In a recent poll, we asked what version of operating system you are using on your audio computer. Not only whether it is macOS or Windows but what version you are using and whether you stay a version or two behind the latest release. We can now share the results.
The Results
Nearly 4,000 of you responded to this poll. Here are the results from the poll…
What Operating System Version Are You Using?
As you can see, Windows 10 is the most used operating system, followed by macOS Catalina. But then the next 5 positions are all versions of the macOS with Windows 7 in 8th place.
What about Mac and Windows usage? We added all the different versions of each…
Which Platform Do You Use?
Are You Using The Current Version?
We also wanted to see how many people are using the current version of your chosen operating system. For this, we recalculated the numbers so that these are percentages of all the respondents using either macOS or Windows.
Which Version Of Windows Are You Using
For Windows users, it is very clear, almost everyone is on the current version of the Windows operating system with over 93% using Windows 10.
What about macOS users, is it as clear cut?
Which Version Of macOS Are You Using
As you can see, it is nowhere as clear cut as it was with Windows users. But we suggest there are a number of factors which explain this.
Firstly Windows 10 has been around since July 2015, All software brands have had plenty of time to support it and the updates are incremental with relatively small implications.
Whilst Microsoft’s last OS release was more than 5 years ago, Apple has been releasing a new version of the macOS annually, each with significant changes, requiring software developers to make changes to their products. We had macOS Big Sur released in November 2020, macOS Catalina in September 2019, macOS Mojave in September 2018, macOS High Sierra in September 2017 and macOS Sierra in September 2016.
All of this means that since Microsoft released Windows 10, Apple has released 5 significant new versions of its operating system and it is our view that this is the main reason the results are so different between Mac and Windows users.
But what about the usage of the current Mac operating system. Again things are a little different here too.
The current version of the macOS is macOS 11 Big Sur, which was announced at Apple’s WWDC 2020 event in June 2020 and only released in November 2020. As a result, it still not approved by a lot of the DAW brands and many other pro-audio software developers as you can see in our searchable macOS Big Sur database.
The upshot of macOS Big Sur not being approved yet by many developers is that effectively for the pro-audio sector, the current version of the macOS is Catalina used by 35% of Mac users in the pro-audio sector. However, it is interesting to note that macOS Mojave is not far behind with 30% of Mac users still using a version of the macOS that was released in 2018.
In Conclusion
So there you have it, Windows 10 is the single most used operating system in the pro-audio sector, but it has been around for more than 5 years, whereas Apple has had an annual release of their operating system, meaning that takeup of any one of them is going to be smaller. That said, Apple’s operating system and platform are the most popular in the pro-audio sector with 70% of respondents using one of Apple’s operating systems.