iPhone market share is close to 60% in the USA, 56% in North America, 34% in Europe, 20% in Asia, and 29% globally. Australia and NZ are similar to USA and NA numbers.
The only place on the planet where it’s close to 90% is Africa at 87% Android.
So… you’re full of shit.
was that last sentence necessary? the last time i looked up it said that statistic. so things have changed
Here’s the iOS market share by year:
Not so slight point of order that you are quoting iOS % of market share as an OS and I’m quoting iPhone market share.
Not the same since your stat includes all types of OS to includes Windows, MacOS, Linux, and tablet OS. You’re cherry picking a stat to get closer to your 90% bullshit.
The worldwide market share for iPhones is 29% and 71% for Android based phones. It’s 60/40 where you live and likely for just about everyone you know in life.
Android vs iOS: Mobile Operating System market share statistics (Updated 2025).
It was my first google AI result. You seem overly passionate about this, you have apple stock or something? I was working on symbian phones back in the day. Im starting to get out of touch now, and surprised how apple has taken over market share recently
I think he is just probably annoyed with you just posting up very “specific” numbers as if you actually know something. Only to find out that they are actually wrong and your assertions were wildly off. You do have that tendency, so perhaps just a boil over on his part…
What Monty said.
And it’s not moved on for years.
People charge their phones every night.
People training for Ironman do not need a watch that lasts as long as their Ironman time. A few of them may want it.
And so on, you’ll never move the mindset, there is a demographic that want Garmin, and a demographic that want a smart watch. Few can bridge the divide!
Count me as another reader that also read this article as an advertisement. I don’t know why, but this statement: “A year later Apple updated the Ultra, taking things one step further with the addition of Bluetooth connectivity to power meters” is what did it. I think the reason why, is because that feature was added as a benefit to ALL Apple Watches. Which, along with the Training Peaks integration, made ALL Apple Watches much more usable as a sports watch.
Anyway…I’m a happy Apple Watch AND Epix user that just wanted to add my own little opinion. Ultimately, the Ultra is a much better smart watch then any Garmin and Garmin is currently a superior activity watch. As a result of all the smart watch stuff, the battery life is the reason why I still use my Garmin.
My Epix start/stop button gave up the ghost the week before my last race in Taupō so I was actually forced to use the Ultra for the race and it performed quite well. The auto transition worked well and it recorded bike power, BUT, apparently a known Apple bug, the .FIT file only recorded a map of the swim.
Maybe it’s just 90% of your friends that are odd balls 
Apologies, but adding this line makes it look like you are more interested in point scoring than debate; I’m not aware that i put that actionable information was my goal. As someone for who exercise/movement is lifestyle (commuting/transportation; so sorry, no walking from the parking lot to the office) rather than a series of workouts, and someone who doesn’t have a desk-based job, I just want something that accurately tracks what i do, without needing to press a start/stop everytime i do something. As I indicated, I think purely workout based watches will disappear over time, as they aren’t giving an accurate picture of the true load on your body.
he would do better with his friends than on slowtwich, were we are all odd balls lol
i would say he is looking at this from another point of view than, yourself . and both can be right
Why wouldn’t they need/want a watch that can last as long as their longest activities?
I switched from AW to Garmin specifically for this reason. Although it was prior to the Ultra, my AW could only track up to a ~3ish hour activity before dying.
Buying something based on one use case, deployed once a year, is a suboptimal strategy imho.
I used Apple Watch 2 for three years iirc. If you do 500 workouts a year, 499 of them are covered by anything that does swim bike and run.
On race day, use an old bike computer and the watch can cover swim and run. Or don’t wear it in the swim, it’s pointless anyway.
Nah no points here just fun and lovely discussion. Pk nails it, different objectives lead to different priorities.
I want a watch that accurately records splits, HR, Pace, and is easy to see and use on the fly. No need to record anything outside workouts
You want a watch that tracks daily activities and this may be a better option for that, up to you. It’s a true apples/oranges comparison.
