According to the latest Net Applications' monthly statistics pertaining to the desktop operating shares, the total Web usage of Apple's OS X operating system surpassed the usage of Microsoft's Windows Vista during the month of August.

Going by the figures released by Net Applications, the tracked Web usage of Windows Vista witnessed a plunge to 6.15 percent during August; while the total collective share of all the versions of Apple's OS X was 6.51 percent.

Specifically speaking, Apple's newest operating system - OS X 10.8 `Mountain Lion' - saw a growth to 1.34 percent; and the share of the company's highly popular OS X 10.7 Lion stood at 2.29 percent for the month. Moreover, Apple's Snow Leopard OS accounted for 2.23 percent of tracked Web usage; Leopard for 0.65 percent usage; and the April 2005-launched Tiger represented 0.15 percent of usage.

Meanwhile, other than revealing that Apple's OS X operating system beat Microsoft's Windows Vista in total Web usage for August, the Net Applications' figures also showed that, for the first time ever, the total Web usage of Windows 7 exceeded the usage of Windows XP; thereby making Windows 7 the most popular desktop operating system in the world.

As per the Net Applications data, the Web usage share of Windows 7 was 38.54 percent during the month; while that of Windows XP was marginally lower at 38.46 percent.