“Other than freaking out Microsoft, which continues to charge up to $199 for a copy of the latest version of Windows, making OS X Mavericks free was considered a sure way to encourage quick adoption by Mac users,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “Indeed, for the first few weeks, it did appear that loads of Mac users had downloaded and installed the upgrade.”
“According to a published report, however, it does appear that the popularity of Mavericks may have hit the skids, while the user base of OS X Snow Leopard, circa 2009, remains reasonably constant at 19.5%,” Steinberg writes. “After hitting 32% in November, according to Net Applications, which tracks online traffic, Mavericks ‘merely’ increased to 37% in December. This, according to the article in question, must be a troublesome development. You see, some 22% of Mac users are still running Mountain Lion and 16.3% have stayed with Lion.”
“The article uses the dreaded ‘fragmentation’ word to create fear, but the numbers require a more linear analysis. You see, the rapid growth of Mavericks the first few weeks would largely have consisted of early adopters. The numbers in December likely consist largely of those who set up new Macs on which OS 10.9 was preloaded,” Steinberg writes. “The real question is how many of that 63% of remaining Mac users can actually upgrade to Mavericks.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sarah” for the heads up.]
Related article:
OS X Mavericks adoption slowed significantly in December – January 3, 2014
Killing SyncService in Mavericks—which forces the use of iCloud for syncing contacts, calendar, etc.—is a big oops that might be helping reduce the adoption rate.
Downgraded to Mountain Lion due to this appalling move. No warning whatsoever. I won’t upgrade or buy any Apple product unless this is changed. Apple, bring back USB syncing!
Downgraded back to ML on my MacBook, because of the mess Mavericks made of books [not] in iTunes. What a disaster. Running Mavericks on the work iMac just to make sure our stuff works, but would go back to ML if I had any brains.
My Time Machine external Seagate HD backup was destroyed by Mavericks and I did not clone my internal HD before installing Mavericks. Between the destroyed drives, glacial Finder, Mail and other unacceptably poky performances, I am wondering “How difficult is it to revert to ML?” Is there a simple way to do this?
We updated one machine, and the others will remain at Snow Leopard. There just aren’t any must-have improvements. Mavericks adds fluff and an ugly interface, but no performance improvement. And it shoves iCloud further down user’s throats. Not impressed. Cook and Co need to realize that Mac users know how to manage, find, and launch applications, and switch between them. Adding still more ways to emulate the Windows 8-like tiles (“Launcher”) and other mobile OS crap is not an improvement. Tags and tabbed browsing are greatly over-rated.
It’s worse than that — instead of performance improvements, we get performance degradation. And the iCloud BS adds insult to injury. I don’t want cloud services to be a requirement of my OS.
Excuse me clueless troll (aka KC Marc Bob Mike George)
Don’t you think using a series of first names was kind of obvious (seeing as almost every legitimate reader uses a handle and not just their first name?)
Second it’s pretty well known that it’s fairly easy to “game” the vote counters don’t just go in and give all your posts 8-10 +5 votes. It’s pretty obvious
Thirs your posts are too much in the same tone, try to at least make it look like it was different people posting,
You are going to have to step up your game
BTW are you just a hater or is there actually money to be made posting nonsense on Apple web sites. And if the latter and you don’t mind my asking, who is that afraid of apple that they would pay for this kind of nonsense?
Tess — I posted once and only once, as I always have. I can’t vouch for anyone else, but it’s rather insulting how often fanboys on MDN roll out the pathetic “troll” accusation whenever people chime in with constructive criticism.
Perhaps you should be a bit more circumspect before making your wild baseless assertions.
Dude look at your posts… (even on this page) you are obviously a troll, and not a terribly subtle one.
The “accusations” are hardly “baseless”
I could be wrong (that you are all the same person) but it really does seem like you are.
You need to stop letting the hatred of a company (and those who purchase it’s products) drive your life.
