iPhone app usage declining rapidly after first downloads

***AppleInsider*** · 02-19-2009, 05:24 PM

The vast majority of apps downloaded from the App Store are in use by less than 5% of users after one month has passed since the download, according to an analytics firm that is also shedding light on other aspects of the business.

The data was collected from more than 30 million app downloads Pinch Media has been tracking as part of its analytics services. Included in chief executive Greg Yardley's presentation (embedded below) at the New York iPhone Developers Meetup were several revealing conclusions about how users interact with their downloaded apps.

Just 20% of users even return to run a free application again the day after it's downloaded. As time goes on, that decline continues, eventually settling below five percent at the one month elapsed mark and nearing zero after three months.

Paid applications showed a similar decrease, indicating that developers have just a short time to capture the user's attention.

Yardley also took on a question developers often face: whether to charge for an app or use a free, ad-supported model. He noted that paid apps are used slightly more than free ones and for slightly longer periods. In his findings, very few apps can succeed with ad support. The number of views just isn't there.

Assuming free apps are run a dozen times by each user, and that those free apps are run about 6.6 times more often in total than paid apps, Yardley showed that "the typical application would have to bombard its users with ads to beat the money it'd make from paid sales."

Specifically, the average free app would need to earn $8.75 CPM (an advertising term that means cost per thousand) in order to equal revenues that paid apps receive on average, but the market is currently standing in a range of 50 cents to two dollars CPM. Thus, Yardley concludes, only a few high-performing applications, representing less than 5% of the market, can maximize earnings with advertising.

"In other words, unless there's something inherent about the app that screams free, sell it," he said.

Category matters, too: games are used for longer periods than any other genre. Pinch Media found the long-term audience for the average app is just 1% of the total number of downloads. Sports apps retain users a little better over the short term, and entertainment offerings retain best over the long term.

Finally, the company estimates a free app needs 5,000 downloads in a 24-hour period to make the App Store's Top 100 list or 20,000 in the same period to place on the Top 25. Compared to six months ago, when there were fewer competitors, the threshold needed for the Top 25 has doubled. Meanwhile, the Top 100 minimum barrier for entry has increased by a whopping five times.

Pinch Media's analytics have also helped identify some of Apple's next-generation iPhone prototypes, which have represented themselves as "iPhone 2,1" in website visit logs.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

frugality · 02-19-2009, 05:44 PM

Interesting. We see reports of applications developers making a lot of quick money with often simple (and sometimes ridiculous) applications, but apparently this is just a 'flash-in-the-pan' sort of thing. If 95+% of applications aren't even used after a few months, then it doesn't bode well for the whole application market long-term. Eventually people will realize that, after having bought a few apps and not really using them, they only need the bundled Apple applications.

It appears that only the HOPE of usefulness or entertainment gets people to buy these apps, but then they realize they're not all that useful or entertaining after all. Just like people thought PDA's would be super useful, and then didn't use them because their cell phone had all they needed anyway -- just the basics.

So if you want to make a bundle on a quick app, better do it quickly.

ahmlco · 02-19-2009, 05:52 PM

To me it simply boils down to two things:

1) Many free apps are downloaded just to try them out, and discarded after the fact.

2) Many "novelty" apps like iBeer or iFart are only fun the first few times they're used. After that the novelty quickly vanishes.

Which brings us to a corollary: If you want to create longer-lasting applications, then make them useful. Very, very useful.

I use applications like Stanza, Now Playing, OmniFocus, Shazam, and Shopper almost daily because they fulfil a need and because they have depth.

hiimamac · 02-19-2009, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahmlco

To me it simply boils down to two things:

1) Many free apps are downloaded just to try them out, and discarded after the fact.

2) Many "novelty" apps like iBeer or iFart are only fun the first few times they're used. After that the novelty quickly vanishes.

Which brings us to a corollary: If you want to create longer-lasting applications, then make them useful. Very, very useful.

I use applications like Stanza, Now Playing, OmniFocus, Shazam, and Shopper almost daily because they fulfil a need and because they have depth.

Not surprised. Read a report that when Apple cane out with the new pinch features on the late MacBook pro, it stated more than 80% do not use the features after a few weeks.

bavlondon2 · 02-19-2009, 06:05 PM

I only have apps that I use on a regular basis:mbox mail, RSS, Beejive ect...the free crapones I try and then delete.

DistortedLoop · 02-19-2009, 06:19 PM

I shouldn't be surprised that every fracking little thing I do on every single electronic device I own is being tracked, recorded, monitored and analyzed so that someone can figure out how to make more money, but it just really irks me that someone's been secretly monitoring my application usage on my iPhone and reporting data back to some mothership.

How does the datastream flow? I'd like to cut it off.

Rot'nApple · 02-19-2009, 06:23 PM

So downloaded iPhone apps lose interest after the first month...

So did my digital camera...

So did my camcorder...

So did my cd's...

So did my vcr movie tapes before I got a DVD player...

So did my dvd movies...

