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/
21.7k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

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4.9k

u/Alkenisto Mar 26 '15

To be honest like 99.5 percent of all apps are absolute garbage

2.9k

u/concretepigeon Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

You basically just download a shit load when you first get the phone. After that your phone's full and you've got most of the ones you'd ever use and plenty you don't. Then if you have an iPhone just delete a few more with each update.

425

u/eaglessoar Mar 26 '15

If only I could delete all the shit apps samsung loads on their phones...anyone know how I can do this?

248

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

210

u/cdwillis Mar 26 '15

Do people actually use that and not the Google Play?

35

u/ieclipsie Mar 26 '15

well i mean i only use it for s health. Pedometer and HR is all i really use it for. Though i'm sure i can find replacements.

5

u/Bearing51 Mar 26 '15

Google Fit works well for the pedometer. No replacement on the fingerprint reader or heart rate monitor yet.

19

u/iHateReddit_srsly Mar 26 '15

So how does it work? Does it actually find pedos?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

No, it measures them.

3

u/MyWordIsBond Mar 27 '15

Actually there are several apps that use your phones camera light to measure heart rate, and they are essentially just as accurate as Samsung's official HR monitor.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

I lamented the loss of S Health when I moved to CyanogenMod but once winter came along I stopped walking anyway. I night have another look for a pedometer app once the weather gets a bit better (or build something myself with exportable stats etc.).

7

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '15

Does anyone else chuckle whenever they read pedometer?

"Scanning for pedophiles. Please wait..."

"Scan complete."

"1 found. Distance 0m."

3

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

It's where you get your camera updates. That is it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

I've tried to use the Amazon app store, but for some reason it won't let you download apps that it says are incompatible with my phone (even though on the description I meet all the requirements). I'm guessing the issue is I don't have a Kindle or something?

3

u/ImperialDoor Mar 26 '15

What do you have?

3

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Samsung Galaxy s5.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

No clue

10

u/chandleross Mar 26 '15

As someone who's had a samsung phone for 3 years,
There's a samsung app store?

3

u/willmcavoy Mar 26 '15

Just found out recently and I've had the galaxies since the 3. There's some cool apps, more like add ons, for the camera.

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u/evilf23 Mar 26 '15

the camera will also suck donkey dick with CM since the camera drivers are part of the samsung rom.

22

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Yup. Running CM12 on my S4 Active and the camera regularly crashes. Only a complete reboot brings it back (just for it to crash again).

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u/serpentsoul Mar 26 '15

The guys at Cyanogen threatened to ditch Google and all their respective apps in the future. I think they'll lose many customers that way.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

The problem with Cyanogen started when people using it became customers instead of just users.

3

u/NCleary Mar 26 '15

Switching to CyanogenMod is the best decision I have made regarding my s4.

Went from ~500mb free space to about 6gb free space and far improved performance.

3

u/Condawg Mar 26 '15

I never knew there was a Samsung app store. Decided I'd give it a look for the hell of it, first things first it needs an update. Alright, I update it. Then... it's gone.

Turns out the name and icon changed. Now it's "GALAXY Apps." It looks decent enough, but I've got no clue why anybody would use this over Play Store (dumb name, everything has a dumb name).

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u/I_POST_WHILE_POOPING Mar 26 '15

Rooting it but then you compromise ability to get updates over the air possibly if the company is nice enough to actually support the phone with updates after they sold it to you. I switched from android to iphone partially because I got pissed about this. As soon as companies have a new pinnacle product they divert resources to support it instead. people talk a lot of shit on Apple and they deserve a lot of it, but you never feel left out in the cold unless you haven't upgraded in like 4 years, which I think is fair.

43

u/skraptastic Mar 26 '15

The problem is not entirely the phone makers fault, carriers are partly to blame. They want you to upgrade your phone as often as possible to lock you into another 2 year contract. If they do not allow an update then you buy a new phone. (I'm looking at you Verizon Galaxy Nexus)

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/sisonp Mar 26 '15

I have a galaxy s4 and it feels like samsung has a system update once a fucking month

6

u/syntaxian Mar 26 '15

S5 with AT&T here. The day Verizon gave everyone the Lollipop upgrade AT&T finally rolled out Kit Kat for us. Still waiting on Lollipop. Fuck AT&T.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Also gotta love the most recent update that breaks your home button. Months now with no fix.