We aren’t on the same footing you and I, you are the apple hater who haunts apple news forums pretending he isn’t what he really is.
– laughing –
You only deceive yourself. Can’t even discern between constructive criticism and “hatred”. You, sir, are a religious nut who can’t discern different shades of color.
Look in the mirror before throwing stones. YOU are the troll here, with the minority OPINION, and the false accusations.
Screw you ‘Tessellator’.
25 yr vet Mac user here, NOT a sheep.
The reviews from real users are in. Mavericks sucks donkey do-dads. iCloud is hopelessly slow and like the atrocious iMovie update the newer apps have been dumbed down and stripped of useful features for the sake of feature parity with a fucking phone.
O_o
He typed one of them with his left hand thinking we wouldn’t recognize the handwriting. I use this technique for Santa’s “Thanks for the cookies” letters.
First, it’s entirely 100% possible for any Mac user to fully explore Mavericks in an entirely safe manner.
Second, for some mysterious reason, Apple refuses to educate it’s user’s on how to do this. The solution is as simple as putting a LEARN HOW TO UPDATE SAFELY link right at the beginning of the installer.
I’ve just come from the Apple forum, where users experiencing upgrade calamities are flooding in one after another all day long.
I’ve spent the last ten days trying to patiently explain to anybody who would listen how easy it would be to avoid all this completely unnecessary damage to Apple’s brand, and was chased around the forum by Apple fan boys, and eventually banned by the mods.
There’s more wrong at Apple than Mavericks, and it doesn’t bode well for the company’s future.
Bring back Rosetta and I’ll upgrade!!!
100% agree
OS 7, OS 7, OS 7!!!!
OK, just kidding. lol
They need free internet too
Many of the remaining Mac users probably can’t upgrade yet because their Macs/Macbooks are for work or they have a vital applications that are not compatible.
Right on. I have two systems that could upgrade to Mavericks and one that upgraded to Lion. The rest are Mac Mini’s from 2007 and running just fine on Snow Leopard.
Macs just last too long!! Its just so terrible to have machines from 2007 still running like a champ for everyday use. Shame on Apple….. /s
The problem is Apple makes such great machines they last for many years. I still have a perfectly good powerpc G5 tower running 10.5.8 and it works well for most things. Even my iMac G3 running 10.4.11 still runs well.
A lot of people are happy with their present computer that will last another 10 years and of coarse the old adage; if isn’t broke don’t fix it comes to mind with the mind set of most computer users.
Your PowerPC machine is not “perfectly good.” Apple rendered it obsolete. Apple will not repair a machine that is over 3 years old. If the machines were so damn good, Apple would be able to support them.
Apple rendered upgrading the OS obsolete. In what world do you live in where that automatically makes the machine stop working?
“Perfectly good” still works if the machine is still running well and it handles the apps you need. Your argument is foolish. The machines ARE too damn good!! I WISH they would die so I’d have an excuse to buy new.
I likewise have a working 2005 G5 dual 2.7Ghz Mac that does some backward compatible things I need. It’s only running 10.5.8 Leopard as well and stuck there for all time. My 2007 Mac was upgraded to Lion recently and that’s the end of the road for that as well despite the fact the box it came in said “64 Bit Ready.”
Yup I’ve got PowerPCs running in closets with clients doing nothing except VPN services, but they work.
Perian & Snow Leo = Finder with brilliant movie support (QuickView)
Maverick = Finder with sucky movie support
Yeah, I know – QuickTime is dead, it is all AVfoundation from now on – well, where is the support for different formats????
A lot of new devices were put into use after the 25th of December, I guess. and in absolute numbers, the adoption rate is also limited by people who wait for 10.9.2 or so. In absolute terms, the adoption rate of Mavericks is the highest ever, as can be seen in the graph I created from NetApplication’s data:
It shows the total percentage (excluding all mobile devices like phones and iPads). 10.9 has the steepest slope ever.
