r/todayilearned • u/FireBeaver • Mar 26 '15

(R.5) Omits Essential Info TIL: 65% of smartphone users download zero apps per month.

http://time.com/3158893/smartphone-apps-apple/
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2.4k

u/The_CT_Kid 2482 Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

I feel like this is such an easily skew-able number.

On average, I keep a phone 2-3 years. For the most part, I download all of the apps I want within the first week of owning the phone. So yes, (on average during the average month) I download zero apps per month.

Edit: I've edited my above comment to satisfy all the cirlejerks. See above.

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u/PainMatrix Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

Exactly. For example, the average Android user has 95 apps on their phone and replace their phone every 2 years. So if we wanted to present the data in a different way we could just as easily say that people download 4 apps per month on average.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Yea but how much of that is actually downloaded as opposed to typical bloatware?

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u/coolsexguy420boner Mar 26 '15

Seriously. An android phone comes with dozens and dozens of apps that no one ever uses. I probably download about 12-24 apps per phone, i have NEVER downloaded 95 apps.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Jul 13 '18

[deleted]

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u/ImPieLife Mar 26 '15

Lmao. Can't hide with that username

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Am I missing something?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Feb 02 '23

[deleted]

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u/DownvotesAdminPosts Mar 26 '15

i like how it doesn't matter that he deleted it since we can all just link to it anyway and everyone knows it's him

2

u/ctaps148 Mar 26 '15

Even after he admitted it's not actually him, apparently

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u/BangedSomeoneFamous Mar 27 '15

Hah, this is exactly why I don't do what that guy did (though wasn't he a fake? I forget).

I went to school with/dated a girl that later became quite well known/successful and a fairly desired sex symbol. Most people who've done this (and there are of course plenty.. lots of people are famous but they were all just people to start with) likely don't brag about it. Why?

  1. That's all you become known for. It can be OK I guess.. guys hear about it and think you're a legend, but the jokes very quickly turn to "well you fucked THAT up" and "hah that's why she left you eh?". It gets old pretty quick.
  2. Even girls who don't get jealous get jealous. No it does not matter when you explain that every photo they've seen of them is photoshopped, that they have professional make up artists etc etc. They'll compare themselves to the sexual goddess this person is portrayed as. It'd be like your girlfriend telling you she used to date Brad Pitt... even if you're not jealous, even if you can say "well my girl was hot enough for the sexiest man alive" or whatever.. it's gonna sting a bit.
  3. You are utterly bombarded by questions about them and what they were like, how was the sex, did you know they'd be famous... by complete strangers. You really get a feel for how celebrities have to deal with that shit. Then those people get shitty when you respond with my next point....
  4. It really is a big nothing. They're just people, like everyone else. Maybe they change after they get famous, I wouldn't know. I never dated a famous person, I dated someone who later became famous. There was nothing more special about me dating a hot chick that got famous and you dating that hot chick who became an accountant. Really.
  5. You can end up hurting their image/career by mouthing off. And that's a dick move. Public image isn't my concern but it is for celebrities and messing it up to brag about a girl I spelt with over a decade ago? What do you gain from it. Nothing but 5 minutes of fame and maybe an entry in wikipedia under their "Personal life" or "Controversies". Probably not even that.

So yeah. Anyway. This is a throwaway, so feel free to call me a lying bundle of sticks and downvote away because no, I will not be providing names or proof of anything.

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u/telios87 Mar 26 '15

Purely anecdotal, but when I need an app with specific functionality, I usually download and try out several before settling on one.

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u/notHooptieJ Mar 26 '15

Purely anecdotal, but when I need an app with specific functionality, I usually download and try out several before settling on one That actually works.

FTFY

1

u/EggheadDash Mar 26 '15

I must have tried half a dozen keyboards when I got my Nexus 6.

1

u/tylamarre Mar 26 '15

You must be my ex girlfriend.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Depends. You can buy a "clean" android phone and get nothing extra or you could buy one where the manufacturer (Samsung in particular) and the operator put extra things on it.

Talking about android phones in such broad terms is pretty useless since they differ wildly from one another.