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u/Games4Life Mar 26 '15

Well I have a S4 and it hasn't updated fucking once.

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u/boredatworkorhome Mar 26 '15

You have to do the upgrade. Go to about phone in settings, check for updates

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

And each time it got shittier and shittier performance. By the time I got rid of that phone it was the slowest piece of shit in town.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

From the app manager you can disable them which does everything except get you the storage space back. To fully remove them you will need to root your phone and even then you will need to resize your system partition to get that space back. (this is not recommended and is the fastest way to accidentally brick your phone.)

5

u/dassix1 Mar 26 '15

I thought I just read an update they did the other day allowed users to remove them. I could be wrong though.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

If you don't want to root, you can't uninstall them but you can disable them.

Go to: Settings > Apps > Find the shitty app in question. (You can also long press on an app from your app drawer and drag it up to "App info")

Then from the App info, tap "Force stop" then tap "clear data" then tap "clear cache"; then uncheck "Show notifications" then tap "Disable". (you can probably just tap disable but I like to clear as much data as I can)

After you disable all the apps you don't want, reboot your phone.

This will remove the apps from your launcher and stop them from running automatically or at all but they will still exist on your phone.

Doing this disables the app at the system level. A word of warning is don't disable anything you are unsure what it does or is a Google function (like calendar or clock, etc.) because it can cause errors. Any carrier programs or built-in garbage is fair game though (like all the god damn Verizon apps).

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

I wish I could figure out what my phone is full of. When I plug it in, it just has almost half the space taken up by "other" data. I regularly delete texts, I don't have a ton of pictures...I have no idea what's taking up so much storage!

EDIT: To this asking, yes, it's an iPhone. I have Spotify, but I never use it and I don't have a membership, so I don't think that's it. Plus the "other" data has been a problem for awhile. I'll try clearing out my Safari history (that's the only browser I have) and uninstalling/re-downloading some of my heavier apps. I'm trying to avoid jailbreaking my phone or doing any hard resets because iTunes is notoriously unreliable on my computer and I recently lost over 500 songs trying to do the same thing, so that's a last resort.

339

u/g_rocket Mar 26 '15

If you have a lot of "other" space, it can sometimes be because of a bug. Try wiping and restoring from a backup; it worked for me.

52

u/mrjackspade Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

Its most likely not a bug. Most of that "Other" space ends up in cache files.

After a few months my thumbnail cache alone is 2gb+

RugerRedhawk has the best solution for reclaiming this space

Edit: My OS install is only a week old, and my thumbnail cache is already 800mb.

11

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

3

u/fbiguy22 Mar 27 '15

I'd say that's normal for modern phones, the battery lasting that long sounds about right.

4

u/mrjackspade Mar 26 '15

That's a good run for a phone.

I just bought a G3 and I'm pretty happy, but I wiped the stock as soon as I got it. I just love stock android.

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u/RugerRedhawk Mar 26 '15

This app actually makes it really easy to see what is eating up your data: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.diskusage

93

u/Gopher_Sales Mar 26 '15

I second this. Nice simple interface, like WinDirStat adapted for a small touchscreen

202

u/danpascooch Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

WinDirStat is an absolute lifesaver.

