{"id":15331,"date":"2014-10-28T08:55:48","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T15:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=15331"},"modified":"2025-12-12T07:15:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:15:00","slug":"yosemite-4-days-windows-8-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/yosemite-4-days-windows-8-two-years\/","title":{"rendered":"OS X Yosemite: Four Days. Windows 8: Two Years."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15401\" src=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blog-yosemite-adoption.jpg\" alt=\"blog-yosemite-adoption\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blog-yosemite-adoption.jpg 720w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blog-yosemite-adoption-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blog-yosemite-adoption-560x315.jpg 560w, https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blog-yosemite-adoption-220x124.jpg 220w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"bzdropcap\">Since very early on, Backblaze has supported both Mac and Windows computers, so we keep aggregate statistics on how many customers are backing up each operating system, and specifically what versions. With the recent release of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, I wanted to see the percent of people that had upgraded\u2014and what I found was astounding.<\/p>\n<h3>OS X Yosemite<\/h3>\n<p>The most recent version of Mac OS X, version 10.10 codenamed \u201cYosemite,\u201d was released to the general public on October 16, 2014 as a free download for users on Apple\u2019s Mac App Store.<\/p>\n<p>Like many diehard Apple fans, I was excited and installed it on release day after having used some of the prerelease versions on non-crucial computers. So far, it\u2019s been a pretty smooth ride, and we\u2019ve seen the same for most of our Backblaze users as well.<\/p>\n<p>Backblaze\u2019s current version 3.0.1 and later fully supports Yosemite, and even has a \u201cdark mode\u201d icon for the menu bar.<\/p>\n<h3>Windows 8<\/h3>\n<p>I was curious how rapidly Backblaze customers have been adopting Yosemite as their operating system, and how that compared to Windows 8.<\/p>\n<p>For background information, Windows 8 was released to the general public on October 26, 2012. On October 17, 2013, Windows 8.1 was released, improving Windows 8 and adding a few new features.<\/p>\n<h3>Comparison of OS Adoption Rates<\/h3>\n<p>I was amazed at what I found with Backblaze\u2019s aggregate user statistics: On October 20<sup>th<\/sup>, 2014\u2014just four days after release\u2014the percentage of Backblaze\u2019s Mac user base who were now running OS X Yosemite surpassed the percentage of Backblaze\u2019s Windows user base who were running Windows 8 (including 8.1), which has been available to the general public for nearly two years.<\/p>\n<p>You read that right.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It took nearly <strong>two years<\/strong> for Windows 8 adoption to reach 21% of all Backblaze Windows users.<\/li>\n<li>It took only <strong>four days<\/strong> for Mac OS X Yosemite adoption to reach 21% of all Backblaze Mac users, and it continues to grow each day!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Why Is This?<\/h4>\n<p>I have a few theories of my own:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Windows computers tend to be more locked down in corporate environments, disallowing users to upgrade the operating system.<\/li>\n<li>Windows 8 has had a lukewarm reception in general, and Backblaze\u2019s statistics reflect that.<\/li>\n<li>Yosemite is free and has the same minimum requirements as its predecessor, Mavericks, which had the same as its predecessor, Mountain Lion.<\/li>\n<li>Windows users tend to replace their operating system when they replace their computer hardware, so updates are fewer and farther between.<\/li>\n<li>Apple offered a free public beta of Yosemite to general users; it&#8217;s the first time they\u2019ve had a public beta of Mac OS X since 10.0 in 2000. Betas for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/version-history.html\">previous versions<\/a> of Mac OS X were only available to developers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What are your thoughts about why Yosemite has such a rapid adoption rate as compared to Windows 8? How do you like it? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since very early on, Backblaze has supported both Mac and Windows computers, so we keep aggregate statistics on how many customers are backing up each operating system, and specifically what versions. With the recent release of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, I wanted to see the percent of people that had upgraded\u2014and what I found&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/yosemite-4-days-windows-8-two-years\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">OS X Yosemite: Four Days. Windows 8: Two Years.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":15401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[131,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backblaze-bits","category-mac-love","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The OS X Yosemite Operating System: Adoption in 4 Days vs. Windows 8<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Windows 8 took 2 years to reach a 21% user adoption rate with Backblaze. It took OS X Yosemite just 4 days to reach the same milestone. Click for more...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/yosemite-4-days-windows-8-two-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The OS X Yosemite Operating System: Adoption in 4 Days vs. Windows 8\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Windows 8 took 2 years to reach a 21% user adoption rate with Backblaze. It took OS X Yosemite just 4 days to reach the same milestone. Click for more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/yosemite-4-days-windows-8-two-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Backblaze Blog | Cloud Storage &amp; Cloud Backup\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/backblaze\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-28T15:55:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-12T15:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/backblazeprod.wpenginepowered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/blog-yosemite-adoption.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"405\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Adam Nelson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@backblaze\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@backblaze\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Adam Nelson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The OS X Yosemite Operating System: Adoption in 4 Days vs. Windows 8","description":"Windows 8 took 2 years to reach a 21% user adoption rate with Backblaze. 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