What a nonsense article. We always see a huge growth on release of an apple product. There are many people like myself that will always upgrade the OS if it is feasible. After the initial upgrade on current machines, future growth will be primarily from sales of new machines.
There is also a large set of mac users who never upgrade from the OS that the machine came with. They only disappear once a machine is replaced.
I’m not upgrading on iMac and MacBook because of what I will lose in the way of iPhoto and Pages features.
Upgrading prevents me from keeping the old iPhoto. One feature I depend on in iPhoto 9 is “extended photo info” containing the precise GPS lat/lon. The new iPhoto eliminates the GPS info. What was Apple thinking? I’d prefer upgrading but I simply can’t given the built-in limits to the accompanying applications.
Apple could put these features back into iPhoto, for example, pretty easy. I have no idea what they are thinking.
All-to-common problem living in the Cook era.
What Jobs gaveth, Cook taketh away.
Jobs made OS X the best desktop system, and Cook is pushing as hard as he can to dumb it down into an iOS-like mainframe interface to the pay-as-you-go iCloud service. Screw that. It’s good for users to stick with Snow Leopard, it just works better.
Oh come on, people were bitching about OS X changes even when Jobs was alive. He was alive when Rosetta was axed, and that ticked a bunch of people off.
——RM
fair enough. OS X 10.0 and 10.1 were pretty rough. The transition to Intel was not pretty for a lot of folks. But there is no question that the OS X updates since Snow Leopard have been performance degradation and fluff and useless “cloud” service integration. Apple deserves every bit of criticism for sitting on its butt instead of attracting new switchers with a more capable OS. The shortcomings have been documented and “wish lists” for OS X are long, and Apple hasn’t delivered on them.
When Windows 8 has more deployed desktops than all Mac versions combined, you know that Apple is underperforming. Cook’s decision to do no serious under-the-hood OS improvements to the Mac and instead offer it for free shows desperation, not courage. Mac users more than anyone are willing to pay for a superior product … but only if it is superior.
You may see cloud integration as useless. Personally, I love how Messages, Contacts, Reminders, Notes, and the Calendar sync with my iPhone and iPad without me having to do a thing.
As for Windows 8 having more installs… Isn’t that par for the course for Windows vs. Mac?
——RM
I prefer choice. I’d like to be informed before upgrading when Apple decides to force users to sign in or create an Apple account. I’d like to be able to use a Finder to view EVERYTHING that Apple stores for me in its little cloud. I’d like to know at any time how much data storage i’m using, and how much left before the disc is full. I’d like to manage the files remotely without opening only the application that created the file. I’d like to be able to choose and control the encryption method, and I’d like it to work reliably. I don’t think any of this is too much to ask. You tell me — how good is the iCloud? Is all of this easy and intuitive? Hell no. It’s a crappy unreliable un-Apple-like service taking us all one step closer to mainframe subscription-based computing, where you have no control. How ironic that Apple would be doing this only 20 years after airing the iconic 1984 ad.
Your complaints aren’t invalid, they’re just not universal. I’m simply not interested in that level of information.
You asked “how good is iCloud”? I can only answer for myself, and that’s “pretty damned good”. I really enjoy how everything on my Mac, iPhone, and iPod syncs up without my having to do a thing.
But then, I’m just a home user, doing home user things. I’m not running a business on my Mac.
——RM
Mike, Really????? “When Windows 8 has more deployed desktops than all Mac versions combined, “. Trolling or just still hungover??
Of course Windows 8 has deployed more copies than Any Mac program. Hundreds of millions are terrorized after being forced to use Windows 8, want it or not. lol
Apple went thru its pain when it shifted to OSX series and then moved from Motorola to Intel. Pain long past. Windows has to suffer now……… and it is.
As far as I know Win8 has never been forced on a user unless he bought it that way and then the user can always just wipe the system and install say Win7.. The same can be said for the new MacOS X.. Hardly terrorizing in either case. Knowing that, and if it is true there are more Win8 deployed I find your argument’s footing quite weak.