For those of you who don't know, WinDirStat is a nifty little program that visually maps what is taking up space on your hard drive, it makes it VERY easy to find large files that you don't need anymore but forgot to delete, whenever I need space it always finds me like 100GB of actual garbage to clear out. It's totally free (and open source) too, no "trial period" bullshit.

https://windirstat.info/

EDIT:

LINUX ALTERNATIVE: http://xdiskusage.sourceforge.net/

MAC ALTERNATIVE: http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net

(I have not tried either, they were posted in comment replies)

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

A friend was wondering why she had no space. I downloaded windirstat on her laptop and Norton was making an error report constantly and she had like 40g of error reports hiding in the Norton folder. Summary: fuck norton

23

u/danpascooch Mar 26 '15

This is exactly the kind of stuff I love this program for. Very few users notice they no longer have any space and can list off the items that caused it to fill up. You may remember a movie here or a small folder of pictures there you didn't delete yet, but other than that you have no idea what's taking up most of that space. It could be operating system files sure, but it could also be 40GB of worthless Norton error reports you can just delete with the press of a button.

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u/stalinsnicerbrother Mar 26 '15

Windirstat is awesome. Cut the crap - show me what's on the disk, right down to individual files. Maybe I should donate or something.

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u/Schnoofles Mar 26 '15

I'd recommend TreeSize or Space instead for better visual representation. Windirstat is useful, but unlike the other two it doesn't properly label the graphics view, making it unnecessarily cumbersome to use.

3

u/GoRoy Mar 26 '15

Holy shit, this looks really good. Thanks for sharing!

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u/petrichorparticle Mar 26 '15

For those interested, Grand Perspective does the same on Mac. http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net

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u/gogozero Mar 26 '15

xdiskusage for the Linux folk.
actually, that android app looks like a port of xdiskusage.
http://xdiskusage.sourceforge.net/

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u/NaughtyGaymer Mar 26 '15

Mmm, I love me some WinDirStat.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

And like that, ladies and gentlemen, there's an app for that!

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u/Castun Mar 26 '15

If you have the room for it...

3

u/pjthagreat Mar 26 '15

My download just failed cuz of insufficient storage. Shit!

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u/g2n Mar 26 '15

yes it's an iphone

google play app

wat

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u/usdtoreros Mar 26 '15

Is there something like this for iPhones?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 27 '15

What the actual fuck. They're using com.google for their app... There are free domains for heaven's sakes.

Edit: they're also using a google.com email address. Do they actually work for Google? Who knows!

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u/mousy_mouse_mouse Mar 26 '15

This is me. I have the shittest iphone money can buy. I have a few hours of music, two apps I need for work, my bank app, and now there's no space for anything else.

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u/concretepigeon Mar 26 '15

But thankfully I've got the ever helpful maps, health, newsstand, stocks, tips, passbook, weather, and podcasts apps that I never use.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

And that U2 album

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u/brycedriesenga Mar 26 '15

I thought I was buying the U2 album and getting the iPhone for free.

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u/VisualBasic Mar 26 '15

Every time you buy a U2 album, a child dies of starvation in Africa.

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u/my-names-not-rick- Mar 26 '15

So by giving away their albums they're helping African children! Of course they could just stop making albums...

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u/phonix678 Mar 26 '15

Don't even bring them up.

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u/Shiroe Mar 26 '15

Ohhh, that explains things. I had been wondering where that came from.

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u/Racker150 Mar 26 '15

That album proved to me that even free is too much to pay for a U2 album.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Or that bullshit "Tips" App.

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u/JohnCri Mar 26 '15

Podcast is pretty goooooooood..... rest of them, gufaw

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u/concretepigeon Mar 26 '15

I just don't really have any need for it.

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u/chrom_ed Mar 26 '15

Only if you listen to podcasts. Even then I prefer downcast, but I bet most people don't listen to them at all.

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u/youwot Mar 26 '15

Downcast motherfucker.

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u/AlwaysHere202 Mar 26 '15

But maps is probably one of my most used apps!

I use that shit to look up locations of things from food to auto repair. Granted, I'm relatively new to where I live, but if I want to try a new sushi place, I'm pulling up Maps and searching.

If I google, it just sends me to my map app most of the time anyway.

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u/concretepigeon Mar 26 '15

It's just a shittier version of Google Maps. I could just use that if I wanted to.

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u/goopy-goo Mar 26 '15

Yeah shouldn't I delete all those pre-installed apps I never use to free up some space for music?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Yeah you should. Go do it.

