Apple OS X vs. Microsoft Windows for Genealogy? Making a Decision

Many years ago, the desktop or personal computer market was split between Apple and IBM. Apple had always relied on its own operating system, but IBM licensed the Microsoft operating system or DOS. You might note that IBM no longer manufactures personal devices of any kind, but Microsoft continued to dominate the personal computer operating system market. Well, fast forward to today. Where are we with operating systems?

Initially, very few genealogy software programs were developed for the Apple operating systems and most of the programs were available only on Microsoft based computers. The arose a common belief among genealogists that good genealogy software was available only for Microsoft based machines. It is time to re-evaluate and discard that out-dated notion. The main reasons for this need to reevaluate is that the dichotomy between Apple and Microsoft is crumbling. The new kid on the block, Google, is making serious inroads in both the software and hardware areas of personal computing.

One way to tell what is happening is to look at websites such as analytics.usa.gov. Here is a screenshot of the current state of computer use by nearly 100,000 people on U.S. Government websites.

This website monitors usage in real time. Look at the browser usage. Google's Chrome is easily the most popular browser, with Internet Explorer and Safari right behind. Note that Internet Explorer (Microsoft) is fragmented into usage versions roughly corresponding to the usage of operating systems. More than half of the Windows operating system users are at least one full version back in their conversion to Windows 8. But note who is second; Apple with its iOS operating system. Mobile devices account for slightly more than 30% of the usage with the systems pretty evenly split between Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

Here's what was happening as I was writing this post.

As the number of users rose, the percentages held pretty steady. There are some definite conclusions here.

1. The market is no longer a two-way battle between Apple and Microsoft. It is clear that Google is becoming a dominant participant.

2. The use of mobile devices is eroding the dominance of desktop computer.

3. Microsoft's fragmented market is an indication of the difficulty Microsoft is having in maintaining a dominant position. Even if Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on new PCs, people are shifting to Google's Chrome. Note that only 3% of the users have upgraded to Internet Explorer 10.0.

4. The use of mobile devices coupled with the usage of Windows 8 and 8.1 indicates that very few mobile device users depend on Microsoft's operating systems. This is supported by current sales figures of falling sales for desktop and notebook computers. See "Gartner Says Worldwide Traditional PC, Tablet, Ultramobile and Mobile Phone Shipments to Grow 4.2 Percent in 2014."

In the genealogy software area, there is a decided movement to using online programs. None of the genealogy software developers release sales figures, but my impression is that unless a desktop-based genealogy program is combined with the ability to access one or more of the major online database programs, sales will be marginal at best. In addition, during the past two years, there have been a number of better selling genealogy programs that have released Apple OS X version or compatible versions of their software. In addition, if the genealogy software programs do not move decisively into the mobile market with full featured apps, they will begin to lose even more market share.

Here is another update of the analytics.usa.gov website.

Here are the sales figures for operating systems from Gartner with projections for 2015. You can make your own conclusions, but it looks like to me that any program that fails to make a mobile application and an Apple iOs or OS X version is going to ultimately fail.

Worldwide Device Shipments by Operating System (Thousands of Units)

Operating System	2013	2014	2015
Android	898,944	1,168,282	1,370,893
Windows	326,060	333,419	373,694
iOS/Mac OS	236,200	271,115	301,349
Others	873,195	660,112	545,817
Total	2,334,400	2,432,927	2,591,753

When will I buy my next computer?

Present-day research in genealogy is information intensive. Genealogists in years past had to confront the same amount of information, but comparatively little of it was immediately available. My two great-grandmothers, who spent much of their lives accumulating genealogically pertinent data over 30 and 40 years, would find all that they reviewed almost instantly available today. For example, reviewing the U.S. Census records for just one individual, before online digitized databases, would involve many days of research working through rolls and rolls of microfilm hunched over a microfilm viewer. My great-grandmothers even did much of their research before the advent of microfilm. Now I can go on one of the larger websites and find record hints for all of the census records for an individual almost instantly. I can review and attach all of the pertinent years in less than an hour. If I go on to my family trees on Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, findmypast.com and on to the FamilySearch.org Family Tree right now, I will see many more than 10,000 suggested sources which have been preselected for me from billions of potential records. These records are suggested with a high degree of accuracy from a monumental pile of records that would have taken me years to find before this technology was developed.

