Do You Use It? We’re Highly Invested in the Apple Ecosystem
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 “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.
Perhaps some who answered iPad, did so because they still have an old iPad lying around somewhere but they simply haven’t used in (or any other tablet for that matter) in years. My wife would fit that description.
When I first got an iPad, it seemed a bit pointless because I tended to doing almost everything on my MacBook Pro. Nowadays, however, of my iPhone, iPad mini, and Macs, I probably spend the most time on the iPad. Could I do the same stuff on the phone? Sure, but I don’t want to carry around a big phone, and I much prefer the larger screen and better battery life of the iPad when I’m lying in bed or sitting on the sofa. Compared to the Macs, it’s often just more convenient for streaming videos, playing music, listening to podcasts, and visiting web sites on a whim.
@Simon, I agree—I voted for my 10.7-inch iPad Pro as my primary tablet because it is, but I use it extremely infrequently at this point. I just don’t have time in my life for specialized devices that don’t offer anything unique to me. Simultaneously, as @chirano suggests, I do see my mother, for instance, preferring her iPad mini for many tasks, given that her alternatives are an iPhone SE or a Mac mini with Apple Studio Display—too small and too large.
My iPad is probably my most used device – the screen is much better for content consumption than the iPhone and it’s much more portable (both in terms of around the house, commuting, and travel) than my MacBook Pro. Just to give an example, on the train to work in the morning, reading my iPhone is a pain; getting my MBP out, connecting to the hot spot, and balancing it in my lap is equally a pain. The iPad does it perfectly.
I bought my first iPad for a specific use case: taking on a vacation, instead of a MacBook Pro. And then I spent the first part of the vacation at the Verizon store, trying to figure out why the iPad couldn’t connect to the Verizon network. I gave up and used my iPhone as a Wi-Fi hotspot.
(That issue was a fiasco. Verizon couldn’t figure it out, so I spent more hours at an Apple Store. They even swapped it for a new iPad. Then more hours at Verizon again.
They never explained what the issue was, but my suspicion was because I already had a Verizon account for a landline. Not “landline over cellular”. I mean, an actual landline with a different part of Verizon than the cellular service part. I think that broke their account provisioning system.)
I’ve apparently struck a nerve here—sorry! iPad folks, I get that you love your iPads—that’s fine. I’m going to walk this back a bit to head off even more comments along the same lines.
Actually I use both. I use my 27 in. iMac in my office. I use my iPads for different things in other rooms. My iPads are newer than my iMac as Apple isn’t upgrading that. When forced to I will go with a MacMini and 3rd party monitor.
This is me.
If you get a 5K 27" display, you’ll be enjoying the same great display quality as you’re used to with that 27" iMac. I recently received a 5K 27" ASUS display that turned out to be excellent and yet inexpensive. Combined with a Mac mini (or Studio) this makes for an excellent iMac replacement.
In the smart speaker category, my “other” is an Apple product no longer offered by Apple (Beats Box), so I wasn’t sure how to indicate that. It’s definitely Apple exosphere, but “old,” pre-“Home” Apple tech.
What is clear is that we, mostly, all use all of it.
Bar the headset, which is a research project really.
Might have been interesting to track what folks intended their next purchase to be.
Until last year, my last iPad was the iPad 2nd generation from 2011. It was a fun toy for a while, but I never used it much and it spent most of its life sitting on a shelf gathering dust. (However, the battery is still remarkably strong and it has gained a new life as a movie playing device for the kids–iTunes movies only because it is too old for streaming services.)
I’ve never understood how people could manage to use an iPad as their primary computing device for work purposes. How could someone get anything done with such poor multitasking options and limited to one tiny screen? But that is largely because I’ve been using dual monitors since I got my first computer in college (and now I use four monitors with my Mac Studio). For me, I’ve always thought trying to work on an iPad when you are creating non-graphical content (e.g., writing code, writing articles, working with spreadsheets, etc.) would be like being confined to a work desk the size of one of those school chairs with folding desktops. You could technically do it, but it would feel so cramped. I need to be able spread out my work (both electronic and books/papers). But I think some people are probably just smarter than me and able to keep more things “cached” in their minds without having to have all their notes/documents/papers spread out on screens or on their desk.
BUT, I now see the tremendous value of an iPad as a complementary device. I was recently given an iPad 9th gen., and I bought a cheap non-Apple pencil to go with it. I find the iPad to be incredibly useful for taking notes, reading documents, and annotating documents. I’ve always found it easier to read/edit documents on paper than on a monitor, but printing and scanning back documents was always a nuisance. With the iPad + pencil, I can now read and markup documents in a paper like experience while keeping everything digital. And Apple’s Sidecar features make it easy to use the iPad as a 2nd monitor when I’m traveling with my MacBook Air. … I also find it a lot easier and more enjoyable to surf the web using my iPad than my iPhone.