“and then the user can always just wipe the system and install say Win7”
IF you have a Win7 DVD (lots of PCs don’t come with those anymore) and IF that DVD happens to have the drivers for any special hardware like fingerprint readers that the manufacturer added and IF Microsoft’s verification servers are in a good mood that day … then you can do that, sure.
The PC market doesn’t work like that, and we all know it. The few who wipe a PC are probably going to put Linux on it.
Been to a PC shop lately? You can’t buy a laptop without windows 8. I spent a lot of time in December looking for a windows 7 laptop for my wife (We’re an multi-faith family. Don’t ask).
Of course windows 8 numbers would outnumber Macs eventually. That it has taken this long is a sign of just how bad Windows 8 is.
A very poor implementation of iBooks for the Mac versus a good one under the old pre-Mavericks iTunes is certainly one good reason not to update.
I don’t see how the math works. With more Macs in use since 10.6 how can the net share of 10.6 be remaining constant? That would imply additional machines are being added to the 10.6 base as the entire Mac base grows.
Not unlikely. 10.6.8 remains the best version of OS X. Features added since have offered hardly anything but bloat and ugliness.
I quite agree with Mike. I have 10.6.8 on my “old” MacBook Pro and 10.9.1 on my new MacBook Air and really think that my older OS is more universal, solid and supportive of functions. For example, my old movies have a lot of trouble playing, if at all, on my new Mac.
I am in the process of getting/buying utilities and apps which let me do the same and use Dropbox, Evernote and Google Drive to do what iCloud pretends to do but don’t.
They are specially useful in a multi-technology home, ie one w some combination of Apple, Android, Linux, etc.
Mike puts it in a kind of silly way, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some businesses are adding new Snow Leopard machines, as that was the last version that could run Rosetta. I sincerely doubt ordinary consumers are buying new machines to run Snow Leopard.
——RM
For those users that only use iPhoto, MS Word, and Safari, there is no compelling reason to update.
I need to upgrade from Snow Leopard in order to run the latest Garageband and Logic X.
The biggest reason so many people are still running Lion and Mountain Lion and Snow Leopard is because they don’t know any better, nor do thy have any compelling reason to upgrade.
Lots of users would still be running 10.5.8 but they bought a new iPhone or iPad and needed the newest edition of iTunes to sync it. Which in turn meant they needed to upgrade to Snow Leopard. So they bought Snow Leopard.
If you have Lion or Mountain Lion, for most users there is no compelling reason to upgrade to Mavericks. iCloud works, what other reason do they need to upgrade.
Apple needs to sort of push the update like they did with iOS 7 then people who don’t know any better will. Install it.
Sorry, but it’s true.
Hmm.. By your argument that would mean a good chunk of the people NOT upgraded to iOS7 DO know better than the average iPhone/iPad user.
That’s right, average people do know that iOS 7 was a major update that received a lot of negative publicity (with media coverage) right out of the gate.
When’s the last time OS X was on your daily news channel?
I had a number of people come up to me in my Apple reseller store saying “I heard that I shouldn’t update to iOS 7” , “what do you think”.
I work for an Apple reseller and we have a lot of people come in with machines still running 10.5 and 10.6. Most of them are clueless to the fact that newer OS’s exist!!! The only reason a lot of them upgrade is because of a new iPhone or iPad that requires a newer version of iTunes, hence a newer version of OS X. I have gotten some of them to upgrade from 10.6 when I mention that it is free.
I work for an Apple Reseller as well Scott, that’s why our comments reflect one another. We carry the Snow Leopard disk. At least a 1/2 dozen people everyday come in to purchase it for that exact reason.
Apple will probably use the next edition of iTunes to push people towards Mavericks. It will have an iCloud feature. Probably something like if you pause a song or podcast you can continue playing it from that point on any iCloud enabled device.
