The year is coming to an end and as expected we will be getting lists from everyone in the industry on their best and worst gadgets this year. Before Google’s Zeitgeist is out, Yahoo has gone ahead to release the top searches by its users this year. In technology where our interests lie things are interesting. While some searches like Apple’s dominance of the tablet market are obvious, some are startling. Like Yahoo users being more interested in the 12 inch Microsoft Surface Pro 3 than the relatively cheaper Android offerings in the tablet market.
At the very top is the Apple iPhone 6. Apple’s latest duo of the 6 and 6 Plus seems to be such a darling of many or could have aroused the curiosity of more people searching on Yahoo than any other gadget this year. Never mind it was not until the final months of the year that the two devices were eventually available. The iPhone 6 came in 9th in Yahoo’s overall search index this year. So popular is the iPhone 6 amongst those who searched for it on Yahoo this year that the device that follows it, the Samsung Galaxy S5, couldn’t generate a third of the interest it did. Kudos Apple!
The Galaxy S5 is the cool kid of the Android world coming in at position two and being the top-most of the green robot devices. For a device whose sales haven’t been reflective of the wide adoption its predecessors got in their time and given the circumstances they launched in, it has outdone itself. The Galaxy Note 4 which is indicative of the future Samsung wants to embrace with a new design language and more focus on build quality, comes in at position 3. Again, like the iPhones, it has only been available in the last few months and it is quite an achievement to have gotten so much attention. The Galaxy S5 which comes ahead of it is several months old. Interesting to note (see what I did there?) is that there is no other smartphone in this list and with impressive devices like the Motorola Moto X 2014 and the gigantic Google Nexus 6 modeled after it being released to much fanfare from the Android community lately, we can only say, well in Note 4!
Weirdos like the GoPro HERO camcorder do make it to the top 10 most searched gadgets on Yahoo. Notably, the Apple iPad mini comes in at number 5. That’s four places ahead of its bigger sibling, the iPad Air, which comes in at number 9. The iPad mini got a refresh recently with the iPad mini 3 adding onto an already impressive package, TouchID amongst other expected hardware upgrades. It means so much that Apple’s small tablet sparked the interest of more people than the traditional iPad. Well, with the decline in tablet sales worldwide this year and the rise of phablet love, it is only sensible that mid-sized tablets out-rank their bigger counterparts. The Kindle Fire from Amazon with its forked version of Android is the Google-backed OS’s only saving grace at number 7 while Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 which is billed more as a laptop replacement than an iPad-killer closes the list at number 10.
Notable mention goes to the two fierce rivals in gaming. The consoles. Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s Play Station 4. Microsoft’s console comes in two places before the eighth placed PS4.
It is quite telling that there is no Windows Phone smartphone on that list. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