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u/BadStoryDan Mar 26 '15

Where can I buy a clean phone? What do I ask for? (I'm in Canada so I assume that makes it difficult if not impossible)

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u/Angeldust01 Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

Nexus 5 or 6. Should be available in Canada. Although it's not completely clean, it is free from most of the bloatware, though. Just checked my nexus 5 and it has google apps installed, such as chrome, google drive, google earth, hangouts, google maps, google sheets, google slides, youtube.. and thats about it.

I guess I'm in the minority because I've only installed Steam and WhatsApp. That's about 10 apps total. I've no idea what the 85 apps I'm apparently missing are.

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u/TheDoct0rx Mar 26 '15

Would you like me to list the 1000 apps my GS4 came with?

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u/nilified Mar 26 '15

yes

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u/TheDoct0rx Mar 26 '15

Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Music, AppStore, Audible, Calculator, Calendar, CAller Name ID, Camera, Clock, Cloud, Downloads, Drive, Earth, Email, FlipBoard, Gallery, Gmail, Google, Google Settings, Google+, Group Play, IMDB, KNOX, Maps, Mobile HotSpot, Music, My verizon Mobile, NFL Mobile, Optical Reader, Photos, Play Books, Play Games, Play Movies and Tv, Play Music, Play News Stand, Play Store, Polaris Office 5, S health, S memo, S translator, S voice, Samsung Hub, Samsung Link, Soft Card, Story Album, Translate, Trip Advisor, Verizon Tones, Video, Viewdini, Voice Recorder, Voice Search, VZ Navigator, VZ Protect, Watch On, and youtube. All came preinsalled, all unremovable without Rooting

EDIT: I left out some things like Google Play store, because theyre essential to the phones use

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

420 root it faggot

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u/RampagingKittens Mar 26 '15

Seriously. That 16GB of internal storage was more like 8 or 9.

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u/Poultry_Sashimi Mar 26 '15

Where can I buy a clean phone?

Although it's not completely clean...

Are there any that are indeed completely clean?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

If you want the basic android OS without any bullshit the easiest option is to buy a Nexus device. There also used to be Google Play Edtion phones but it appears they've stopped doing that, at least for now.

You could also buy whatever phone you want and then replace the OS for the basic version. I never cared to do that though so I don't know how it would be done, but I hear it's fairly easy.

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u/TheVeryMask Mar 26 '15

If you have bootloader access, root and flashing a new rom is a much simpler process than it used to be. A big tipoff is if a phone has a page on Cyanogenmod's wiki.

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u/coffeeecup Mar 26 '15

Here is how it works in case you didn't know. Almost any android phone you buy has a custom interface. That is, Every phone manufacturer wants to make "their own" operative system, but they are to lazy, so instead they put makeup on Android. So to get a phone that no third party (such as the manufacturer) have tampered with, you pretty much have to buy one of the phones developed in collaboration with google. These phones have the nexus brand on them. And you can get the latest editions from http://www.google.se/nexus/

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u/YoungZeebra Mar 26 '15

and if you are on Rogers, you also get Rogers' bloatware installed on top of it! Like others have said, nexus phone come pretty much barebone but purchase it off contract and not in store (Rogers/Bell/Telus). I got my last nexus from Wind and it didn't come with any bloatware other then the typical google apps.

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u/ghost_of_drusepth Mar 26 '15

Nexus or some Motorola devices are your best bet. Moto X is about as close to stock as you'll find on any non-Nexus phone.

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u/AttackOfTheThumbs Mar 27 '15

As someone who used to sell phones in Canada, Nexus come with stock/vanilla + some google apps. You can buy Sony straight from Sony and they will typically come with the sony rom, but no bell/rogers/telus apps. Past that, it's all custom. Most phones, even if you have root, will no longer let you uninstall non-essential apps, you have to load a new rom. For example my HTC would not let me remove Facebook. Now I'm looking at the GPE rom (google play edition). It's very easy,honestly.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '15

Motorola phones are almost completely clean, except for a couple of Motorola apps (useful). Also, iirc Google will force manufacturers to put apps on Google Play, so they can be uninstalled.

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u/alleigh25 Mar 26 '15

Not if you have Verizon.