Having sold macs for 15 yrs I would bet that it’s the PC switches that even after years on the Mac still fear upgrading. Many went through attempted windows upgrades that caused major problems often resulting in the need to buy new machines.
The latest version of Windows still runs my vital apps from 20 years ago. Only Apple forced me to discard a lot of great (and expensive) software.
Yeah, and that insistence on maintaining backwards compatibility going back that far is the A-number-one reason Windows sucks so horribly. Sometimes you gotta cut the ancient stuff loose to move forward.
——RM
Too much legacy software to upgrade thanks very much.
Plus… iTunes continues to absolutely SUCK compared to the speed and visual elegance that is/was v10.6.3.
iTunes 11 is indeed very disappointing. It takes over an hour to tweak it to look almost as clean as prior versions. Stupid default settings are cryptic — complicated search selections, for example. Many people still haven’t figured it out. Pre-loaded genres are still an absolute joke, with no means for the user to delete the BS entries that Apple preloads.
Following Apple’s latest design trend, it’s cryptic, flat, gray, and ugly. The spinning beachball has not been eradicated. There really is no reason to “upgrade” to iTunes 11 if you don’t have an iOS7 device.
Apple needs to have separate applications for movies and for tunes. Bring back a comprehensive powerful Quicktime for movie management, and slim down the bloated iTunes.
Get Vox or Djay to play music.
One of the reasons people don’t upgrade is that nobody knows what to do with the iCloud situation.
If you’re new and getting an AppleID for the first time, no problem, but even knowledgeable users have no clue about how to best use iCloud.
I try to persuade switchers that everything in the Mac World is much simpler. I am afraid that’s not the whole truth.
E.g., I haven’t found in the AppleID docs that you can just create an Apple e-mail account and use that as AppleID. That works fine, but –try explaining that to a newbie– it’s an exception: you can’t change that later.
Nowhere does Apple really recommend a family iTunes account and individual iCloud accounts, which is what you need if there are many devices in a family. Too many newbies choose for a hubbyNWife@gmail.com account and have nothing else. No privacy, just a mess for every family member, and foremost, no security from kids trying to raid the appStore(s) with their parents’ iTunes credit. The whole family setup situation should become easier. Especially the necessity of one iCloud account for each family member’s personal data, should be made clear.
Also, nowhere have I seen a clear explanation about where iCloud documents are stored and how to find them (You need to open the appropriate apps to see them — try explaining that to a newbie).
If iOS devices don’t have a visible file system, why can’t EXTERNAL file storage have a directory structure?
Sometimes I want to group my documents, links, mails, etc. according to the project they belong to.
Apple, please, find a way to make this possible.
IMHO opinion the situation has become more confusing for power users than for new users owning only a single Apple Device.
Nowhere do I see info on how to configure stuff in a mixed platform environment. Switchers don’t switch all their devices at the same time. How will Apple persuade them to not stop before they run an Apple-only shop? And tell them what to do in the mean time?
How will the Apple advantage become apparent to a new Apple user who buys his first Apple device?
Wow! You have crystallized my thoughts perfectly!
I don’t agree.
Anybody that has put that much thought into how iCloud works has already been running iCloud.
I do agree with ALL (100%) of all of the points you make… Apple certainly needs to simplify things, but they aren’t related to why people aren’t upgrading. Maybe .5 of 1% of people would investigating how the ecosystem works prior to doing an upgrade.
“Apple will not repair a machine that is over 3 years old.”
I don’t know about Apple itself, but my Apple certified shop certainly does.
I’ve upgraded about 30 machines. I took a break for the holiday. I’ll get back on it now.
I don’t think this is a big deal. People aren’t upgrading to 10.9 either because they can’t or because there’s no compelling reason to. Not because there’s anything seriously wrong with Mavericks, but because the previous versions of the OS are just fine.
