iOS for iPad surpasses Linux in top 'desktop OS' ranking

Apple's iPad is used more than computers running Linux in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

Despite the fact that the iPad is not really a desktop machine, its gaining market share lands the OS in the top five most used desktop operating systems (OS) in the US.

"Not only is iPad now so widely used that it shows up in this list," said web monitoring company Pingdom, "iOS for iPad has managed to pass Linux as a 'desktop OS' (we use quotes, because tablets will probably soon make up their own category). In fact, it passed Linux sometime around December. Not bad for a device that was launched just back in April of 2010."

Windows 7 had a 32.03 percent market share during April, making it the top operating system in the US for the period, said Pingdom.

Windows XP followed in second place with 31.22 percent, Windows Vista was in third place with a 19.03 percent market share and Mac OS X was ranked fourth with a 14.91 percent.

iOS for iPad captured fifth place and 1.18 percent of the US desktop OS market in April, enough to put it ahead of Linux which was used by just 0.71 percent of US desktop users during the month.

Around the globe, iPad's iOS makes up 0.94 percent vs 0.74 percent for Linux in the UK, 0.91 percent vs 0.76 percent in Canada, 1.19 percent vs 0.66 percent in Australia and 1.16 percent vs 0.81 percent in the Netherlands.  

Pingdom's April 20 report was based on market share numbers obtained from Statcounter and measured averaged visitor statistics from 3+ million websites. Mobile phones and other small-screen devices were not included in the report, said Pingdom.

http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/04/20/ipad-used-more-than-linux-computers/