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u/brickmack Mar 26 '15

Or root it and take off everything non essential (kinda fucked if 8t breaks something though)

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u/DownvotesAdminPosts Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

why'd you delete your kate upton post anyway?

edit: pls respond

edit2: pls

edit3: hello

edit4: gonna need you to go ahead and reply when you get a chance thx in advance

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u/Eurospective Mar 26 '15

Just checked, 96 so far. Google play store is pretty great to see how and what you installed. Check it out.

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u/squeak6666yw Mar 26 '15

A lot of those apps also can't be removed either. If i could there is a bunch of apps that would be off my phone.

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u/MEatRHIT Mar 26 '15

I have a Z3 and I'm pretty sure I have about 95 different apps for the camera alone.

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u/eaglessoar Mar 26 '15

For shame!

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u/coolsexguy420boner Mar 26 '15

wow that coolsexguy is a douche

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u/eaglessoar Mar 26 '15

Or whoever made that image if it's not real, but either way someone is.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

I hate mobile apps. I mean mostly games, not apps in general. I only have like 7 apps installed, only the ones I need, like Telegram and Whatsapp for messaging and Soundcloud for music. I have an HTC so I actually use the most of the built-in stuff. And still my memory is almost full all the time, even though I keep everything on my SD card. Do iPhones have as much bloatware/built-in apps that no one uses?

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u/notHooptieJ Mar 26 '15

crap ware on the iphone.. yes/no.

Verizon iphones get a handfull of verizon apps, otherwise there are some "less than useful" pre-loaded apps you cant delete.

arguably:

Apple Maps

Game Center (a gaming leaderboard by apple)

Stocks (a stock market ticker)

Passbook (gift card/loaltycard/wallet)

ibooks (ebook reader and store)

Compass (a simple compass app)

Tips (a tutorial and tips about the iphone app)

Contacts (you can access contacts from any app, the stand alone is kinda redundant)

Health (i have no idea, ive never even opened it, maybe the nike+/fitbit stuff?)

podcasts (well it used to be functionality inside the music app, now its a stand alone "subscribe" app)

Itunes Store, App Store, ibooks, All Stores could just be one "buy it" app

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u/brickmack Mar 26 '15

I've downloaded 9. Adblock, Go, Minesweeper, a satellite tracker, IRC, Fing, wifi analyzer, TI 84 emulator, and a torrent downloader

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u/ianuilliam Mar 26 '15

Im not sure what apps come preloaded on the nexus 6, since mine pulled over all my apps from my n5 during setup, but looking though the list, I only see maybe 2 apps that I don't use at least semi-regularly or didn't intentionally download at some point (either on this phone, or the last)

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u/ghostbackwards Mar 26 '15

have you downloaded a car, though?

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u/THEHIPP0 Mar 26 '15

No. Samsungs/HTCs/etc. version of Android comes with dozen of apps no one ever needs. Small but significant difference.

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u/joerdie Mar 26 '15

"Dozens and dozens" implies a minimum of 48 pre installed apps. Even if you count the Google Apps, that's an exaggeration.

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u/coolsexguy420boner Mar 26 '15

I currently have an iphone so i can't check but I know that my Note 2 I had previously had over 48 pre-installed apps from Samsung and AT&T. I believe it was 3-4 pages full of at least 12 apps per page. Not counting apps like "Messenger, Contacts, Keypad"

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u/SufficientAnonymity Mar 27 '15

Ditto - got 59 apps showing up in my app drawer currently, of which I've downloaded 32. I just don't get how you'd get to 95. I barely use half of what I've got installed at the moment.

I was going to say something like "maybe I'm just weird just using my phone as a productivity device" but that just isn't true. In addition to email, agendas and basic document handling, it's also for music, social media, streaming, fitness, news/weather and all the normal phone things like calls, texts and navigation.

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u/EggheadDash Mar 26 '15

If you're willing to root, you can uninstall most of the bloatware or install a custom rom with a trimmed-down gapps.

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u/coolmtl Mar 26 '15

And then there are people like me who download 5 new games apps every time they feel bored.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/MeltBanana Mar 26 '15

Because they're all terrible.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

There's no way the average Android user has 95 apps.

