Is OS X more reliable than Vista? The numbers don't lie.

When you have a computer problem, what’s the first thing you do? Okay, after you pound on the keyboard and curse at the tech gods. Of course the first thing you’re going to do is Google you issue and try to find a fix. So it only makes sense that the more searches there are for an issue, the more people have that issue. Conversely, the less searches, the less prevalent is that particular problem. Therefore, if one were to contrast two sets of search trends, one could see which of the two were more common. So that’s what we’ve done... sort of.

We’ve taken common, non-platform-specific computer issues that would be searched for and looked at the Google Trends over the past 12 months, comparing the frequency that the search involves the term “Vista” and “OS X.” Just to be safe, we also did all the searches with Vista against the term “Leopard,” and it should be noted that every result was identical to the results of the OS X search.

Now, before we get into this: According to Marketshare, as of April, OS X’s marketshare was 7.38% -- roughly half of Vista’s 14.57%. Therefore, if issues across the platforms are roughly equal proportionately, OS X’s results should be roughly half of Vista’s. Well, once you see the numbers, you’ll see that we could have broadened the search to the entire 90% marketshare of all combined Windows versions and the disproportion of the installed user base still wouldn’t make a difference.

The trend searches (in all charts, Vista is represented in blue, OS X is represented in red):

(OS) Crashes:

With this one, we thought we’d start off with the big one and see what OS was all-out crashing the most.

(OS) Hangs:

Here, we thought we’d increase the chances of a more evenly-matched result by searching for a less critical problem. Maybe we need to dig deeper.

(OS) Help:

It seems even looking for general help is uncommon for OS X.

(OS) Sucks:

Sometimes people get fed-up with their OS and just want to find people to commiserate with. Well, some people.

Finally, we thought we’d look into how may people were ready to take decisive action and downgrade their OS. At this point, the figures were unsurprising.

Downgrade (OS):


Even considering that there are no specific numbers given by Google, it's hard to argue against zero being the lower number. Anyone else have some interesting Google Trends that stack OS X and Vista against one-another?

"iPhone Black" on AT&T's phone selection page

There have been a lot of claims about the seemingly imminent 3G iPhone. One of them is that the aluminum backing will be replaced by high-quality, glossy-black plastic. Well, AT&T may have inadvertently let the cat out of the bag on that particular rumor.

It seems that a drop-down on the AT&T site for selecting phone model listed iPhone and iPhone Black as multiple options. When this tidbit hit the blogosphere, they were quick to reply, stating that it was simply a “temporary placeholder” to differentiate between the 8GB and 16GB models that hadn’t been properly re-assigned. The fact that screencaps do not show any other visible options or choosing between the two models seems to reinforce their story, though this is for selecting what phone is on your account, not ordering so the capacity may not matter. There’s also the fact that the 16GB has been available for months, which seems to indicate that the codename “iPhone Black” would have to have been “re-assigned“ in the system well before now.

If AT&T’s recent slip-ups regarding free Wi-Fi for iPhones tells us anything about how good they are at keeping a secret, it’s that we wouldn’t recommend telling anyone over there who you have a crush on. Oh, and that there’s probably going to be a black iPhone soon.

Why an iPhone shortage is good news for Cupertino

Conventional wisdom would tell us that a company new to a particular market (cell phones, for example) would endanger the growth of its market share if it were to sell out of the product it manufactures for that market. So why is Apple smiling?

Apple has a well-earned reputation for completely disregarding conventional wisdom and this iPhone sell-out may be a smart (and intentional) move that continues that tradition. Why would Apple want to sell out of a product that’s selling like hot-cakes? It’s simple, really.

For most manufacturers, in most markets, if their product is not available for customers to buy when they want it, they’ll just buy a similar product instead. But none of those products are the iPhone. Apple knows that the majority of people going to plunk down $400-$500 on an iPhone aren’t going to be deterred by the sold-out status to the point that they go buy a blackberry instead. Instead, they’ll wait. Apple isn’t losing iPhone sales; they’re deferring iPhone sales. And, in all likelihood, saving a lot of money doing so.

We all know there’s a new iPhone coming out, with long-awaited 3G, 3rd-party applications and enterprise support, plus many other features that have been the subjects of hot speculation. Apple is much better off not selling iPhones at all in the lead-up to that launch, especially in the two weeks immediately preceding. After all, they have a 14 day return policy. It’s safe to say that 90% of buyers in the two weeks prior to the 3G iPhone launch would be returning those units for exchange, costing Apple thousands of work-hours processing exchanges and leaving them with a giant pile of expensive iPhones that no one wants and losing the manufacturing costs for all of them.

Selling out, however, not only avoids that problem but has some other benefits as well. It causes that elusive thing called “buzz.” Apple knows that the iPhone suddenly becoming unavailable creates news stories. News stories that imply to the people who haven’t yet chosen the iPhone that they’re obviously missing out on something -- how often do you hear of a cellphone selling out? And, just in case they hadn’t heard, those news stories speculate that the shortage may be due to an upcoming 3G version, saving Apple millions in advertising costs.

That is why Apple is smiling.