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Comment by Geee | Hacker News Reader

There was an interesting pie chart shown at the Apple special event, which said that 75-80% of tablet usage is on iPad. I.e. iPads are actually used a lot more, even if they're losing in numbers. I'm wondering if there's a source for that graph somewhere.

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I don't know what source they used for that or if the number is realistic, but even as an anti-Apple Android fanboy I find it pretty easy to believe there is a general truth to the idea that the sold to still-used ratio on Androids is likely much more divergent than it is on iOS.

Historically Android tablets have had support dropped much more quickly than iPads. I'm sure there are lots more Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich based tablets just sitting in a drawer somewhere replaced by shinier newer tablets running Jelly Bean than there are iPads which have a much higher "hand-me-down" or resell value even if the original owners move on to something newer.

Anecdotal:

I know a few people just now considering upgrading from their iPad gen 1, and not a single person who is still using a first gen Android tablet.

I think it's possible that the low-end Android tablets (e.g., the $99 generic ones, not the Nexus or high-end Samsungs) a) make up a huge majority of the number of units sold and b) are used in a very different way than the iPad is. For instance, I have plenty of friends who are Apple all the way except for cheap Android tablets that their kids use for Angry Birds or watching video -- and nothing else.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I work for Apple.

Interesting point about resale value. iPads resell for insane prices on eBay. A lot of what might get chalked up as unit sales of cheap tablets in the Apple ecosystem involve second-hand sales of older models.

Doing a quick look at Google Analytics for a few sites I manage and segmenting the traffic with Google's built in segment for Tablet traffic, I show that about 79% of the tablet traffic comes from iPads.

I was looking at mobile traffic patterns a few years ago for Oceania, and over 90% of the traffic was ios.

The other important factor for HNers is rate and volume of app purchases, the last figures I saw there were also completely dominated by ios - that is to say, Apple users buy tons of apps compared to Android.

Would be interesting to see the current stats.

Didn't the gap also come out of the fact Apple sells direct, and when they say they sold an ipad, they sold an ipad, and when Google, maybe even Samsung, say they sold a device, it is to the end retailer (carriers, bestbuy, and the like)? So they may be moving tons of devices, some significant(?) portion of which are sitting on shelves.

I think usage numbers for one single device need to be paired with ownership/usage of other devices by the same people in order to be more meaningful. A lot of people keep talking about how the PC is dead. But I spend roughly 10hrs a day in front of a laptop (which is still considered a PC, AFAIK). So if I am doing anything online, it is more often than not from my laptop rather than my phone or tablet. There are still many things that I'd prefer to do from my laptop so I am also just as likely to get up and go to the laptop than pull out my phone or reach for the tablet. When the laptop is not available, the tablet will do. It would be interesting to see how many iPad (and other tablet) users don't even have another system to use, thus do everything on it. If I didn't have another system, I would use my tablet more. But I don't need to.

That's similar to the stat that showed people with iPhones used their browsers more than people with Android phones. Apple may be pulling it out of their ass, but its not like there's not a precedent for it.

It was 81% on iPad, 19% on everything else. Not sure which metrics they're considering, though. I assume it is "time spent on devices", but that metric is not very objective, nor easy to measure.

I found that to be one of the more interesting metrics shown - but have to agree with everyone else as to how that is calculated. That said, anecdotally, it seems to jive up with experience, but who knows.

I take any "official" numbers from Apple with a gra...no, the entire shaker of salt.

There's probably enough external data to confirm that the iPad owns the real lion's share though.

Apple is likely just quoting third party numbers which have been widely circulated and it's likely they're showing the more favorable NA numbers.

E.g. http://gigaom.com/2013/07/23/the-ipad-accounted-for-84-3-per...

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