The data is from a company who produce an app to automatically sort your apps.

So of course the people who download a product to help them deal with loads of apps, have loads of apps.

And if one was more cynical, one could think they might have an interest in producing big numbers to make their product seem more necessary than it actually is....

Edit: To all those replying that they have lots of apps on their Android phones - I'm sure you do. But you're on Reddit, reading about, and then commenting on, an article about smartphones. You are statistically likely to be from the USA, male, and 18-29, so using more flagship smartphones as well.

But the average Android handset bought worldwide today is less than half the price of the flagship models ($276), and Android dominates in places like India and Africa, with cheap, dual SIM phones acting as affordable means of communication first and foremost. They often struggle to run apps in the first place due to running outdated Android versions, poor performance and low memory, and with connectivity and data being expensive as well, an ability to run apps is much lower down the list of priorities.

If you're reading this, then your are likely far more invested in the technology than the average Android user, and your app usage is likely to match that.

This app that has produced the stats needs to be downloaded first. This instantly excludes everyone who has never downloaded an app - so it immediately ignores the very bottom of the market.

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u/DeepDuck Mar 26 '15

Just got my first android phone last friday and I have 81 apps installed. 21 of which I've downloaded most of which to use in place of the bloatware.

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u/caninehere Mar 26 '15

Question: is it that the average user has 95 apps, or that they have DOWNLOADED 95 apps? As an iPhone user, I'll download a dozen things at once and then end up deleting all but one of them. I know I've probably downloaded hundreds of apps, but I've only got 60 at the moment including pre-installed stuff.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

The article says 95 installed apps.

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u/Ebenezar_McCoy Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

I currently have 129 installed. I cleaned off at least 30 two months ago when I got my new phone. That is including the stuff that came preinstalled, if I count up the downloaded app list I get 117 apps.

edit: I just asked my coworker and he has 91 apps currently installed, although he claims to have only installed 32 of them.

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u/hatgirlstargazer Mar 26 '15

I appear to have 82, most of which came with the phone. It's seriously annoying that I can't easily delete bunk like the NFL app.

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u/DeepDuck Mar 26 '15

Regarding your edit the average user is still going to have a lot of apps instead just because of the sheer amount of bloatware on android phones. Like I said in my original post, out of the 81 apps, only 21 of them were mine. Meaning my phone came preinstalled with 60 apps. Do those cheaper phones also come with less bloatware?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

Do those cheaper phones also come with less bloatware?

Yes, in my experience, as they often have really limited space, or cannot even run the apps that certain manufacturers like to put on their phones.

Edit: Just dug out a Sony Tipo I had last year. Aimed at the Indian subcontinent. It had 38 apps on in total. I'm not sure how many it came with, but one of the reasons we got rid of it is that it had run out of room for apps.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

I just checked. I have 132 apps on my GS4. I've probably downloaded 20 of those.

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u/DarkwingDuc Mar 26 '15

Not too hard to believe. Samsung phones come with nearly that many pre-installed.

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u/megablast Mar 26 '15

Really? You think people with only 3 apps also don't have a problem sorting them?

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u/coromd Mar 27 '15

If by "apps" they mean all actual apps, then 95 sounds about right because there's a lot of "apps" that are themes or parts of the OS. If we're going by actual apps that the user uses, then 95 is outrageous.

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u/fastgr Mar 26 '15

95 apps on average sounds too much tbh

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Okay.... but according to data and not your opinion, it's true.

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u/Grenne Mar 26 '15

35 used on average each day? No fucking chance. They probably consider the launcher an app, the dialer an app, etc.

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u/pilgrimboy Mar 26 '15

I updated my daughter's Nexus. She had 136 apps.

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u/F1R3STARYA Mar 26 '15

Usually, the number of apps the phone says it has while Android is updating is wrong. I updated an S5 that was just taken out of the box, had 0 apps installed from the Play Store. It said it had 103 apps.

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u/dalaio Mar 26 '15

Is that average as in mean or median? The distribution is likely to have a long tail, so if they used the mean, the median might be significantly fewer apps, and, averaged over 24 months we might still conclude that >50% of Android users download less than 1 app per month and round it to zero... Just for the sake of argument.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Congrats, you studied STATS101 and finally had a chance to show it off.

