Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons
license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary
on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the
entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/


          Do You Use It? We're Highly Invested in the Apple Ecosystem

   Adam Engst

   The sky is still blue, water is still wet, and TidBITS readers are
   indeed highly invested in the Apple ecosystem, as indicated by the more
   than 2000 responses in our latest poll (see '[1]Do You Use It? The
   Apple Ecosystem,' 15 August 2025). However, Apple's hold on our hearts
   and wallets isn't spread evenly across its hardware lineup. Nearly
   everyone uses a Mac as their primary computer, but fewer own a HomePod,
   and very few use a Vision Pro. Still, no other manufacturer beats Apple
   in any of these categories.

Computer

   The question that prompted this poll came from a reader who uses the
   Mac because it is a supported Unix platform, but he doesn't generally
   pay the Apple premium for tight integration within the ecosystem.
   Nearly all'97%'of respondents use the Mac as their primary computer,
   which is entirely unsurprising. Just under 2% of respondents rely
   primarily on a Windows PC, and slightly more than 1% use some other
   Linux or Unix machine. Just 5 people said they didn't have a computer;
   they all had an iPad and an iPhone.

Display

   But what display do you have connected to your Mac, if any? About 26%
   of respondents rely solely on the built-in display of a laptop and have
   no external display. But Apple takes the next spot, with about 20% of
   respondents using an Apple Studio Display, an older Apple display, or
   conceivably an Apple Pro Display XDR. After Apple, Dell was the most
   popular display manufacturer, with about 15% of the vote, followed
   closely by LG at 14%, probably due to that company's 5K Retina display.
   Samsung (6%), Asus (4%), HP (3%), BenQ (3%), and ViewSonic (2%) each
   have single-digit popularity, with displays from other companies making
   up the remaining 8%.

Phone

   It's almost as unusual for TidBITS readers to use Android smartphones
   as it is for them to use Windows or Linux, with the iPhone racking up
   94% of the responses. Android accounted for just under 4%, with more
   people (10 in total, not a percentage) saying they didn't have a mobile
   phone at all than used a feature phone (7). Another 7 people chose
   Other but didn't explain in the comments, so I'm unsure what
   non-Android smartphone they might be using or if they just didn't read
   the answers carefully.

Tablet

   The chart looks a bit different for tablets. The iPad pulled in 83% of
   the votes, but its competition comes not from Android tablets, which
   garnered less than 2%, but from people for whom a tablet doesn't solve
   any problems not already handled by a Mac or iPhone. About 15% of
   respondents said they didn't have a tablet at all. I'm not surprised by
   the lack of votes for Android tablets, since I can't remember ever
   seeing one in the wild.

Watch

   The picture gets muddier when it comes to watches. Unsurprisingly, the
   Apple Watch heads the category with 62% of the votes. However, 18% of
   respondents said, 'I don't wear a watch,' 12% wear an analog watch, and
   3% stick with a simple digital watch. Following that, 3% use a fitness
   smartwatch like those from Garmin, 2% wear a fitness band such as a
   Fitbit, and less than 1% have truly ventured outside the ecosystem to a
   Wear OS watch from Google or Samsung. In short, when it comes to
   TidBITS readers, the Apple Watch has no real smartwatch competition.

Streaming Device

   What about the Apple TV? It leads the TidBITS reader mindshare with 60%
   of the responses, and just like with the Apple Watch, its main
   competition comes from the 12% of people who don't stream video.
   Built-in smart TV apps ranked second with slightly less than 9% of the
   votes, and Roku was third with 8%. The Other answers made up 6% of
   responses and seem to include people who don't have a TV at all but
   stream all their videos on a Mac, iPad, or iPhone. At the bottom were
   Amazon Fire TV and Google TV/Chromecast, each with about 2%.

Earbuds/Headphones

   For this question, I kept the answers as simple as possible because
   there are far too many manufacturers and models to venture into the
   details. Apple's entries'the AirPods, AirPods Pro, and AirPods
   Max'received 68% of the responses, with non-Apple earbuds and
   headphones making up another 24%. Slightly more than 8% of respondents
   don't use earbuds or headphones of any sort.

Smart Speaker

   With this category, Apple is still trying to persuade users to make a
   purchase. Only 35% of respondents said they owned a HomePod or HomePod
   mini, compared to 45% who don't have any kind of smart speaker. Of
   those who have left the Apple ecosystem, the votes were split
   relatively evenly between Other (I'm guessing Sonos?) at 9% and Amazon
   Echo or other Alexa-powered devices at 8%. As with Google's Wear OS for
   watches, vanishingly few (2%) people use a Google Assistant-powered
   smart speaker.

VR Headset

   I couldn't bring myself to use Apple's 'spatial computer' term'when
   push comes to shove, the Apple Vision Pro is a VR headset. In an almost
   complete reversal of the iPhone's results, 93% of people haven't bought
   into the category at all. The Vision Pro does come in second, but with
   only 3.2% of the votes, just slightly ahead of Meta Quest headsets with
   3.0%. No one voted for the HTC Vive, but 20 people said they used some
   other VR headset without specifying which.

References

   1. https://tidbits.com/2025/08/15/do-you-use-it-the-apple-ecosystem/

.