If anyone has any doubt that iPhones, iPads and other iOS devices are the future of Apple, just take a look at the chart above from Asymco. It shows all iOS products sold cumulatively versus all OS X products ever sold (Macs) over the past 28 years. The iPhone has only been around for four years, but in that time more iPhones have been sold than all the Macs ever sold in Apple’s entire history.
The total number of Macs sold is 122 million. In 2011 alone, if you tally up all the iOS devices including iPods and iPads, 156 million were sold—more than all Macs ever sold. In one year. All told, Apple has sold 316 million total iOS devices over the past few years, iOS devices simply overwhelm OS X devices in terms of how many are out there. No wonder Apple is making OS X look and feel a little bit more like iOS.
I don’t even know how to describe the steepness of that iPhone sales curve. Even “skyrocketing” doesn’t do it justice.