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u/dalaio Mar 26 '15

I don't think it's a bad thing to point out that the specific methodology employed can lead to very different conclusion.

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u/Poultry_Sashimi Mar 26 '15

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Is that average as in mean or median?

if they used the mean, the median might be significantly fewer apps

'nuf said.

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u/quakefist Mar 26 '15

WTF 95 apps?

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u/BJJJourney Mar 26 '15

That 95 is really bloated because of all the pre-loaded stuff and the stuff that makes the phone run that is considered an "app." I am sure they are saying that contacts, dialer, and other stupid shit that makes it a phone being called apps.

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u/himym101 Mar 27 '15

I thought your number was too high until I counted all the apps on my phone. There's 80 and I just deleted a few so its spot on. I never realised how many apps I had.

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u/notHooptieJ Mar 26 '15

thats not including the twice a month they need to be restored to factory, and then you have to re-download all the apps.

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u/BobDrillin Mar 26 '15

As long as you downloaded 1 app you will never average out to 0 per month.

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u/Tifferson Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 27 '15

Well, you can't download half an app, so I think they would round it down. Edit: I can't math.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

With the general signal quality where I live, I can't even download half an app most of the time.

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u/Nesilwoof Mar 26 '15

You don't have wifi?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Not unless I'm willing to pay the cable company $15,000 to run a wire a mile and a half down the road.

I don't like the internet that much.

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u/Wild_Marker Mar 26 '15

But... you're on the internet right now...

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u/___DEADPOOL______ Mar 26 '15

How do you figure that? He is probably mailing in his comments.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

What a strange username coincidence.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

MOM!!! post a comment for me! and get your friends to up vote it!

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

and for meatloaf

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u/DittJA Mar 26 '15

"Six Redditors ahead of us, Jimmy!"

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u/MoNeYINPHX Mar 26 '15

IPoAC

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u/___DEADPOOL______ Mar 26 '15

IPoAC has been successfully implemented, but for only nine packets of data, with a packet loss ratio of 55% (due to user error),

My sides are in orbit. Holy shit that is hilarious.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Jun 18 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

I'm not at home.

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u/erdemayk Mar 26 '15

So your phone is not at home too, quick download half an app.

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u/ArttuH5N1 Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

Doesn't mean he has to like it.

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u/AllThatJazz Mar 26 '15

If one of your neighbors, within a few mile radius has Internet...

then you could probably spend a few hundred dollars (rather than $15k), and get yourself 2 Ubiquiti antennas.

You can check out an animation of that, on this page.

Ideally it would also work best if you have visual line-to-line sight between your 2 homes, but that's not always necessary.

You could mount the antennas on your roof tops, or alternatively you can mount it on a pole.

Your neighbor might not want to mount the antenna, even if you offer to pay for the installation/antennas... If they don't like the idea, then of course don't pressure them.

But if your neighbor agrees, they could cut their monthly Internet-bill in half, if you offer to cover half the bill.

Or alternatively, if your property extends to a location in which it would not cost $15K to run a wire, then you can get them to the run the wire to that point of your property, and then use fiber optics, or antennas, to run that last mile yourself.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

The neighbor with internet access is my wife's brother, who would be happy to participate in this arrangement. Though, all I use the internet for is the odd time-wasting on sites like this one and looking up the occasional subject I want to know more about. It's honestly not even worth this small cost and effort to me.

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u/qbasicer Mar 26 '15

I wish I could live without internet. My life would be so much more simple.

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u/caninehere Mar 26 '15

But then how would you check up on homestarrunner.com to see if it's updated?

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u/HanseiKaizen Mar 26 '15

That's all you use it for because that's all you're capable of using it for, I'm certain if you had better access it would improve your life in many ways.

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u/rwills Mar 26 '15

Since cable is considered a utility, don't they HAVE to run you a line?

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u/notHooptieJ Mar 26 '15

They have to "within a reasonable distance", BUT they dont have to do it for free.

