StatCounter’s trackers peg worldwide Android usage (in terms of total internet usage across desktop, laptop, tablet mobile combined) at 37.93 percent, a hair over ndows’ 37.91 percent. It might not seem like much ( to be fair, it could easily flip back to ndows’ side next quarter), but it marks a historic milestone: No operating system has been able to knock ndows off its perch since the 1980s. It also speaks to the pervasiveness of Android. It’s one thing to say it has more users than iOS, but these numbers are about usage. It means that more people are using Android devices to get online than they are with any other device, including s. ed, there are a lot of variables here, such as cost, cellular connectivity, portability, all of which offer advantages over s, but it shows that the people buying Android phones are using them a lot. The numbers tell a different story in North America, where ndows still holds a lead, with a 39.5 percent share compared to Android’s 21.2 percent, so Android’s global reach is clearly having a major impact. For example, StatCounter reported just last week that mobile usage in India is more than twice that in the United States. Mobile milestone: ile it doesn’t necessarily mean much in the scheme of things, Android surpassing ndows in any category is quite an accomplishment, especially in such a short time. s sales have been falling for years, but there are still lots lots of ndows machines out there, it’s amazing to think that more people are using phones tablets to get online than computers. It’s not so much the end of an era as it is the cementing of smartphones as our go-tool tools for most tasks—now it’s about seeing what they can do over the next 10 years.
