Mac OS X Tiger vs Leopard usage pervasiveness - any study?

Question

I need to decide whether I should support Mac OS X 10.4 / Tiger, and the decision likely hinges on what percentage of mac users are still running Tiger. I didn't find anything too reliable on the interwebs nor on Apple's developer website. Let's ignore the impending Snow Leopard release and it's impact on Mac OS version usage distribution.

Does anyone know of a study that might provide insight? Any other suggestions on how to figure this out? If you quote any numbers/percentages please include a pointer to the source.

Thanks!

Answer 1

It really depends on what user audience your software has (whether they're likely to upgrade or not). I don't have a study, but considering how each major update costs money, I'm sure there are many non-power users who are still on older editions.

Answer 2

OmniGroup keeps track of the system configurations that use their software updater. The current split is roughly 60/40 in Leopard's favor.

Answer 3

Keep in mind that, judging from previous releases, Apple will likely drop official support of Tiger once Snow Leopard is released, which should be any day now.

Answer 4

Take a look at the Sparkle+ stats, that the Adium project is collecting.
The stats are available here.

Answer 5

You're better off targeting Leopard only, especially with Snow Leopard coming out at the end of the week with a lot of changes to key technologies. Apple moves pretty quickly and soon enough supporting Leopard will be your legacy support.

Answer 6

From the Adium Sparkle+ stats that weichsel linked to:

 10.3         :   2170 ( 1.3%)
 10.4         :  28645 (16.3%)
 10.5 or above: 134269 (82.4%)