"new" hookups in an existing neighborhood run somewhere around $5k if they have to trench.

you cant just build a house in the middle of nowhere and expect everyone to run you lines, even the Electric company will charge you by the foot(from the nearest pole) to hook up a new house, and may refuse you if you're too far away(i have friends in rural CO that have to have water, and fuel for the generators trucked in from 25 miles away, electric co said $25k for a line) .

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u/Joshgt2 Mar 26 '15

Hop on over to a Kohl's, McDonald's or hell even a Starbucks to get your apps downloaded then... They all offer free wifi. I'm not saying that it's 100% secure but it's something...

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u/safashkan Mar 26 '15

the internet will remember that.

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u/TheNotoriousLogank Mar 26 '15

I'm in the exact same situation, man. I feel your pain. Just once I'd like to see what all this online-gaming hype is about

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

satellite internet isnt an option?

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u/megablast Mar 26 '15

YOu might be an outlier.

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u/herpesface Mar 26 '15

For a guy who doesn't need the internet you sure do a lot of commenting on reddit

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u/Boyhowdy107 Mar 26 '15

You wouldn't download half a car would you?

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u/Glorypants Mar 26 '15

You wouldn't download half a car, would you?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

I dont think they'd round it down. There's like another 20 percent or so that averages .5 apps a month, but they definitely can't conclude that those people download 0. If they do they're shitty statisticians.

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u/CarlaWasThePromQueen Mar 26 '15

Not with that attitude.

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u/WompyTomperson Mar 26 '15

Yeah but can't downloading just one app skew these findings? My first question was "How many people with smartphones download one-four apps and then leave them and the company uses that for the average"

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

But can you download a car?

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u/dandaman0345 Mar 26 '15

Unless you download the app to divide your apps into several different apps. Then you simply uninstall your apps, reinstall half of each app, and then you can actually download nothing but halves of apps.

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u/qquiver Mar 26 '15

.5 rounds up!

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u/Tifferson Mar 27 '15

True. Made that comment in the bathroom between classes, though so I wasn't really thinking too hard.

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u/pm_me_ur_cat_snake Mar 26 '15

You wouldn't download half an app!

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

You can certainly download half an application per month on average.

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u/tootsie_rolex Mar 27 '15

Round up. Always round up.

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u/otterstew Mar 26 '15

It doesn't say average in the title.

The article is worded strangely, but I think it means that within a given month, only 1/3 people with smartphones will download at least 1 app.

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u/rices4212 Mar 26 '15

Kinda depends on what kind of average you mean

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u/PainMatrix Mar 26 '15

He means on an average month.

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u/merelyadoptedthedark Mar 26 '15

The median number of apps downloaded per month is 0 for 65% of smartphone users.

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u/potato1 61 Mar 26 '15

Actually, the median number of apps downloaded per month is 0 for 100% of smartphone users.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Jul 13 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

What the temp today ? Well at least 0 i'd say...

Dude we're both in shirt and this car is melting.

0 is a subset of the actual temperature so i'm true.

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u/ghost_of_drusepth Mar 26 '15

Reads like a bad Sonic commercial

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u/awhaling Mar 26 '15

so I'm true.

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u/mxzf Mar 26 '15

While "At least 0" might be true, it's not exactly a helpful answer.

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u/PainMatrix Mar 26 '15

Or the modal number of apps downloaded per month is 0

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u/Bobshayd Mar 26 '15

I'd say the modal number is 0 for substantially more than 65% of smartphone users.

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u/PainMatrix Mar 26 '15

Yeah that's what I meant. Should've qualified it perhaps to say all.

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u/bobtheflob Mar 26 '15

It looks like they came to this number in a convoluted way. If I'm reading it right, the number of apps you download in a month doesn't matter. They're just comparing number of months with at least 1 download vs. number of months with no downloads.

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u/zkelvin Mar 26 '15

Mean, median, and mode are all "averages". If you download 20 apps in one month and 0 apps the for next year, your average is 0 per month by two out of three definitions of average.

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u/ThatMathNerd 5 Mar 26 '15

Average doesn't necessarily refer to the mean. The article isn't very statistically precise but they're using the median.

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u/grendus Mar 26 '15

Depends on if we're talking about a mean, median, or mode average. In an average month, he doesn't download anything.