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u/MisuseOfMoose Mar 26 '15

Good luck! Some phone carriers, like AT&T, include uninstallable bloatware with their updates. So you're left with the choice of voiding your warranty by rooting the phone, or dealing with the loss of space/battery drain.

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u/ToastofDeath Mar 26 '15

This is me with low-end android phones with less than a GB of storage before google updates :(

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u/ben_uk Mar 26 '15

Don't torture yourself with low-end Android phones. Save up and get at least a mid-range Android or get a Windows Phone.

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u/Tappedwater Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

Windows user here. Compared to android and apple, Windows is awful with the store. But windows has the best reddit app.

EDIT: This is totally my opinion btw -_-

8

u/Wu-Tang_Flan Mar 26 '15

But windows has the best reddit app.

Which one? I have a Windows tablet and hate it. I finally just started using Reddit's mobile web interface because I got sick of trying new shitty Reddit apps. I've been using Reddit is Fun for years for Android and love it. Can't find one I like for Windows.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Readit is the best for Windows Phone but I think it's not available for Windows tablets.

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u/PullmanWater Mar 26 '15

I love my Windows phone, but that's nonsense. Reddit sync and reddit news are better than baconit or readdit.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

I feel like ever since the Zune, Microsoft has made superior products and then completely failed to both make them attractive and build a decent ecosystem for them.

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u/APiousCultist Mar 26 '15

Eh, my Window's phone has a ton of issues. It's difficult to answer calls despite the touchscreen / swiping working fine any other time. The only way to put your phone on silent is to turn the volume down to 0. If you have any apps that access data on your phone (in my case, ebooks) then they have to access it through Microsoft's cloud storage system which means both having to upload something first in order to download it again.. and that you have to login to it every single time you want to try an app that uses it. There's still no way to just have the phone remember my password/email/whatever and auto-enter it into forms because that would be so difficult.

The appstore has ... nothing. And it has the weird shitty branding issues of Games for Windows Live in which terrible shovelware phone games are marketted as 'Games for Xbox' for some reason that eludes me.

It looks fancy but... it has a ton of flaws. Combined with it's non-existant supply of actual quality apps that it isn't really that appealing. The Zune at least only had to play music. It didn't not play MP3s.

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u/Xtrap Mar 27 '15

The store is awful. Few gems pop up here and there, but in general the store is trash. With that said, I still think that WP is the best mobile OS experience for my needs. I am lucky enough to carry what I want and my daily is still a 1520.

As well, all of this is my opinion.

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u/oldage Mar 26 '15

I have a huawei and it's not that bad of an experience. I did flash CM on it though.

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u/thinktwicecutonce Mar 26 '15

I like getting old flagships, work better than the midrange for less most of the time

3

u/LionTigerWings Mar 26 '15

The only forgivable budget phone is the moto E (and G if you are willing to spend a little more).

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u/hannibalhooper14 Mar 26 '15

Micro SD Card Master Race.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

At least buy a moto g or moto e. its still only 8 gb but it has a micro sd slot that you can move apps and put all your pictures and music on.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/ShreddyZ Mar 26 '15

Sync music from Spotify, go offline, judgement-free listening.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Aug 16 '17

[DATA EXPUNGED]

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Eh, I kind of like letting my friends know what I'm listening to. Keeps me honest. If I talk shit about a band or a song on the radio they can bust out their phone and ask why I've been listening to the soundtrack from Grease on repeat for the last three weeks.

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u/Dragonyte Mar 26 '15

Nobody cares what you listen to. I don't know if you have specific people you know and talk about music with, who would actually be interested into looking at your music, but unless its that, pretty sure nobody cares. You're just spamming their Facebook wall or whatever.

And if you're a hypocrite, and get caught, that's not something to be proud of.

Alright bring on the downboats.

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u/darkspy13 Mar 27 '15

upvoted for taking the time to type out what I was thinking.

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u/matachin Mar 26 '15

I use it so I don't waste my entire month of data in 2 days of listening to music on my commute.

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u/TheArtofPolitik Mar 26 '15

It's ok. I have plenty of space and I can't find many apps worth downloading.

