iPhone 6 vs. 6 Plus Split Among Daring Fireball Readers

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Thanks to this tweet from Dave Rutledge, I figured how to get Google Analytics to show me the split in screen sizes for mobile devices visiting Daring Fireball. Just counting “mobile devices” for the last 7 days:

Device % Mobile Sessions
320×568 (iPhone 5/5S/5C) 30.1
768×1024 (all iPads) 29.0
375×667 (iPhone 6) 23.7
414×736 (iPhone 6 Plus) 7.0
320×480 (old iPhones) 4.1

Those percentages are only for mobile device sessions. (Mobile devices account for 44 percent of all DF sessions.) Two points of interest to me:

  1. This is more confirmation that the split is around 3-to-1 between the 6 and 6 Plus. As many readers have pointed out, the 6 Plus is still supply constrained, so the split might tilt back toward the 6 Plus once both of them are available everywhere for immediate purchase.

  2. There are already slightly more DF readers using one of the iPhones 6 than the iPhone 5/5C/5S combined. You’re my people.

Bonus Stat #1: iPhone 5 Adoption Back in 2012

There’s no way to use screen resolutions to look at last year’s 5S and 5C launch, because their displays were the same size as the iPhone 5 from 2012. But we can look at 2012 and see the uptake for 4-inch iPhone 5 six weeks after it debuted.

Device % Mobile Sessions
768×1024 (all iPads) 37.4
320×480 (older iPhone) 30.4
320×568 (iPhone 5) 26.2

In other words, two years ago, 26.2 percent of mobile-device-using DF visitors were using a brand-new iPhone 5. This year, for the iPhones 6 combined, that number is 30.7. Higher, but not drastically so. This could be one of those things where DF readers are very unlike the public at large — I suspect DF readers have always been the type of people who buy new iPhones as soon as they come out.

What’s more interesting is this. In November 2012, “mobile devices” only accounted for 32.7 percent of total sessions; as stated above, today that’s up to 44 percent. In 2012, the iPad (all models combined) accounted for about 12 percent of DF sessions; today, 13 percent. So it’s roughly flat. (DF traffic overall is roughly flat too.) iPhones accounted for about 19 percent of all traffic to DF back in 2012; today that number is 29 percent. The growth in mobile usage among DF readers over the last two years is almost entirely from the iPhone.

Bonus Stat #2: OS Usage

While I’m looking at DF’s web stats, here’s the OS usage for all sessions (not just mobile) for the last week:

OS % Total Sessions
iOS 44.0
Mac OS X 39.1
Windows 12.6
Android 2.1
“Linux” 1.7
Windows Phone (sad trombone sound) 0.2