I upgraded because it was free, so why the heck not? But I’ll be honest: other than the pretty cool OS X Maps app, I didn’t notice any difference. My wife hasn’t updated because she considers it a chore and so keeps putting it off. Her new MacBook Air, purchased in December, came with Mountain Lion on it (why isn’t that ever mentioned in these articles?), and that’s working fine for her.
And my parents are on an early, Tiger-era Intel iMac running Snow Leopard. It suits their purposes and they see no need to spend money on a new Mac.
So really, when you look at it, Apple are a victim of their own success. Their hardware lasts so long, and their OS works so well, that there’s no urge to upgrade. (Not like PCs in the late 90’s – early 00’s, which became slow and unusable after 2 years and featured an OS which liked to crash.)
——RM
We’re holding off on upgrading our business machines. We organized our Contacts Groups using Smart Groups and the version of Mail in OS 10.9 can not use them. I was hoping 10.9.1 would return the use of Smart Groups, but it’s still not included… Not only are we not upgrading our current Macs (all of which can run OS 10.9), but we are limiting new purchases until this issue is fixed… I, for one, am tired of Apple removing Mac functionality in order to match the capabilities of iOS… I hope this new philosophy ends soon!
…and 16.3% have stayed with Lion.
On one of my Macs, not by choice! I’m sick of Lion’s problems. Hopefully I will be replacing my good-old-reliable MacBook from 11/2006 with a niffy-kewl new MacBook Pro this summer.
As for moving up from Mountain Lion: It’s not the big a deal. ML works fine. Mavericks is better! But many people don’t see the point of bothering.
And I should add that as a Mavericks beta-tester (via the Appleseed program) I personally was suggesting folks wait until 10.9.1 to upgrade. 10.9.0 still had significant bugs. Anyone familiar with software development knows the incredible mess involved with coming out with a new major iteration. It’s the ‘Version 1.0 Effect’. Waiting until a new version matures is simple logic. IOW: No BFD folks.
Apple give-ith and Apple taketh away. And so the features I liked in 10.8 for my 2009 Mac Pro are going to stay at 10.8 for the foreseeable future. My other macs, otoh, are all updated to 10.9.
While there are many interesting comments posted here, I wonder how many remember the stories about Mavericks prior to its release: ‘Apple releasing OS 10.9 despite knowing that it is an incomplete operating system. And what’s more, Apple is working on 10.10.’ In other words, Mavericks was released as “a work in progress.” Mavericks was hyped as the OS that would resolve problems in Snow Leopard. But wasn’t mentioned was that it would create more problems than those it would fix. I don’t need to list those problems here, as anyone who is honest would readily acknowledge them – except those who believe that anything Apple creates is “perfect” – just look at the new, improved, and magnificent iWork suite! Apple has abandoned quality control and adopted the Microsoft philosophy of releasing a half-baked OS and then letting the end-user find issues which require action to repair. Under Tim Cook the Mac has become a third class citizen as Apple’s emphasis is clearly on the iPhone and iPad. Hopefully the Apple Board of Directors will see through Cook’s specious claim to support the Mac before he destroys the foundation upon which Apple was built while he continues to pursue “fads”.
I don’t think that this has anything to do with fear. The fact is that if you placed Mavericks on a circa 2008 Macbook Pro or a 2007 Intel iMac you are asking for a world of hurt. The last stable, usable OS on any of those devices remains OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and even that runs relatively slow on both devices.
If Apple wants to change the entire Apple Eco System to Mavericks, it will need to come up with a better way to install a “light” version of the new OS that will be less memory or CPU intensive on old dual core machines while maintaining substantial changes.
The other issue that doesn’t seem to be brought up by a lot of people here is the USB 3 / USB 2 issue that is plaguing a lot of people. It appears that Haswell mother boards do not play well with older USB 2 products ie Audio Interfaces. Mavericks appears to have made this a lot worse, affecting not only Haswell Macs, but older Macs as well.
Although I like Mavericks, mainly because I have it installed on a new machine, I think that many people are waiting on updates to kick in before jumping in to upgrade.