One of the real value adds for Apple is how nicely all of the devices work together. I can open a document in preview on my Mac, click the Annotate button, and then pick to Annotate on iPad to instantly open the document on my iPad and mark it up with my (non-Apple) pencil. I can freely copy/paste between all my devices. I can use Universal Control to type on my iPhone or iPad using my ergonomic desktop keyboard. Frankly, I just didn’t appreciate all of that until I got my first Mac last year.
At this point, it’s hard to see a time when I wouldn’t want to use an iPhone, a Mac desktop at home, a MacBook for portable computing at home and traveling, and an iPad. (On the other hand, I don’t see getting an Apple Watch–too distracting–or a VR headset.)
iPad Air, sits in a drawer, charged till it runs out and I plug in again. Used for late night interruptions to watch youtube and read news, and weather updates when bad weather strikes. I’d like to replace it as the battery lasts about an hour of watching Youtube. But I can’t justify even $300 until a deal at Costco.
I’m using AppleTV+ on my Mac Studio more and more (psst, a 27" 4K LG twofeet away is the same as a 65" TV 12 feet away). My AppleTV unit is in a box, somewhere.
Homepods, Minis,. not included?
I use either my MBP M1 14 or my Studio for serious photo work in LR but for web, mail, reading, YouTube, and most other things I use my iPad (recently upgraded from Air 4 to M2 Pro). Basically…I use a macOS device when things like multiple windows or horsepower is needed but for simpler needs the iPad gets the nod.
Do you mean this: Crutchfield: Beats™ by Dr. Dre™ Beatbox™?
If that’s it, then it’s not actually applicable, since it is an amplifier/speaker system, not a “smart speaker”. Whatever smarts it may have come entirely though your connected iPhone/iPod.
I have an iPad 6th Generation. iPadOS 17.x is the end of the road for it, but it did get a security update to 17.7.10 last week.
I debated a bit between choosing the iPad in the survey or choosing my ancient 8" Amazon Fire tablet. They’ve both devolved into niche use. I like the Fire for streaming video, but as I mentioned in another thread, I’ve ended all of my streaming subscriptions aside from Prime Video, and that one only remains because the lowest tier service is bundled with Amazon Prime. Usage is minimal. It is destined for recycling soon.
I’m actually quite pleased with the performance of my iPad. Unfortunately, I have little actual use for it, even though I have a keyboard for it. I’ve happily taken it instead of my MacBook Air on some trips, and I pass it around at a monthly nonprofit board meeting for people to order lunch, but that’s basically it.
I’ve owned 3 iPads. The first, one of the originals, has Apple-supplied engraving on the back and was a precious object. The second, an iPad Air 2, was my notetaker and reference tablet for years. It’s been obsolete for a long while, but is mounted on a wall where it serves as the main display for my Tempest weather station using the excellent “Teapot for Tempest” client. The third is my current tablet, which gets about 2 hours’ use every morning for consuming news and other information, and about an hour every evening that I need to follow a recipe from Paprika.
None of them displaced my MacBooks, but I find an iPad with a keyboard cover is much more suited to my semi-somnolent morning self. Add access to files from iCloud+ and it really is the right tool for anything I need in the daytime. Since the thought of exposing an expensive MacBook Pro to my kitchen environment gives me the shakes, it’s also a great cookbook.
Apple TV has displaced RoKu for me as our main viewing device. I’m holding off on replacing the one we bought in 2020 to allow us to stream a conference that suddenly went virtual during the pandemic, because we want a 4K model with the rumored features. But, in our bedroom we have a smaller RoKu TV with no plans to bolt on the Apple TV that will soon be freed up. It handles what we stream, and is all we need for the infrequent occasions on which we watch a TV there.
I think the major takeaway from the survey is as @ace Adam portrayed: if you’re in the Apple universe, you’re likely to use Apple products across categories. I imagine it’s frustrating for product managers that some of those categories are so hard to crack.
My “other” brands for smart speakers are Libratone and an old Phillips Fidelio (AirPlay 1). Both great speakers, in their own ways. If Apple builds a “middle ground” Airplay II speaker like the Libratone, I’ll consider it, especially if it’s battery-powered and also has Bluetooth.
Yes, exactly this, Apple has been slowly, but surely, implementing the Xerox PARC tabs/ ubiquitous computing concepts and I’m here for it.
I too have an iPad sixth generation and works well except when it slows down to a crawl especially in Safari and often becomes unresponsive. I’ve tried restarting and erasing caches but nothing changes. Have you experienced that kind of slowness?
I haven’t run into that situation, but I rarely use Safari for an extended time on my iPad. Typically, I’ll only visit a few sites in a particular session. I’ll come back here if I notice anything the next time I use it more extensively.