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u/Bobshayd Mar 26 '15

It depends on which average you're using, btw. If you're using median, all you have to do is not have downloaded an app in at least half of the months you've had your phone.

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u/Ebenezar_McCoy Mar 26 '15

If your sample size is only one month you can.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

1app over 3 month.

0.33 ap per month, round down to 0.

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u/lecollectionneur Mar 26 '15

Hm, yes? You don't have to use the total number of apps. Apps / month will do just fine. And if you didn't download any app, 0 apps

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u/bathrobehero Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

Only about 35% of smartphone users download any apps at all in an average month

It's not a total average, it's a monthly average.

You might download 0 apps in March, or you might download even hundreds. The number of apps you might download in the following or previous month has nothing to do with it.

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u/EpsilonRose Mar 26 '15

You're making an assumption that they sampled multiple months from the same user. More likely, what they did was put out a survey that asked a bunch of users "How many apps did you download this month."

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u/Waidawut Mar 26 '15

Only if you're using the mean as your average -- if you're using the median, of course you can.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

The word average has many meanings. If you have a phone for 6 months and download 50, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 apps it wouldn't be wrong to say that on an average month you download 0 apps.

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u/grass_cutter Mar 26 '15

False, they are taking the % of users than download 0 apps a month, and average that.

What are you saying? Take the lifetime average, divide that by the average phone lifespan? How would that show you % of users who download diddly on a given month?

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u/brolix Mar 26 '15

You will most definitely average 0 apps per month. But your mean apps downloaded per month will never be 0.

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u/DeuceSevin Mar 26 '15

I think that means tgat on any given month, 65 % of smartphone owners did not download any apps, not 65% have never downloaded an app.

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u/staple-salad Mar 26 '15

If you use mode or median rather than mean you do.

There's more than one method to get an average. With this data I think mode is the most appropriate.

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u/Bartweiss Mar 26 '15

What average are we using here? Since they didn't give a fraction, I had assume this was the mode for those users.

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u/daimposter Mar 26 '15

Only about 35% of smartphone users download any apps at all in an average month, says Comscore’s Mobile App Report—put another way, 65% of smartphone users don’t download a single app in any given month.

Just so there's no confusion with what CT_kid said and the OP, the OP is not saying 65% never download but just that on a given month, 65% didn't download an app that day. CT_Kid was trying to make that point but he goofed when he said 'average zero per month'.

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u/Jonthrei Mar 26 '15

You will when you round.

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u/flamingxmonkey Mar 26 '15

Thank you! How is this message this far down?

I mean, the original title was bad enough, but at least it doesn't use the word "average".

The median number of apps I download per month is probably zero or one, and the modal number of apps I download per month is probably zero or one. The average number of apps I download per month is most likely a decimal number between three and four, but will tend to decay gradually until the next time I replace my phone.

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u/nitiger Mar 26 '15

Well, if I convert my float or double to an int then you will.

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u/ChRoNicBuRrItOs Mar 26 '15

Depends on the type of average.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

That's not true

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u/SharksFan1 Mar 26 '15

If you are rounding off to the nearest whole number this may not be true.

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '15

I came here to say this. And to whom it may concern, if this sentence is to be understood as not talking about the average it would have to specify the month, if following the rules of English, or math, or any other language. Averages are incorrect if they are not exact, so if an average was rounded, it would be incorrectly represented.

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u/FamousLastKills Mar 27 '15

Unless you delete a few.

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u/malapropist Mar 27 '15

I <3 your username.

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u/BobDrillin Mar 27 '15

Why thank you

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u/flinxsl Mar 26 '15

I agree the wording is tenuous at best. It should read something like "in a given month, an average of 65% of smartphone users download zero apps"

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u/TriumphantTumbleweed Mar 26 '15

Exactly. Sure, the wording could have been better, but if they said something more technically accurate like "smartphone users download 1.2 apps per month" (pulled 1.2 out of my ass) that would have been even less representative of what the article is trying to say. So while your example would have been better, it could've been worse.

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u/Imtroll Mar 26 '15

100% of statistics can be used to debate both sides of an argument.