So did my guitar...

So did my coin collection...

So did my...

I'm sure I can think of some more, but isn't it nice to know that you have them, when you need it?

Virgil-TB2 · 02-19-2009, 06:26 PM

This:

Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

"In other words, unless there's something inherent about the app that screams free, sell it," he said.

Is a very misleading conclusion.

He's referring to "free" apps that are not actually free but make money (or attempt to) through advertising. He's not actually referring to "Free Apps."

Most free apps in my experience are apps that are free because they are just for fun, or because no one would pay for them anyway, and most don't make the mistake of ruining the experience with advertisements.

I see this as a boon, in that if they are turned into paid apps, at least I won't have to deal with all that dreck that advertises itself as a free app, only to connect to some monetised website or show advertisements for the company or their other software, or the "full" version or some other such bull.

Virgil-TB2 · 02-19-2009, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rot'nApple

So downloaded iPhone apps lose interest after the first month...

So did my digital camera...

So did my camcorder...

So did my cd's...

So did my vcr movie tapes before I got a DVD player...

So did my dvd movies...

So did my guitar...

So did my coin collection...

So did my...

I'm sure I can think of some more, but isn't it nice to know that you have them, when you need it?

Yeah this whole article could almost be summed up by ... Duh!

iVlad · 02-19-2009, 06:34 PM

I think App store needs to have its own software hub, not just iTunes.

More like a social networking where people can see and search what's really good and what's not so good. When its in iTunes, its so hard to really find that. What apple needs is an iStore where they can sell iPhone, iPod and MAC applications.

Blah64 · 02-19-2009, 06:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DistortedLoop

I shouldn't be surprised that every fracking little thing I do on every single electronic device I own is being tracked, recorded, monitored and analyzed so that someone can figure out how to make more money, but it just really irks me that someone's been secretly monitoring my application usage on my iPhone and reporting data back to some mothership.

How does the datastream flow? I'd like to cut it off.

No kidding. Does anyone know anything about this?

I'm waiting for a Little Snitch for iPhone / iPodTouch before even buying one. Hey Objective Development (obdev.com), how about it??

wobegon · 02-19-2009, 07:04 PM

Like others here have stated, not that surprising. You generally can't use a third party app (and a number of the first party apps) without looking at the device. That requires a level of attention that the built-in iPod app and phone app do not. Games no doubt have the best staying power, but when I finish a game on my home console, it either becomes part of my collection or traded in for a new one.

We also have to factor in that many iPhone owners are like Wii owners, i.e., "casual" users. Fortunately Apple does a better job of letting people know the App Store actually exists (unlike Nintendo and their WiiWare store, though their Virtual Console store is apparently pretty popular; the Wii's paltry 512MB of internal memory and inability to load games off SD cards doesn't help either).

nextcube · 02-19-2009, 07:13 PM

I think these statistics are generated by the ad-supported applications - when you launch the program, it loads the ads from an adserver; they just kept track of which apps were requesting ads from a particular phone. AFAIK, there isn't some snooper app on the iPhone that radios your application usage back to AAPL.

That said, I admit that I only use a small number of apps on a regular basis - Shazam, Pandora, DistantSuns, Gasbuddy. THe IGN reviews app, eBay, and SportsTap are in the second tier. I have a bunch of games that only my kids play!

hillstones · 02-19-2009, 07:37 PM

Where do they get their stats? I use free apps quite often on my iPhone.

**Marvin** · 02-19-2009, 07:39 PM

A lot of the apps are junk. The ones that are good, for example some of the games, you can finish them in about a week tops because they are just too shallow.

I don't suppose you can expect mobile apps to be anything but disposable - on that platform, software packages are like ringtones.

I blame Apple's rating system for this partly because there's no way to browse apps by rating so how can new buyers see what apps are good? This means they get apps that they discover are bad and delete or don't use them.

As time goes on, I hope we'll see some better quality software. It's only been 8 months or so since the app store went up so it's still a fairly new thing relative to development schedules.

aaarrrgggh · 02-19-2009, 08:00 PM

How the fsck are 500,000 applications all going to be sufficiently useful to warrant continued usage over time?

"Truly Useful" applications priced over $5 tend to have very limited appeal based on people's history with the ...less useful applications. I'm looking at you damn HP-1x calculators for $20 each!

BuzDots · 02-19-2009, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

Yeah this whole article could almost be summed up by ... Duh!

NO SH!T - Who would have known!!

Yep, what pisses me off is I took the time to read this drivel.

SpamSandwich · 02-19-2009, 09:43 PM

Anyone who is currently developing apps for the iPhone/iPod touch already knows this.

teckstud · 02-19-2009, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blah64

No kidding. Does anyone know anything about this?

I'm waiting for a Little Snitch for iPhone / iPodTouch before even buying one. Hey Objective Development (obdev.com), how about it??

Is it from the Genius (ha!) recommender system? If that ever wasn't a veiled invasion of privacy- then what is? Never used it - never will. God only knows what it's sending to Apple.
Maybe somebody hacked the Genius?