My primary tools for writing this blog, doing genealogical research, and helping teach others about genealogy are the computers I use every day, all day long and into the night. On a day when I am accomplishing a lot of genealogically-related work, I might spend as much as 14 hours on or waiting for computers. From my perspective, even a small amount of speed increase, such as my current Google Fiber connection is worth the cost. With Google and their ads, Google Fiber is all about Internet and TV. With me, it is all about working faster and more efficiently.

Over the years, I have progressed from the primitive computer technology to the highly complex and impressively fast technology we have today. When I started using a then-new Apple II computer in 1982 with Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston's newly developed VisiCalc spreadsheet, my life was transformed. That is another and very long and involved story. At the time, I was just in the process of becoming a partner in a new Apple Computer retail store. Over the 11 years I was involved directly with the Apple company and many other manufacturers including Kaypro, Compaq, Osborne, IBM and many others, I was able to try every new computer as it was introduced.

As I tried the new computers, I was always impressed by the increases in the speed of their data processing ability. It seemed that every new computer was a major step in speed and complexity. Each of the upgraded computers would seem to be so much faster than its predecessor and I had the incentive to get rid of my older model and get a newer computer. The new computer would seem fast for a while and then as I got faster in entering and processing what was on the screen, it seemed to slow down to a crawl. This happened over and over again as the developers increased the speed of the processors and the rest of the components. For example, one big increase in speed was the advent of hard disk drives. Gone were the days of waiting for slow floppy disks and swapping out multiple disks.

Let's fast forward to today. A few years ago, I suddenly realized that computers had progressed to the point where they could handle all the data I could throw at them. My benchmark was how long it took me to open and manipulate complex graphic images with Adobe Photoshop. In addition, my concern was how long it took me to maintain a genealogical database containing tens of thousands of names with all of the accompanying documents and images. What I found was that the computers themselves were getting only incrementally faster and that the real limits were now imposed by my own speed of entry, ability to read and review what was on the screen and other factors. In fact, the overall limits were imposed by the speed of transmission of the data between the Internet and between the hard drives and other storage devices. Moving Gigabytes and soon Terabytes of data took more time than any other activity.

At this point, I realized that faster computers would only have a marginal effect on my constant need for more speed.

Now, a side note. I do not really think that even a vanishingly small percentage of my readers or any other genealogists are even partially obsessed with the speed of the whole system as I am. I move to voice recognition and other technologies whenever I am frustrated with the time I have to perform a task and the amount of time the task is taking or I switch from one computer to another and even have two or three devices going at the same time. All of this to do more work in less time. I am sure some consider me to have a serious problem, but I am fighting against nature imposed time limits. I am getting older day by day.

On the horizon, I see Apple and Microsoft both discussing adding new computer operating systems and Intel introducing new processing chips. But I do not see the obvious increases in speed that I saw with the early personal computers. It is taking longer and longer for the computers to "slow down" in my perception. In fact, my present computer, an iMac with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core i5 processor running OS X Yosemite, Version 10.10.2 seems just as fast as iMacs selling today. The newest iMacs are running fourth generation Intel Core i5 processors with Haswell architecture and clock speeds up to 3.4 GHz. But using that additional power is limited by the programs and the Internet's transmission speed.

When will I jump on the bandwagon and move to a newer computer? That now depends on factors completely outside of my need for speed. The main factor is the cost to upgrade all my peripheral equipment and software when I move to a new computer.

The real decision making point depends on how long my present computer continues to function. Because of the massive amounts of data I have and my daily routine, I cannot afford to have my computer go down. When I feel that the system has served its purpose. I will immediately buy the next available, most advanced computer I can afford. My best estimate is that this will occur when the next round of operating system changes come out. I have already seen that an upgrade of the iOS operating system for the iPads will not load on my current iPad, so the handwriting is on the wall. New computers are on the agenda.