Fwiw tho I don’t think workout watches are going anywhere. Less fancy is wildly popular among the faster guys I know, Garmin Forerunner 35 is the most popular around here. Sometimes less is more
I don’t agree that it would be suboptimal. The ultra is what? $800? And you can get a Coros or Garmin for half that (my F265 was $400).
I think your initial argument is correct that the people who just want a smart watch will tend to go for the AW but for someone who actually wants the fitness tracking aspect, especially the endurance focused people on this forum, will go for something else because it fits their use case differently.
I used an Apple Watch for years for triathlon training and racing (most recently Apple Watch Ultra) before making the jump to a Forerunner 965. As previously mentioned, everyone has different priorities and use cases, but I’m happy I switched and will be sticking with the Forerunner.
The battery life was not the main reason I moved to a Garmin, but surprisingly it ended up being the main benefit for me. Yes, on a typical routine day at home/work it’s easy to throw the Apple Watch on the charger for an hour or two. But when I’m on an “action-packed” weekend trip away from home, I might have a double workout on the schedule plus some other outdoor adventure (eg. long hike, long ski session, etc.) and sometimes back to back days of this, not to mention the travel to and from. In those scenarios it’s annoying and stressful to have to worry about charging my Apple Watch each day. Often on busy days you are forced to choose between sleep tracking and just charging it overnight, and there were at least a few times where I woke up in the morning only to discover I had forgotten to charge it or the AirBnB electrical outlet had malfunctioned and I wouldn’t be able to record all my activities that day. (Sometimes even when fully charged, the Apple Watch wouldn’t last the whole day.) And I would think for someone doing multi-day adventures (overnight hikes / bikepacking) this would be a complete nonstarter. Now, with the Forerunner, sure I’ll bring a charging cable along, but I can largely kinda “set it and forget it” — as long as I fully charge it ahead of time I can easily go an entire weekend without worrying about finding time windows / locations to charge my watch.
The other reasons I switched from Apple to Garmin:
The main thing I am missing about the Apple Watch unsurprisingly is the cellular and Apple ecosystem capabilities which for example would allow me to answer phone calls + text or call without my phone. I wish the Garmin Forerunner had some sort of feature where you could at least message another Garmin user (through the Garmin app) over WiFi, for one-off “emergency” situations. I also think the Apple Watch “auto-rest” in the pool was better than Garmin’s.
Garmin 2025 reminds me of Blackberry 2006; market dominance and confidence it has locked in the formula for what consumers want. (Battery life and endless data features.)
My 955 and Pixel 7a has had major issues for 6 months that Garmin is taking its time to fix. Garmin says they had to go to a 3rd party to resolve the Bluetooth connection issues that Garmin claims are specific to Pixel7/7a phones only.
Apple’s growing strengths in the health aspect of Smart Watches is a key battleground for AW’s main audience, so the incentive is there for Apple to continue developing these. There is a natural overlap for a watch that has superior health metrics (features and accuracy) alongside one that can accurately track fitness activities and. provide analytics.
“ALL” Apple needs to do is fix the battery life issue which is clearly not rocket science. Second, it might need to consider how/if that device should be compatible with phones outside iOS, something I doubt it would do.
That said, given’s Garmin’s arrogance and slow response to fixing bugs, the fact that Garmin introduces major bugs with almost every software update, the global outage 2 weeks ago, rising prices, and designs that are not cutting edge, I for one would be excited by a genuine competitor.
Coros, Suunto, Polar…not amazing alternatives as they suffer from many of the issues that Garmin has and have less functionality. Given Garmin’s shortcomings, I’m surprised it has enjoyed its dominance for as long as it has…surely it cannot be this hard to shake up the market?
And indeed I have definitely heard people complain about the demise of Blackberry in favor of touchscreens and so on. I wasn’t in the market at the time, but I certainly sympathize with the preference for physical keyboards and dislike of the app ecosystem.
Personally, I’d like something that doesn’t need to be recharged at all (replace the CR2032 every few years), plus reasonably accurate GPS. OK with minimal features otherwise, including omitting the HRM if everything else is good enough, I use a chest strap. No apps, no BS. Nobody seems very interested in making this specific thing, though Garmin is getting close with some models if you get enough sun.