Fast Fred 1 · 02-19-2009, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hillstones

Where do they get their stats? I use free apps quite often on my iPhone.

Ever think they just made them up.... where is the proof, why is it we willing to believe every thing we read? Maybe the competition has something to do with this?

Has anyone or do you know anyone who have been foreclosed on??

teckstud · 02-19-2009, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvin

A lot of the apps are junk. The ones that are good, for example some of the games, you can finish them in about a week tops because they are just too shallow.

I don't suppose you can expect mobile apps to be anything but disposable - on that platform, software packages are like ringtones.

I blame Apple's rating system for this partly because there's no way to browse apps by rating so how can new buyers see what apps are good? This means they get apps that they discover are bad and delete or don't use them.

As time goes on, I hope we'll see some better quality software. It's only been 8 months or so since the app store went up so it's still a fairly new thing relative to development schedules.

Why exactly is there so much junk allowed? Apple had such an arduous screening process in order to qualify- obviously none of it geared towards taste.

teckstud · 02-19-2009, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fast Fred 1

Ever think they just made them up.... where is the proof, why is it we willing to believe every thing we read? Maybe the competition has something to do with this?

Has anyone or do you know anyone who have been foreclosed on??

Well if Genius can tell Apple about your songs- why not your Apps too?

alansky · 02-20-2009, 12:43 AM

I strongly disagree with the conclusions of this study, and would like to know exactly how the data was collected. Speaking for myself, I have downloaded many free iPhone apps that do end up in the discard pile after a single use. But hey, they're free. What's the harm in downloading a free app just out of curiosity? On the other hand, I have rarely discarded an app that I paid for. I am much more choosy about the apps I spend money on, and I suspect that many iPhone owners would say the same. My aim is to end up with a really nice set of iPhone apps, some of which will win a permanent place on my iPhone screen, others that I expect to load as needed in special circumstances--when traveling, for example. Just because I don't use a particular app every day doesn't mean it isn't a valuable part of my iPhone kit.

The conclusions of this study suggest that iPhone users are easily jaded and may lose interest altogether in downloading iPhone apps over time. Again, I strongly disagree. The more apps I download and experiment with, the more blown away I am by the iPhone's potential. But discriminating users have to sift through a huge quantity of crap to find the good stuff.

wnurse · 02-20-2009, 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rot'nApple

So downloaded iPhone apps lose interest after the first month...

So did my digital camera...

So did my camcorder...

So did my cd's...

So did my vcr movie tapes before I got a DVD player...

So did my dvd movies...

So did my guitar...

So did my coin collection...

So did my...

I'm sure I can think of some more, but isn't it nice to know that you have them, when you need it?

You don't use your digital camera?.. then why did you buy it?.. that's silly. You must have tons of disposable income. I think the point of the article is that advertiser supported software is not the way to go.. if it was so obvious, then why are developers creating advertiser supported apps?..Obviously, it was not that obvious to those developers. It always amazes me when people think that things are obvious. If the fact that apps usage declines so dramatically was obvious, don't you think everyone would know that?. Actually, this sort of research is very useful. Don't be surprised to see many developers start taking advantage of this "obvious" fact by offering more paid apps (ie, less free apps)

wnurse · 02-20-2009, 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alansky

I strongly disagree with the conclusions of this study, and would like to know exactly how the data was collected. Speaking for myself, I have downloaded many free iPhone apps that do end up in the discard pile after a single use. But hey, they're free. What's the harm in downloading a free app just out of curiosity? On the other hand, I have rarely discarded an app that I paid for. I am much more choosy about the apps I spend money on, and I suspect that many iPhone owners would say the same. My aim is to end up with a really nice set of iPhone apps, some of which will win a permanent place on my iPhone screen, others that I expect to load as needed in special circumstances--when traveling, for example. Just because I don't use a particular app every day doesn't mean it isn't a valuable part of my iPhone kit.

The conclusions of this study suggest that iPhone users are easily jaded and may lose interest altogether in downloading iPhone apps over time. Again, I strongly disagree. The more apps I download and experiment with, the more blown away I am by the iPhone's potential. But discriminating users have to sift through a huge quantity of crap to find the good stuff.

Dude, you are in the 5%. What are you disagreeing with?.. that you are in the 5% or that there is more than 5% of people that feel like you?.. have you read the rest of the post in this forum?.. practically everyone is agreeing that they lose interest. I applaud you.. i too am very choosy about apps i buy(i hardly by any for my mac, i do not have an iphone) but sadly, you are in the minority, very, very tiny minority

ivan.rnn01 · 02-20-2009, 03:43 AM

energetic gadgety people have new shining gadget before their eyes

if you see the nature of things, then you wouldn't squirrel useless pieces of garbage only for a brand new stock of those is now on the web.
And when you do know, what are you looking for, then you'll download 2-3 applications, you'll launch them repeatedly and you'll suddenly find iTunes App Store being considerably better, than others. Everything (almost? any sad experience?), you took, works at least. That's not the thing to neglect, not every sourceforge can brag that about itself...

mrochester · 02-20-2009, 05:42 AM

This is exactly why I think all this trumpetting about how successful the App Store is is misleading information. I've downloaded about 20 apps, and I use precisely NONE of them on a regular basis, yet my 20 downloads go towards making the App Store this wildly successfull entity. If we cut out those 95% of apps that only get used once or twice, and look at the numbers then, the figures will be decidely sobering in comparison to the ones that are regularly paraded about in the news.

