According to a recent report by Chitika Insights, Apple’s “most advanced” version of OS X, the Lion, stalled in October following a strong start that saw OS X Lion being downloaded more than 1 million times during its first day of availability this past July.^[1] The online ad network analyzed its recent traffic and found that Lion’s share among Mac users increased by less than 2% in a month since its last report in September. Usage of the new OS grew at an average rate of 4.05% each month between June and September, but since then its share has increased at just 0.98% per month. Its current share stands at 16% as compared to Snow Leopard’s 56% and considering all operating systems, at just over 1.5%, barely a blip on the radar.

Contradicting this report, web analytics firm Net Applications reported yesterday that Apple’s latest OS has continued to steadily grow at an average rate of 6.5% since July and has already taken more than 26% share of the active Mac installed base in just over three months, showing no signs of stagnancy or user backlash.^[2]

We believe that that the difference in results of the two reports is due to the difference in web traffic that each firm analyses to arrive at the data.

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Software issues with Lion

If we look at the user response to the Mac OS X Lion, we believe that there are multiple reasons why one wouldn’t want to upgrade to Apple’s latest OS. The Lion has minimum requirements that a lot of existing Macs don’t meet. Also, a lot of casual users might consider the tedious process of backing up their data and upgrading unnecessary headache. Chitika suggests some of the other reasons:

One of the most frequent complaints about Lion is that the user interface behaves too much like iOS, the operating system on iPhones, iPods, and iPads. While iOS has proven successful on Apple’s product mix, this look isn’t a winning formula on computers. Other notable issues include Wi-Fi stability, poor battery life on MacBook Pros, and an inverted “natural scrolling” function.

Historically, Mac users have been quick to adopt the latest Apple software, as also seen in the initial response to the Lion. But some real issues such as the ones listed above might be preventing users from making the 4GB OS download. However, we believe that the $29.99 price tag and its more complex upgrade process are likely more significant barriers to Mac users upgrading compared to the unobtrusive, free updates iOS users can apply.

Mac sales appear unaffected

Although people may not have continued to download the Lion update in large numbers in the subsequent months since its launch, Apple could have made up for that loss with its record Mac sales last quarter as all new Macs ship with Lion and can’t be downgraded to an earlier version. Apple sold 4.89 million new Macs in the last quarter, far more than the number of users upgrading to Lion through the Mac App Store.

While Lion’s early install numbers did give Apple something to brag about, we don’t think its goal was ever to get all Mac users to upgrade. The company probably wanted enough people to upgrade through the App Store to prove that one doesn’t need a disk drive to install an OS. The App store opened for all Mac users earlier this year as Apple looked to combine the user experience for all its customers and this could have been a way of promoting its Mac App store.

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