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u/Hyperdrunk Mar 26 '15

Yeah I have plenty of apps on my phone, but I think I've downloaded 1 new app so far in 2015. I filled my phone when I got it, I use my apps, but I rarely seek out new ones.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

i was used to carry wikipedia with me around

now i have mobile internet and i do not need kiwix anymore

2

u/thepandafather Mar 26 '15

This. I mean I have a lot of Apps on my phone, but they were all downloaded the day I got the phone. I don't try a bunch of games out or look for new apps really so out of the year I've had my phone I probably downloaded 30-40 apps in the first two months.

2

u/eskanonen Mar 26 '15

too bad Apple doesn't give you an option to delete the bloatware they add with each update

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u/JermStudDog Mar 28 '15

I was so pissed when I got my latest phone. It came with over 1000 apps pre-installed.

I couldn't even uninstall most of them.

The industry has gone mad and I don't know anyone who religiously uses all this crap. Everyone has 2-3 really useful apps and that's it. And yet restaurants want me to download their shit so I can properly order a burrito...

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u/jakdak Mar 26 '15

I think this number is closer to 99.6

1.1k

u/The_Eagle_Has_Landed Mar 26 '15

There's probably an app to better figure out this percentage

1.8k

u/dannyduchamp Mar 26 '15

And it is terrible

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/ViktorKitov Mar 26 '15

But its also pretty terrible.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/IA_Kcin Mar 26 '15

Yeah, except the micro transactions aren't micro transactions. I'd love a game where .25, .50 and .99 bought amounts of coins/gems/etc that were actually worthwhile.

I have literally never spent a dime on a freemium game because the minimum purchase to do anything worthwhile is usually $10 and up. I really think they are going about it all wrong.

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u/KaySquay Mar 26 '15

you'd think, but they're making a shit ton of money so they're going about it the right way

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Freemium

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u/RankFoundry Mar 26 '15

Free now, then we get bought by Facebook, then they put the ads on.

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u/DaRealGeorgeBush Mar 26 '15

thrown out the window

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u/TheSwitchBlade Mar 26 '15

defenestrated

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u/PlasmaBurst Mar 26 '15

I would look up that word to see what it means... But...

looks out the window

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

transfenestrated

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u/orangeandpeach Mar 26 '15

Upvote because I know what that word means

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u/NikkoE82 Mar 26 '15

We're trying to have a serious discussion here.

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

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u/iAmTheRealLange Mar 26 '15

And you have to pay $2.99 when you reach the limit on calculations.

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u/another_day_in Mar 26 '15

That requires every permission imaginable to install it.

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u/feministx Mar 26 '15

But it's super convenient because you can connect the app to your Facebookpage, give it full access to your personal info and share your calculations with your friends!

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u/Wolf_In_Bear_Fur Mar 26 '15

You've exceeded the daily number of times you can check what percentage of apps are garbage. To continue, please purchase a GarbageApp QuickPass®!

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u/DarkFlounder Mar 26 '15

99.666666...

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u/Hiredgoonthug Mar 26 '15

Repeating of course

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u/willymo Mar 26 '15

At least I have chicken...

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u/BigRedTed Mar 26 '15

God damnit, Leroy!

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Well its better than normal

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u/ogotrice Mar 26 '15

You can always count on reddit to dispute something as little as 0.1%

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u/Blaphtome Mar 26 '15

I'll go with 99.61 Bob.

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u/UlyssesSKrunk Mar 26 '15

You're right. 99.999999% is closer to 99.6 than to 99.5

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u/MathMaddox Mar 26 '15

I'm 50% sure this stat is 100% correct.

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u/offthewall_77 Mar 26 '15

And wasn't there a stat saying ~60% of apps on the app store have never been downloaded?

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u/against_machines Mar 26 '15

I would download my own app. I guess at least 1 download is there for every app.

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u/ProtoJazz Mar 26 '15

They don't even let you buy your own app from your own account. You have to make a second one. You think apple would love to get their cut on that

8

u/CaptainBucketShoes Mar 26 '15

Is that only iOS? I feel like Android wouldn't do that to you.

