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Global App Usage Still Rising, and Users in the US Spend 135 Minutes a Day in Them (geekwire.com) 47

An anonymous reader shares a report: There's a reason that everyone you look at it is looking at a smartphone. According to the folks whose job it is to track such things, people can't get enough of apps, and global usage of them continues to increase. In its latest usage report, App Annie takes a look at the average user's app usage for the first quarter of 2017 and reaches the conclusion that mobile apps have become vital to our day-to-day lives. Last year's report found that time spent in apps reached 1 trillion hours. The average smartphone user, in the United States and other countries analyzed, used over 30 apps per month. That's about a third of the number that are actually installed on phones in the U.S. People use about 10 apps every day, the data shows, with iPhone users using slightly more than Android users. Utilities and tools are the most commonly used apps on a monthly basis, thanks to pre-installed apps such as Safari on iOS and Google on Android.
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Global App Usage Still Rising, and Users in the US Spend 135 Minutes a Day in Them

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  • Apps! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05, 2017 @01:21PM (#54361995)
    Appy appers know that apps.... ah, fuck it.
    • Seriously though - everything I do with an "app" is either functionality that used to be embedded in my flip phone's OS, or something I did on my laptop, or on the game console hooked up to the TV.
      • Yep. Every time you make a phone call a dialer app is used, even.

        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          Yep. Every time you make a phone call a dialer app is used, even.

          Phone call? You mean that smartphones have that capability now?

          I suppose there is probably a niche market for actually talking to people on your phone, although I'm not sure who would want that, when it's so much easier to just text them or tag them on a social media post.

          • I suppose there is probably a niche market for actually talking to people on your phone, although I'm not sure who would want that, when it's so much easier to just text them

            For calling a landline, which nearly half of all U.S. households still have [slashdot.org]. Landlines can receive voice calls without having to pay for airtime, but they usually can't receive text messages.

            or tag them on a social media post.

            Good luck tagging me on Facebook when I don't have a Facebook account. I use Twitter.

        • Most young people never phone people and rarely answer any calls, unless it's their mom or their SO

          • Most young people never phone people and rarely answer any calls, unless it's their mom or their SO

            Translation: Most young people have turned into electronic introverts, and avoid speaking to other humans unless absolutely necessary. Rather ironic, since social media has turned narcissism into a profession.

            Can't wait to see how technology will psychologically fuck up the next generation. I'm sure by then VR friends will be waaaay better than having to deal with some meatsack.

          • I'm "not as young as I used to be" and I don't answer calls either. Unless it is my SO.

            If people were capable of limiting synchronous communication to transferring important information, I'd answer it.

            They don't, so if they want to communicate they're going to need to use an asynchronous method for sure. Or wait until my physical location is synchronized with theirs for some reason.

        • I use a dumb phone for that, you insensitive clod!

    • Users in the US Spend 135 Minutes a Day in Them

      Yeah, most of it while driving.

  • by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Friday May 05, 2017 @01:37PM (#54362133)
    That sounds about right. I split my time between the Kindle App on the iPhone when I ride the express bus to and fro work, and a Kindle when I read in bed.
  • Is it like credit card debt? Where the average U.S. household has $6000 in credit card debt. But if you look closer at the numbers you find that the vast majority pay off their credit card bill every month or carry a balance of less than $1000, and the average is skewed high because about 10% of households have like $50,000 balances on their credit cards.

    So is that 140 min/day app use (in the U.S.) typical of most users? Or is it just a small percentage of hardcore users on their phones every waking m
    • Or is it just a small percentage of hardcore users on their phones every waking minute who are skewing the mean?

      A friend of mine is such a hard-core user of his iPhone that he carries three backup batteries. I keep telling him to turn off the Facebook app if he wants to get through the day on a single charge.

    • Okay, i admit upfront that i am probably a horrible example of a human being and i need to get outside more. But....

      Scenario one: I spend an hour reading Slashdot on my PC, then two hours reading twitter on my PC, then three hours playing FF14 on my PC or PS4.

      Scenario two: I spend an hour reading Slashdot on my phone, then two hours reading twitter on my phone, then three hours playing FFRK on my phone

      By the metrics they seem to be using in scenario one i spent zero minutes using apps, but in scenario
  • by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Friday May 05, 2017 @01:42PM (#54362193) Homepage Journal
    I also use plenty of userspace programs on automatic data processing machines during the day.
  • The only advantage I find for most of the apps available is that it bypasses the adblocker in my browser. Of course, this is not an advantage for me, but for the people who make money off of those ads.

    There are a few exceptions for apps that make use of may device's hardware. But not many.
  • by Parker Lewis ( 999165 ) on Friday May 05, 2017 @02:47PM (#54362807)
    Report source is appannie, which is a app marketing company. It'll very unlikely they'll say something different (like the few months ago report saying the average user install less then one new app by month).
  • Apps I've used today:

    Apps I've used in the last week:

    Apps I've used in the last month:
    A web browser

    Unless you want to include the phone's dialer or something equally silly. The emphasis on the 'apps' model seems, to me at least, to cheapen software as a whole. It does this by swamping the markets with useless or single-purpose dreck. Note that I am not trying to imply that all apps are so narrow in scope, or at all useless, but I hold that the overwhelming majority of them are. A huge portion of them
  • Everyone I know is getting rid of apps.

    Everyone.

    And I work at a major university, so most of the people I know are 20 somethings.

    Maybe you should ask yourself who gave you that data, and what their end goal is, and "who" were the people "polled"?

    • by Nethead ( 1563 )

      I actually used an app yesterday to deposit an expense check. Is listening to a podcast considered using an app? Other than that, not much, maybe a picture of some cables in a rack, but that's about it.

      • No, the podcasts are part of the basic feature set. Literally, I think the only apps on my phone are: Sounders ticket app for passholders, Pokemon Go, and ... Twitter.

  • When I start a hike, I fire up Motion-X GPS on my Jesus phone. Over the next five or six hours, it tracks my mileage, route and elevation gain. I was technically "in" the app for all this time but I was not focusing on the phone.

To do nothing is to be nothing.

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