Charko · 02-20-2009, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alansky

I strongly disagree with the conclusions of this study, and would like to know exactly how the data was collected. Speaking for myself, I have downloaded many free iPhone apps that do end up in the discard pile after a single use. But hey, they're free. What's the harm in downloading a free app just out of curiosity? On the other hand, I have rarely discarded an app that I paid for. I am much more choosy about the apps I spend money on, and I suspect that many iPhone owners would say the same. My aim is to end up with a really nice set of iPhone apps, some of which will win a permanent place on my iPhone screen, others that I expect to load as needed in special circumstances--when traveling, for example. Just because I don't use a particular app every day doesn't mean it isn't a valuable part of my iPhone kit.

The conclusions of this study suggest that iPhone users are easily jaded and may lose interest altogether in downloading iPhone apps over time. Again, I strongly disagree. The more apps I download and experiment with, the more blown away I am by the iPhone's potential. But discriminating users have to sift through a huge quantity of crap to find the good stuff.

Exactly! I was going to write a similar post about my 32Gb touch.
It seems a lot of us see the need for a better organized AppStore, with, among other things, an 'intelligent' search engine.
After all, by the end of the year the number of apps will be getting on for 100,000!

NOFEER · 02-20-2009, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rot'nApple

So downloaded iPhone apps lose interest after the first month...

So did my digital camera...

So did my camcorder...

So did my cd's...

So did my vcr movie tapes before I got a DVD player...

So did my dvd movies...

So did my guitar...

So did my coin collection...

So did my...

I'm sure I can think of some more, but isn't it nice to know that you have them, when you need it?

...my neighbor's wife
...mistress use is down also (drudgereport)
wow this economy sucks.....perhaps we need a "stimulus" plan for underused apps "for the children"

so someone / mothership is monitoring my use of iFart.....what is this country coming to,....or yea its already here.

MJ Web · 02-20-2009, 10:48 AM

At face value this observation seems valid but here's where it misses. Apps are called "apps" because they're mini-applications. I'm going to use "Convertor" when I need to convert something, not every day. Ditto, "Urban Spoon"; I might not need to find a restaurant in months and then use it 3 days straight. The bottom line is just because an app's usage declines rapidly, doesn't mean the app won't come in handy at a later date.

ZagMac · 02-20-2009, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MJ Web

At face value this observation seems valid but here's where it misses. Apps are called "apps" because they're mini-applications. I'm going to use "Convertor" when I need to convert something, not every day. Ditto, "Urban Spoon"; I might not need to find a restaurant in months and then use it 3 days straight. The bottom line is just because an app's usage declines rapidly, doesn't mean the app won't come in handy at a later date.

#1 thing presently reducing my App useage (or else I'd be just like this post) is the mess the Apps become on my Touch. I know the screens can be customized, but once I filled a couple pages and things atarted to spill over, it would take more time than I've been willing to commit to clean it all up. I don't understand why iTunes interface cannot also be used to arrange Apps on various screens (example o what I need: ability to insert a blank page in middle, not just at end; this would prevent having to move most every App in order to create page of "games" next to older page).

Other thing, and I know it's self-inflicted since I have a Touch and not an iPhone, is that many of the "connected" Apps I would love if always connected just aren't sustainable if I have to find Wi-Fi. This isn't a complaint, of course, just effect of my decision never to go back to at&t.

ran6110 · 02-20-2009, 11:16 AM

I've bought a number of apps but most are sitting in iTunes and no longer on my iPhone.

I've stopped downloading most free & paid stuff and I totally gave up on the reviewed apps and games.

Besides the built in apps the ones I use/play the most are:

YippyIT - Great dice/slot machine game.
Tweetie - My favorite Twitter app.
Mobile News - AP new that include local stuff.
NYTimes - Obvious.
USA TODAY - My wife likes it so we keep it on both machines.
AccuWeather - Good weather program.
Bejeweled 2 - Use to be my favorite game until I found YippyIT.

Everything else is the build in apps.

YippyIT isn't a FPS or arcade game, it's a version Yacht (Yahtzee) and I can play it by myself, or with another person. The interesting slot machine graphics are fun but can be turned off for faster game play. It's a great game to play while on the bus going to work. And I hate to say how many meetings I sat through playing quick games!

I personally like Yacht/Yahtzee games because my family played them a lot while I was growing up. So this is a quick game (13 turns in a game) that I can play over and over.

