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back to article Apple iOS app hunger swells

The median user of an Apple iOS device has downloaded 88 apps: 63 are free, and 25 paid. Together with the 20 apps that come preinstalled on an iPhone, that user has 108 apps loaded onto their Jobsian smartphone. Take those numbers with a few dozen grains of salt, however: the stats come from a survey conducted by analysts at …

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  1. G R Goslin
    Thumb Down

    What if

    I'm sure that the average Joe would have a lot more apps on his device if the App Store only had a user friendly search and presentation. I for one am fed up with searching through several thousand apps for the one I think might be the one I'm looking for. If it isn't, then, it's back to square one

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    users love worthless crap

    Both Apple and Android do have a love for crap, but once in a while you find a gem. Very rare.

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  3. alwarming
    Stop

    Point of the article ?

    Let me summarize it for ya:

    "We are reporting flaky assumptions derived from bad data because the subject of the data is really [un]popular with commeturds. But.. beware.. it's bad data."

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    1. Shadowmanx2009
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      So

      Just like every other survey!

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  4. JeffyPooh
    Pint

    Close to 300 apps on my iPhone...

    Last month I made two (2) telephone calls. Two. Very likely that both were made just trying to find my wife in the mall.

    There's room for ~1700 apps now that Steve Jobs 'invented' folders. So, 1400 to go then...

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  5. Walt French

    Over my head…

    It sure seems like Google doesn't give much credence to this type of info. Just this week, Google says it might get around to purging the store of apps that violate their Terms Of Service (e.g., inappropriately taking customer data). Here they are, in a full-out race with iPhone, and they still have what is widely characterized as a store infested with spyware, apps that don't do what they say, inability to even buy an app in many countries, etc.

    There COULD be method to Google's madness: they want to provide a wide-open access to the internet, and little else. They seem to care very little for the little games, expense trackers, etc that aren't all about the www.

    But if this data even remotely suggests what people like to do with their mobiles, Google's approach is puzzling. Why not make it easier for developers to sell apps, and customers to toss a couple of dollars to the people who make these little charmers? Most of these apps are priced less than what you might tip your server at lunch, and they build customer loyalty.

    Of course, there are many aspects to Google's tactics that are over my head. Anybody who wants to point out why apps hardly matter, please feel free.

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    1. ian 22
      Reply Icon

      .. store infested with...

      crApps?

      Not having a smartphone (though I'll be joining the crowd soon enough), any word on how much better Apple's walled garden is?

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      1. chr0m4t1c
        Reply Icon

        @ian 22

        I think you'll find that it's different rather than better or worse. It's somewhat inevitable that app stores become clogged with crud once a platform gets popular because there's always someone out there wanting a fast buck rather than create a decent user experience.

        Apple gives you the convenience of having only one place to get apps from, so you only need to search in one place. They detract from that advantage by having a useless search engine.

        Google/Android have the advantage (for developers) of multiple places to get apps from, but the disadvantage is that if you (the user) doesn't know where to look you might never even know about an app that is perfect for the task you want.

        Apple's developer rules are applied partly to protect users (not always successfully) from malicious software and partly to protect the revenue stream of Apple and it's partners, but for 90% of users it just means no access to apps that they probably wouldn't want anyway.

        Ultimately, you should have a look at the various app offerings and decide for yourself, always bearing in mind that if you choose Apple over Android there are people in here who will simply dismiss you as an idiot fanboi because despite "saying" that people should think for themselves, they can't understand why someone might come up with a different solution for their own requirements.

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  6. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Compare and contrast

    With the Adobe mobile experience study from last autumn.

    http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201010/101310AdobeMobileExperienceSurvey.html

    Similar sample size but much more open about it being skewed.

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  7. Simon Buttress
    WTF?

    They count using the phone....on a phone.....as an app

    Way to go

    /slow clap engage/

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  8. JaitcH
    WTF?

    No wonder they need faster processors

    With all these Apps on their favourite e-toy, little wonder users are clamouring for faster, multi-core processors.

    What did these iPhans do with their hands before the smartphone came along?

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  9. RegisterThis
    Troll

    and clearly illustrates lack of Enterprise penetration by Apple?

    84 minutes per day using your phone and only 7 using mail clearly indicates very low penetration of the iPhone in the corporate market!

    But of course all any of this tells us is about the profile of person who signs up for Appsfire (rich college kids with too much time on their hands?)

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    1. FanMan
      Reply Icon
      Jobs Halo

      Don’t pontificate from ignorance.

      Don’t pontificate from ignorance. I’m a widely travelling 60 year old corporate type and I use my beloved iPhone for lots else besides email:

      iPod app and dictionaries for language learning

      Evernote

      GeeTasks (good Google tasks app)

      CalenGoo (superb Google cal app)

      Messages (SMS) can be used when data roaming switched off

      Kayak for flights

      Safari

      Camera

      TripAdvisor to check for hotels

      Travel Delux for transport around London

      Shazam for capturing music titles

      Good Beer guide for finding good pubs in strange places

      Skype

      Train Times

      Tunein Radio

      Spotify

      Zermatt aop for ski conditions

      And on... That’s just the most-used.