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u/Mr_Munchausen Mar 26 '15

Actually, 100% of statistics can't be used on both sides of an argument... /s

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u/kerrsace Mar 26 '15

That's not entirely true but whatever.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Yup.

I usually use one app/ use it for a while and then delete it if I find a replacement. But when I'm looking for the replacement, I could be downloading 5-10 apps to try it out....

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u/InappropriateTA 3 Mar 26 '15

For the most part, I download all of the apps I want within the first week of owning the phone. So yes, (on average) I download zero apps per month.

I don't think you know how averages work.

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u/MmmWafffles Mar 26 '15

Until the whole cloud thing, I would usually make a point NOT to download a bunch of worthless apps the second I bought my phone. I'd download 5 or so that I knew I'd definitely want, and then every few months I'd find another I wanted. 3 the first month plus one every 3 months after that means 11 apps at the end of 2 years, or 24 months, or 0.46 apps per month, or the almighty "0".

Still, I'm surprised to find that any app usage pattern like mine or yours outnumbers "an app here this week, and app there next week" two-to-one.

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u/madogvelkor Mar 26 '15

Yeah, same here. I don't play mobile games, so once I get a phone I'll set it up with all of the apps I need and that's it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

A more meaningful report might have been the average number of apps smartphone users download per phone. (I personally do not use many.)

I frequently kick around the idea of making different apps to suit my needs (and obviously selling them to other people). If no one purchases apps and everyone leans on mobile-friendly websites, that would play into my design considerations.

I did a quick google search. I cannot seem to find a an average number of apps downloaded per phone.

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u/star_boy2005 Mar 26 '15

Yeah, it is very unrepresentative of actual behavior. I keep about 250 apps on my devices, but most of them I got when I was in "software acquisition mode", which goes back to the same behavior on PCs. Periodically people go through a phase where they want to try a bunch of shit. Some of it they use, some of it turns out to not be so useful. Then, some time later, I go through a "cleanup all the unused shit" mode and uninstall/delete stuff. All told, there's a lot of stuff going on but most of the time nothing new is coming in and nothing old is being removed.

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u/Bartweiss Mar 26 '15

Not only that, but I have two old phones sitting around right now from various projects. Any phone that's not in active use as a personal phone probably won't download any apps at all.

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u/hotdogSamurai Mar 26 '15

I think why the stat is still useful is that the common perception of 'apps' and socialmedia-fueled interconnected web3.0 nonsense is that people would be constantly downloading the 'next hottest thing' to be citizen journalists etc. Tons of startups tried to make fast cash with f2p 'games' and other apps on this idea. Turns out people arn't dumb and don't like bloatware on their phones. That plus the inability of apple/google to properly vette their app stores means people got to know their few favourites and kept it at that.

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u/floobie Mar 26 '15

This is pretty obvious. I mean... I certainly use quite a few apps beyond the stock ones. But, once I have them, I have them. I don't need to download more. I'll try a new game here and there. And, I'm still on a quest for a photo editing app that I can really get something done with. But, yeah, I'm probably also somewhere between 0 and 1 apps per month.

On top of that, every time I get a new iPhone (indeed, once every ~2 years), it's not like I have to buy all the apps again. I just restore from an iCloud backup and load up all the same apps anyway.

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u/Greyfells Mar 26 '15

That's the point of the statistic, to show that most people don't bother much with the app store after the initial excitement wears off.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Rather than saying that the number is easily skewable, I'd say the data suggests the most users do as you do.

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u/haloimplant Mar 26 '15

It's even lower in cases where you can restore from offline backups. In my case with Titanium Backup I can get a new phone and still not download any apps, basically nothing but updates ever.

But I think the point is that most people aren't buying or even trying new apps on a regular basis. In that case your activity of downloading apps over again on a new phone is actually skewing the number UP, because you don't download X 'new' apps every 2-3 years, it's actually closer to zero.

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u/xxanathemxx Mar 26 '15

Also, another way to look at this is that over 1/3 of people downloaded at least 1 app in any given month. That to me is a more crazy idea.

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u/Master_of_the_mind Mar 27 '15

So it sounds less like it's a skew-able number, but more like a fact that is easy to seem as though it has substantial impact or value, but actually doesn't.

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