After finding YippyIT I've just about stopped playing Bejeweled or any other game.

snackslapper · 02-20-2009, 11:30 AM

i have been using smart phones since the treo 650. i've had about 4 other ones since then. everybody when they first get a smartphone wants to put 3rd party apps on it. it's like the first thing you do with it. the one thing i have learned is most of them suck. at what point are you going to use every app. it's the same for the computer. how many useless programs have you downloaded because you thought it was cool or you had a use for it, only to find out you don't care and will never use that program again.

all of these apps are being bought just because there is a centralized location that puts them into your iphone.

if you ask blackberry where to get apps for their phones, they will direct you to there sites, but anybody that searches google for them will find them at berryreview, crackberry, etc...

for the palm you can go to handango. (i know there are others)

the main reason that apple has had such a great success with the app store is because a lot of people bought the iphone and that is their first smartphone. of course they will want to personalize it and make it their own by installing 3rd party apps, it's a new toy that promises a lot. most people are disappointed with the apps they download because they aren't what they think. kinda like steve jobs saying the iphone is bringing you the real internet, but without flash? i went nuts with my first 2 smartphones. if they buy another smartphone (anyone of them, BB, Palm, iphone) after their first iphone they won't buy as many apps because most people don't have the time to use them all. and people will start realizing that. plus the more time passes the more phone manufacturers include those apps or features in the original os.

i now have 2 paid programs on my blackberry. my original iphone was my mp3 player, but with slacker.com i don't carry that around anymore. for me it's all about the service and not the phones 3rd party apps. though they are nice if you have a use for them, and they are stable and have a free trial version. if i can't try it for free first i won't buy it because just like steve jobs promising the real internet, 3g twice as fast (lie), the creators of these apps are selling you similar stories. i've bought enough apps to know that.

snackslapper · 02-20-2009, 11:35 AM

free apps don't count because they are free. i download a ton of free apps. free doesn't make money. there is no business plan for free.

m2002brian · 02-20-2009, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fast Fred 1

Has anyone or do you know anyone who have been foreclosed on??

I do in fact.

alansky · 02-20-2009, 09:43 PM

"Dude, you are in the 5%. What are you disagreeing with?" --wnurse

I disagree with the conclusions of the author of this article, and I disagree with yours as well. Every market has its segments. I don't doubt that there is a segment of the iPhone app market that behaves exactly as the article describes. But that doesn't mean "the rest of us" are a tiny minority. You're entitled to your opinion, of course!

alansky · 02-20-2009, 09:53 PM

"It seems a lot of us see the need for a better organized AppStore, with, among other things, an 'intelligent' search engine." --Charko

Very true. The App Store's search function really sucks, actually. But the biggest problem is too much trash, which is threatening to overwhelm the App Store to the point of irrelevance as the volume of apps (and thus trash) continues to grow. The "more than $0.99 is over-priced" mentality that seems to dominate the reviews isn't helping either. Creative developers have little incentive to develop complex, sophisticated iPhone apps if they have to charge a buck for them in order to be taken seriously.

Some people compare the iPhone to other smartphones, but this is clearly a mistake. The iPhone is a mobile platform with enormous potential that can only be realized if the user community understands and embraces the vision. Time will tell.

palegolas · 02-21-2009, 10:39 AM

I'm buying cheap iPhone apps now and then, hunting for the "killer app". Most of the time though the apps (and especially games) aren't good enough. However, here are my apps that I use, and that I think are very efficient:

Notebook
Kanji
Units
FourTrack
Rolando
VoiceNotes
Facebook
Trafikanten (bus and tram times for Oslo)
Twitterific
Wikipanion
--- 10 app store apps

Calendar
Clock
Calculator
Camera
Maps
Photos
YouTube
Weather
Mail
Safari
Phone
Text
iPod
--- 13 Apple apps (+ settings)

So all together I'm using 23 apps on my phone. I'd say that's about 18 more than I ever used on my other phones right there. I think this is pretty astounding actually now that I think about it.

wnurse · 02-23-2009, 02:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alansky

"Dude, you are in the 5%. What are you disagreeing with?" --wnurse

I disagree with the conclusions of the author of this article, and I disagree with yours as well. Every market has its segments. I don't doubt that there is a segment of the iPhone app market that behaves exactly as the article describes. But that doesn't mean "the rest of us" are a tiny minority. You're entitled to your opinion, of course!

Opinion?. The author did a study?.. what did you do?... guess?.
You are comparing your opinion with research and you want us to accept that your opinion carries as much weight as research?. Have you done a survey?.. have you seen evidence to the contrary somewhere else?. Let us know.

02-19-2009, 05:52 PM	#3
ahmlco Registered User Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 66	Limited utility To me it simply boils down to two things: 1) Many free apps are downloaded just to try them out, and discarded after the fact. 2) Many "novelty" apps like iBeer or iFart are only fun the first few times they're used. After that the novelty quickly vanishes. Which brings us to a corollary: If you want to create longer-lasting applications, then make them useful. Very, very useful. I use applications like Stanza, Now Playing, OmniFocus, Shazam, and Shopper almost daily because they fulfil a need and because they have depth.

