwhile, we got 2.66% of our visits from iPod touch users yesterday, up from 2.00% on Christmas Day and a 0.32% average from Dec. 1-24, according to Google Analytics,” Frommer reports.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: According to Google Analytics, yesterday MacDailyNews saw 7.90% of our traffic from iPhone and 1.63% from iPod touch versus 10.15% from iPhone and 1.90% from iPod touch on Christmas Day vs. averages of 7.55% and 0.95% respectively from Dec. 1-24.

Arnold Kim reports for MacRumors, “The #1 ranked App Store application (iFart Mobile) saw a tripling of sales from 13,000 units a day to almost 39,000 units on Christmas day. This growth in sales, however, was not just isolated to the #1 spot and was seen across the entire App Store. Several game developers on TouchArcade.com reported sales boosts of 3x-4x across all titles, even for titles not in the top 100 listings… Hit Tennis developer Mark Johnson reported a 4x sales increase on Christmas for his tennis game.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]

17 Comments

  1. No surprise that this “sleeper” (at least as compared to the iPhone) is turning into a hit. I took my new Touch on an overseas trip, leaving my notebook (Pismo) at home. Everyone who saw it was just “wowed” by it. And no monthlies! I used it to browse web and email when I had access to wireless. Sadly, Pandora Radio wasn’t supported there.

    mw: future – as in, I’ve Touch’ed it.

  2. I’d like to suggest MDN would probably see more traffic from touch devices if their site was better optimized for such devices.

    It’s pretty much impossible to read an article from MDN on Edge since it takes so long to load. It’s just barely usable on Wifi if you’re desperate and can wait and rotate to landscape and zoom in. (I already use the RSS feed on my iPhone for the summary, but the articles themselves are not optimized.)

    I hope you guys are working on it. TUAW was awful on the iPhone too, but they made a lovely iPhone/touch optimized version which works very well and has a limited number of ads.

    For what its worth, on my desktops/laptops, I block ads using a hosts file anyway, so I’m not seeing much in the way of ads. Web pages generally load quite fast. Unfortunately, and ironically, this method can’t be done on the iPhone/touch, where it’s most needed due to bandwidth/memory constraints.

  3. @Constructive criticism
    I agree! I find MDN utterly unreadable on iPhone, in large part due to the way it forces each article to open on a new tab. Drives me nuts because I have to go back to main page and reload it (which takes forever) just to see what other articles I want to see.

    Also, because I have a number of “standard” tabs always open on my phone, I’ll often hit the max limit of tabs on iPhone and get an error message and the page won’t open.

    There’s also some sort of weird bug/error where sometimes when I return to the main page (ha! I accidentally typed “pain page” which is ironically true) it then loads the article I already read on the separate tab, wasting more time.

    Of course some of this could have improved recently; it has been many months since I even bothered to try to read MDN on my iPhone.

  4. Was just at my local Apple Store in Portland, Maine, and everyone in the store was clustered around the accessories wall, presumably looking at cases. That kind of goes with the idea that Xmas must have had lots of iPod Touches as gifts, and iPhones. I gave 2 iPod Touches as gifts, so I assume sales were very good.

  5. Google’s Android and Blackberry’s Storm are not just competing with iPhone – they are competing with iPhone and iPod touch, and that they cannot keep pace with.

    iPhone: The user downloads 10-15 apps they love and use, and sync iTunes, and like the browsing experience and what will they do when 2-years is up, just ditch the iPhone for another phone and carrier? Not likely. This is a platform they have bought into. They are likely to upgrade to the new iPhone model.

    Blackberry and Android: These are just phones with features, not a platform. After a user has had their fill, they can quickly and easily switch to any other type of phone or carrier. Android has more going for it in the long-run, but it may die before it ever gets wings to take off… Not having apps be paid for gives devs zero incentive to build for it, and it is certainly no iPhone 2.2 SW.

    If you want some stock, AAPL might be a good by right about now…

  6. @ I hate to disagree but…

    “39,000 of iFart on Christmas day? Human stupidity is really beyond measure. It is not humorous, it is pathetic.”

    Many kids got an iPod touch for Christmas.

    Kids love farts.

    Lighten up.

    MW children LOL

  7. @I hate to disagree but…

    I suggest you never enter a joke shop.

    If something silly actually found its way in to thaw and tickle your frozen soul, the resulting slight lift at the corner of your mouth might crack your face.

    What do you do when it’s your turn to take care of the kids?
    Read to them from Ezekiel?

    MDN Word “Year”. What a minute with you must feel like.

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