      It’s a powerhouse. Jobs, I salute you.

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      1. RegisterThis
        Reply Icon
        Troll

        @FanBoy (FanMan???)

        So I assume that you are a "widely travelling 60 year old corporate type" who only uses email for 7 minutes per day then?

        Personally I doubt that myself or any of my colleagues use our smartphones (Blackberry, Nokia and iPhone) anything less than an hour a day for email, so excuse my pontification from a position of ignorance. (i.e. out the office, checking and replying to email before/after work, during commutes, during meetings ... and even when it is just easier to look at the phone at the desk rather than switch from what you are currently doing to outlook).

        Of course the iPhone users probably do use mail a little less as they are nursing the batteries of their "mobile (no)powerhouses" through the day ...

        PS. I just spotted "Messages (SMS) can be used when data roaming switched off". WOW! Yeah, you should salute Jobs for that. Real Genius. I hope the other manufacturers copy that ...

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      2. Tempest
        Reply Icon
        WTF?

        "old corporate type" using "Kayak for flights"

        Shouldn't let too many of your customers know you are using the screenscraper Kayak to book your flights otherwise they will know you are 'old'.

        Kayak can't even offer all the North American carriers!

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  10. famousringo
    Paris Hilton

    Learn some stats

    A sample size of 1,000 is big enough to draw solid conclusions from a population of almost any size.

    The problem with this sample isn't size, it's bias. Every device surveyed is a registered member of Appsfire. It's like doing a political survey based on subscribers to The Economist and applying the results to a whole country.

    Paris, because she probably also places too much value on the size of a sample rather than its quality

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  11. Ted Treen
    Happy

    Would never have believed it..

    "Survey says: App lovers love apps"

    Next you'll be telling me that anteaters love ants.

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  12. Annihilator
    Boffin

    "downloaded" <> "installed"

    "The median user of an Apple iOS device has downloaded 88 apps: 63 are free, and 25 paid. Together with the 20 apps that come preinstalled on an iPhone, that user has 108 apps loaded onto their Jobsian smartphone."

    Nope, download an app, use it once, and delete it from the phone - it'll still count as one of the 88 apps as it usually stays within iTunes. I've "downloaded" 82 apps according to iTunes. I've got 34 of them installed on my phone.

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  13. Robert Synnott

    @RegisterThis

    An hour a day? An _hour_ a day? Unless you're customer support or something, I would have thought that an hour of email a day, on a phone, was severe overkill.

    > "Messages (SMS) can be used when data roaming switched off"

    Er, of course they can be. They don't come under the head of mobile data and are not treated as such by telecoms. As far as I know, no phone disables SMS when in data roaming mode.

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    1. RegisterThis
      Reply Icon

      Nope ... Business development ...

      Hour <> emailing, but also checking and referencing emails. 1 hour not really much ... only 60 minutes really?

      PS - I think you missed my dripping sarcasm at that line you quoted about sms. Our friend FanMan had listed that as one of his other really useful Apps which just blew me away for the sheer sheepleness!

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  14. uhuznaa

    App store search

    Someone complained about the search function in the App Store: This drove me crazy, too. Until I realized that you should *not* just type in some search string and then select from the automatically listed apps. Because if you do that, the name of the selected app becomes the search string and you'll have to type in a new search all over if that app is not what you were looking for.

    No, type in your search string and ignore the auto-list. Instead press the Return buttom on the keyboard. Now you get a real, good old search with a list of hits and your search string stays in the entry box, even after looking at an app and returning to the search.

    WRT the battery: Just plugged my iPhone 4 in again, after the weekend. Since the last charge it had logged 9 hours and 15 minutes of active usage and three days ten hours standby, it was down to 7% battery now. The usage included a birthday party where I shot 168 photos and some videos, as well as quite a bit of ebook reading, map staring, surfing, email, web radio and gaming. Only three phone calls though. The 3G and WiFi radios were on all the time. I have no idea what people who complain about their battery not getting them through a single day are doing with the thing. Eight hours of non-stop Angry Birds in the office maybe?

    I have about 50 apps installed, although I use only about a dozen of them often (more or less every day).

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  15. Tempest
    WTF?

    Since iThings are so Passé, iPhans have a new unit of measurement ...

    the number of apps they actually squeeze on to a unit and it still (just) functions.

    Next will be the colour: "My case is skinned in armagnac, so much more tasteful than hopsack, my dear".

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  16. Tigra 07
    Thumb Down

    Hold on a minute...

    It's a fix.

    The bottom says "excludes users who din't use apps at all"

    So the 108 figure is definitely too high for an average as they cherry picked their target audience and excluded anything that went against it to fudge the numbers.

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