02-19-2009, 06:23 PM	#7
Rot'nApple Registered User Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 673	What else is new?... So downloaded iPhone apps lose interest after the first month... So did my digital camera... So did my camcorder... So did my cd's... So did my vcr movie tapes before I got a DVD player... So did my dvd movies... So did my guitar... So did my coin collection... So did my... I'm sure I can think of some more, but isn't it nice to know that you have them, when you need it? Global Warming, Carbon Dioxide, Greenhouse Gases, Shrinking Ice Caps, Carbon Neutral, Carbon Credit, Generation Investment Management - Al Gore - "Beware the Prophet seeking Profit!" - Dennis Miller

02-19-2009, 06:34 PM	#10
iVlad Registered User Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Reston, VA Posts: 367	woot woot I think App store needs to have its own software hub, not just iTunes. More like a social networking where people can see and search what's really good and what's not so good. When its in iTunes, its so hard to really find that. What apple needs is an iStore where they can sell iPhone, iPod and MAC applications. iWant new iProduct

02-19-2009, 07:04 PM	#12
wobegon Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 754	Like others here have stated, not that surprising. You generally can't use a third party app (and a number of the first party apps) without looking at the device. That requires a level of attention that the built-in iPod app and phone app do not. Games no doubt have the best staying power, but when I finish a game on my home console, it either becomes part of my collection or traded in for a new one. We also have to factor in that many iPhone owners are like Wii owners, i.e., "casual" users. Fortunately Apple does a better job of letting people know the App Store actually exists (unlike Nintendo and their WiiWare store, though their Virtual Console store is apparently pretty popular; the Wii's paltry 512MB of internal memory and inability to load games off SD cards doesn't help either). False comparisons do not* a valid argument make.*

02-19-2009, 09:43 PM	#18
SpamSandwich Registered User Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 8,461	Anyone who is currently developing apps for the iPhone/iPod touch already knows this. "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground." —Thomas Jefferson Proud AAPL stock owner.

02-19-2009, 05:24 PM	#1
*AppleInsider* Kasper's Automated Slave Join Date: Nov 1997 Posts: 6,166	Average iPhone app usage declines rapidly after first download The vast majority of apps downloaded from the App Store are in use by less than 5% of users after one month has passed since the download, according to an analytics firm that is also shedding light on other aspects of the business. The data was collected from more than 30 million app downloads Pinch Media has been tracking as part of its analytics services. Included in chief executive Greg Yardley's presentation (embedded below) at the New York iPhone Developers Meetup were several revealing conclusions about how users interact with their downloaded apps. Just 20% of users even return to run a free application again the day after it's downloaded. As time goes on, that decline continues, eventually settling below five percent at the one month elapsed mark and nearing zero after three months. Paid applications showed a similar decrease, indicating that developers have just a short time to capture the user's attention. Yardley also took on a question developers often face: whether to charge for an app or use a free, ad-supported model. He noted that paid apps are used slightly more than free ones and for slightly longer periods. In his findings, very few apps can succeed with ad support. The number of views just isn't there. Assuming free apps are run a dozen times by each user, and that those free apps are run about 6.6 times more often in total than paid apps, Yardley showed that "the typical application would have to bombard its users with ads to beat the money it'd make from paid sales." Specifically, the average free app would need to earn $8.75 CPM (an advertising term that means cost per thousand) in order to equal revenues that paid apps receive on average, but the market is currently standing in a range of 50 cents to two dollars CPM. Thus, Yardley concludes, only a few high-performing applications, representing less than 5% of the market, can maximize earnings with advertising. "In other words, unless there's something inherent about the app that screams free, sell it," he said. Category matters, too: games are used for longer periods than any other genre. Pinch Media found the long-term audience for the average app is just 1% of the total number of downloads. Sports apps retain users a little better over the short term, and entertainment offerings retain best over the long term. Finally, the company estimates a free app needs 5,000 downloads in a 24-hour period to make the App Store's Top 100 list or 20,000 in the same period to place on the Top 25. Compared to six months ago, when there were fewer competitors, the threshold needed for the Top 25 has doubled. Meanwhile, the Top 100 minimum barrier for entry has increased by a whopping five times. Pinch Media's analytics have also helped identify some of Apple's next-generation iPhone prototypes, which have represented themselves as "iPhone 2,1" in website visit logs. [ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

02-19-2009, 05:44 PM	#2
frugality Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 196	Interesting. We see reports of applications developers making a lot of quick money with often simple (and sometimes ridiculous) applications, but apparently this is just a 'flash-in-the-pan' sort of thing. If 95+% of applications aren't even used after a few months, then it doesn't bode well for the whole application market long-term. Eventually people will realize that, after having bought a few apps and not really using them, they only need the bundled Apple applications. It appears that only the HOPE of usefulness or entertainment gets people to buy these apps, but then they realize they're not all that useful or entertaining after all. Just like people thought PDA's would be super useful, and then didn't use them because their cell phone had all they needed anyway -- just the basics. So if you want to make a bundle on a quick app, better do it quickly.