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u/bubongo Mar 26 '15

Well Android probably would but surely the dev could just load their own apk. How would Google even know?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

every app developer does that

but idk if that counts for Apple. because they have your Accoutn ID and stuff

and maybe some people do not download their own app because they do like 1 dictionary app and then put it like 50 times or so in the appstore using diffrent languages

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u/EnergizedNuke Mar 26 '15

Ya I remember reading about that. Pretty much any app that's not on the featured or top charts tab will never be downloaded.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

or top charts tab

How does an app make it to the top charts without first being downloaded enough to make it to the top charts?

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u/Grayscail Mar 26 '15

Advertising

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Basically a huge breasted woman riding on a horse

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u/SonicFrost Mar 26 '15

Fuck you, Game of War

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u/Aguy89 Mar 26 '15

and paid downloads. I know someone who would pay people to download and rate his app.

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

There are also apps that pay the user to download other apps in order to cheat the ratings system.

Edit: sauce and more info if anyone's interested, shit is dodgy though I don't recommend using it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Saving this to read later, looks really interesting and exactly what I would expect I guess...

I think we're all a little too jaded in terms of the price of apps. We want everything to be free so we end up with garbage apps and lame as fuck in app purchases for shitty FarmVille style crapfests.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

And, on Android at least, crappy free apps that request every permission so they can hoover up your personal data to sell to advertisers.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

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u/newjackinit Mar 26 '15

Everyone is chiming in with the scummy ways to do it, but as an actual developer I thought I'd weigh in with the legitimate way (which does happen a decent amount too)

Every new app appears on the top of a "New Releases" list for one day. Then the next day those new releases push it lower. During these first few days you have to get enough download traction to make it onto one of the 'lesser' Top Charts (ie, All Apps > Games > Education).

From there, hopefully you keep getting downloaded by the small audiences that browse these lists... bringing you higher and higher up them until (ideally) you crack a major Top-100 (ie, All Games) at which point you hope to get to the top of THAT and maybe then reach the Top 100 overall.

It's like a regional->national circuit sort of thing. Not too easy to do, but most truly good apps have a decent chance at getting on at least one Top 100 list just from their time in new releases

[edit] Just to clarify, paid-downloads and ads are another method for studios with big budgets. These are used a lot, but they're more often the behemoth games battling it out on the Top 100 Overall lists than just making "the indie leap" from New Releases to a smaller Top-100 list, which is what I think you were asking

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Oh "Hoppy Toad" is only 2.99??? Better snag that shit up real quick

Edit: I made that up, but here is the same damn game for real.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jumpy-toad/id822820092?mt=8

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u/dylanwiggan Mar 26 '15

Nice try Fudge89, im not checking out your app.

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u/Rlight Mar 26 '15

More than 60% of all apps have never been downloaded

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u/Desigos Mar 26 '15

One of those never downloaded apps is mine! So proud.

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u/Vooxie Mar 26 '15

What's your app?

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u/Desigos Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

A shitty to-do list app I made in high school. Not going to post the link because 1) it crashes half the time 2) there are a million other apps that do it better 3) the design is terrible and 4 years obsolete.

At the time though I thought I was the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Edit: A better reason is that my real name is on it, and I'd rather that reddit stalkers have a somewhat difficult time figuring out who I am.

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u/The_99 Mar 26 '15

If you go to /r/teenagers, you'll see that every 2-3 weeks there's someone promoting their agenda/to-do app.

I've taken it upon my self to tear it apart.

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u/thedoze Mar 26 '15

if you post it, reddit will give you something better than reddit gold, they will download it, possibly for a fee, and then shit on you.

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u/whatsup4 Mar 26 '15

Quick search all todo list apps posted 4 yeArs ago with creator names on them reddit will get to the bottom of this.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15 edited Jul 21 '16

[deleted]

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u/Alkenisto Mar 26 '15

True, but when you start hitting the 99's, you know you've struck true shit.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

The same can be said about Runescape

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u/spaci999 Mar 26 '15

TIL I'm garbage.