02-19-2009, 06:05 PM	#5
bavlondon2 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 661	I only have apps that I use on a regular basis:mbox mail, RSS, Beejive ect...the free crapones I try and then delete.

02-19-2009, 06:19 PM	#6
DistortedLoop Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 84	I shouldn't be surprised that every fracking little thing I do on every single electronic device I own is being tracked, recorded, monitored and analyzed so that someone can figure out how to make more money, but it just really irks me that someone's been secretly monitoring my application usage on my iPhone and reporting data back to some mothership. How does the datastream flow? I'd like to cut it off.

02-19-2009, 07:13 PM	#13
nextcube Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 1	I think these statistics are generated by the ad-supported applications - when you launch the program, it loads the ads from an adserver; they just kept track of which apps were requesting ads from a particular phone. AFAIK, there isn't some snooper app on the iPhone that radios your application usage back to AAPL. That said, I admit that I only use a small number of apps on a regular basis - Shazam, Pandora, DistantSuns, Gasbuddy. THe IGN reviews app, eBay, and SportsTap are in the second tier. I have a bunch of games that only my kids play!

02-19-2009, 07:37 PM	#14
hillstones Registered User Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 859	Where do they get their stats? I use free apps quite often on my iPhone.

02-19-2009, 07:39 PM	#15
Marvin Global Moderator Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 5,251	A lot of the apps are junk. The ones that are good, for example some of the games, you can finish them in about a week tops because they are just too shallow. I don't suppose you can expect mobile apps to be anything but disposable - on that platform, software packages are like ringtones. I blame Apple's rating system for this partly because there's no way to browse apps by rating so how can new buyers see what apps are good? This means they get apps that they discover are bad and delete or don't use them. As time goes on, I hope we'll see some better quality software. It's only been 8 months or so since the app store went up so it's still a fairly new thing relative to development schedules.

02-19-2009, 08:00 PM	#16
aaarrrgggh Registered User Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Paradise Posts: 403	How the fsck are 500,000 applications all going to be sufficiently useful to warrant continued usage over time? "Truly Useful" applications priced over $5 tend to have very limited appeal based on people's history with the ...less useful applications. I'm looking at you damn HP-1x calculators for $20 each!

02-20-2009, 12:43 AM	#23
alansky Registered User Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 143	A Different View I strongly disagree with the conclusions of this study, and would like to know exactly how the data was collected. Speaking for myself, I have downloaded many free iPhone apps that do end up in the discard pile after a single use. But hey, they're free. What's the harm in downloading a free app just out of curiosity? On the other hand, I have rarely discarded an app that I paid for. I am much more choosy about the apps I spend money on, and I suspect that many iPhone owners would say the same. My aim is to end up with a really nice set of iPhone apps, some of which will win a permanent place on my iPhone screen, others that I expect to load as needed in special circumstances--when traveling, for example. Just because I don't use a particular app every day doesn't mean it isn't a valuable part of my iPhone kit. The conclusions of this study suggest that iPhone users are easily jaded and may lose interest altogether in downloading iPhone apps over time. Again, I strongly disagree. The more apps I download and experiment with, the more blown away I am by the iPhone's potential. But discriminating users have to sift through a huge quantity of crap to find the good stuff.

02-20-2009, 03:43 AM	#26
ivan.rnn01 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: France Posts: 993	nothing new... energetic gadgety people have new shining gadget before their eyes if you see the nature of things, then you wouldn't squirrel useless pieces of garbage only for a brand new stock of those is now on the web. And when you do know, what are you looking for, then you'll download 2-3 applications, you'll launch them repeatedly and you'll suddenly find iTunes App Store being considerably better, than others. Everything (almost? any sad experience?), you took, works at least. That's not the thing to neglect, not every sourceforge can brag that about itself...

02-20-2009, 05:42 AM	#27
mrochester Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 497	This is exactly why I think all this trumpetting about how successful the App Store is is misleading information. I've downloaded about 20 apps, and I use precisely NONE of them on a regular basis, yet my 20 downloads go towards making the App Store this wildly successfull entity. If we cut out those 95% of apps that only get used once or twice, and look at the numbers then, the figures will be decidely sobering in comparison to the ones that are regularly paraded about in the news.

02-20-2009, 10:48 AM	#30
MJ Web Registered User Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 134	Bean Counters Miss the Point At face value this observation seems valid but here's where it misses. Apps are called "apps" because they're mini-applications. I'm going to use "Convertor" when I need to convert something, not every day. Ditto, "Urban Spoon"; I might not need to find a restaurant in months and then use it 3 days straight. The bottom line is just because an app's usage declines rapidly, doesn't mean the app won't come in handy at a later date.

02-20-2009, 11:16 AM	#32
ran6110 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 2	Bought many kept a few I've bought a number of apps but most are sitting in iTunes and no longer on my iPhone. I've stopped downloading most free & paid stuff and I totally gave up on the reviewed apps and games. Besides the built in apps the ones I use/play the most are: YippyIT - Great dice/slot machine game. Tweetie - My favorite Twitter app. Mobile News - AP new that include local stuff. NYTimes - Obvious. USA TODAY - My wife likes it so we keep it on both machines. AccuWeather - Good weather program. Bejeweled 2 - Use to be my favorite game until I found YippyIT. Everything else is the build in apps. YippyIT isn't a FPS or arcade game, it's a version Yacht (Yahtzee) and I can play it by myself, or with another person. The interesting slot machine graphics are fun but can be turned off for faster game play. It's a great game to play while on the bus going to work. And I hate to say how many meetings I sat through playing quick games! I personally like Yacht/Yahtzee games because my family played them a lot while I was growing up. So this is a quick game (13 turns in a game) that I can play over and over. After finding YippyIT I've just about stopped playing Bejeweled or any other game. Last edited by ran6110; 02-20-2009 at 11:20 AM.. Reason: added history

02-20-2009, 11:30 AM	#33
snackslapper Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2	apps are over rated i have been using smart phones since the treo 650. i've had about 4 other ones since then. everybody when they first get a smartphone wants to put 3rd party apps on it. it's like the first thing you do with it. the one thing i have learned is most of them suck. at what point are you going to use every app. it's the same for the computer. how many useless programs have you downloaded because you thought it was cool or you had a use for it, only to find out you don't care and will never use that program again. all of these apps are being bought just because there is a centralized location that puts them into your iphone. if you ask blackberry where to get apps for their phones, they will direct you to there sites, but anybody that searches google for them will find them at berryreview, crackberry, etc... for the palm you can go to handango. (i know there are others) the main reason that apple has had such a great success with the app store is because a lot of people bought the iphone and that is their first smartphone. of course they will want to personalize it and make it their own by installing 3rd party apps, it's a new toy that promises a lot. most people are disappointed with the apps they download because they aren't what they think. kinda like steve jobs saying the iphone is bringing you the real internet, but without flash? i went nuts with my first 2 smartphones. if they buy another smartphone (anyone of them, BB, Palm, iphone) after their first iphone they won't buy as many apps because most people don't have the time to use them all. and people will start realizing that. plus the more time passes the more phone manufacturers include those apps or features in the original os. i now have 2 paid programs on my blackberry. my original iphone was my mp3 player, but with slacker.com i don't carry that around anymore. for me it's all about the service and not the phones 3rd party apps. though they are nice if you have a use for them, and they are stable and have a free trial version. if i can't try it for free first i won't buy it because just like steve jobs promising the real internet, 3g twice as fast (lie), the creators of these apps are selling you similar stories. i've bought enough apps to know that.

02-20-2009, 11:35 AM	#34
snackslapper Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2	free apps don't count free apps don't count because they are free. i download a ton of free apps. free doesn't make money. there is no business plan for free.

02-20-2009, 09:43 PM	#36
alansky Registered User Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 143	"Dude, you are in the 5%. What are you disagreeing with?" --wnurse I disagree with the conclusions of the author of this article, and I disagree with yours as well. Every market has its segments. I don't doubt that there is a segment of the iPhone app market that behaves exactly as the article describes. But that doesn't mean "the rest of us" are a tiny minority. You're entitled to your opinion, of course!

02-20-2009, 09:53 PM	#37
alansky Registered User Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 143	"It seems a lot of us see the need for a better organized AppStore, with, among other things, an 'intelligent' search engine." --Charko Very true. The App Store's search function really sucks, actually. But the biggest problem is too much trash, which is threatening to overwhelm the App Store to the point of irrelevance as the volume of apps (and thus trash) continues to grow. The "more than $0.99 is over-priced" mentality that seems to dominate the reviews isn't helping either. Creative developers have little incentive to develop complex, sophisticated iPhone apps if they have to charge a buck for them in order to be taken seriously. Some people compare the iPhone to other smartphones, but this is clearly a mistake. The iPhone is a mobile platform with enormous potential that can only be realized if the user community understands and embraces the vision. Time will tell.

02-21-2009, 10:39 AM	#38
palegolas Registered User Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 383	I'm buying cheap iPhone apps now and then, hunting for the "killer app". Most of the time though the apps (and especially games) aren't good enough. However, here are my apps that I use, and that I think are very efficient: Notebook Kanji Units FourTrack Rolando VoiceNotes Facebook Trafikanten (bus and tram times for Oslo) Twitterific Wikipanion --- 10 app store apps Calendar Clock Calculator Camera Maps Photos YouTube Weather Mail Safari Phone Text iPod --- 13 Apple apps (+ settings) So all together I'm using 23 apps on my phone. I'd say that's about 18 more than I ever used on my other phones right there. I think this is pretty astounding actually now that I think about it. Last edited by palegolas; 02-21-2009 at 10:41 AM.. Reason: (typo)

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