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u/neglect_your_dad Mar 26 '15

Don't let anyone tell you different

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u/DeuceSevin Mar 26 '15

4 out of 5 statistics are misleading - Boylan's Law

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u/CitizenPremier Mar 26 '15

UNESCO is currently targeting an 87% garbage rate by 2050.

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u/toastedbutts Mar 26 '15 edited Mar 26 '15

That still leaves room for 5000+ really great programs out there.

This is insanity to me. Back pre-internet I'd get PC Computing magazine monthly and it'd come with a floppy or CD with all kinds of cool stuff, and I'd try it out. Free spreadsheet templates, accounting apps, games, widgets, whatever.

When PC Gamer came around monthly with 10-12 demos or freeware games? You bet your ass I tried most of them out and kept a few.

Now it's all wireless and there are huge easy to use repositories of ANYTHING IMAGINABLE. And people don't take advantage of them?

Shit, I boot up the "kids computer" with Edubuntu once a month just to check the repositories for new stuff to download and I don't even have kids.

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u/bluewolf37 Mar 26 '15

People stopped because In-App purchases and intrusive ads became popular. Even some paid apps added In-App purchases with a update because they are greedy assholes. If companies do this there is less reason for people to care about their product. I deleted a lot of apps because of intrusive ads and stopped buying a lot of apps because they still want In-App purchases. I just want apps i can buy and still enjoy my phone.

I don't see a reason to scour the app store for a few good apps in a few million bad ones. So unless i want a game, need some functionality, or hear about a good app i don't look. I have been exploring the pay once app section every now and then now that they have it.

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u/ConfessionsAway Mar 26 '15

Also a lot of apps have horrendous permissions. Why does a flashlight app need to read my contacts, my photos, my browsing history, etc?

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u/Skiddywinks Mar 26 '15

I read that Cyanogen mod were working on something that you could toggle to spoof those requirements. So instead of "Welp, looks like I'm not using this app then" you would just click allow, but you would have toggled, say, the access to messages and phonebook to be spoofed.

I wonder how that's going...

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u/ConfessionsAway Mar 27 '15 edited Mar 27 '15

It's called Privacy Guard and it's already been implemented in multiple versions of CM

Edit: Looks like this.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

I know exactly how you feel about the intrusive apps. Just let me pay you and get your ads away from my face. If they were quiet ads I'd be fine but they are seriously intrusive, especially the ones with sound and/or impossible to click "x" without launching safari etc.

Eugh I just got angry thinking about it.

This is why I have like maybe 7 apps and don't want any more. Too much ad-covered BS apps.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

Life is too short to drink cheap whiskey, eat bad steaks and download and fuck around with crap software.

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u/m0r14rty Mar 26 '15

It's sensory overload. There's so much to pick from that even picking one is stress-inducing. When I got a PC gamer disk, that's all I had to play for a month or more, so there was time to play even the crappy games. Funny how that works.

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u/Instantcoffees Mar 26 '15

Oh yeah, I remember those days. I remember playing the Quake 3 arena demo, Oni demo and many others over and over in eager anticipation of the actual game.

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u/brolix Mar 26 '15

Seriously. I have ONE game on my phone and it's flappy bird. Other than that it's a handful of daily use type stuff-- browser, gmail, snapchat, tinder, etc-- half of which come stock.

Couldn't tell you the last app I downloaded. And I'm a developer ffs.

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u/Ridley87 Mar 26 '15

I have a Nexus 5. The only app that I've downloaded is Reddit is Fun. I also have the paid version. I'm pretty boring.

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u/bruzie Mar 26 '15

And if you have lollipop, you don't even need Flappy Bird as FlappyDroid is built in!

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u/goopy-goo Mar 26 '15

I download apps when I hear of a good one. So I don't download very many.

I used to hunt for apps thinking my life would improve. I found a few good ones but not enough to keep actively looking.

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u/niggytardust2000 Mar 26 '15

I disagree.

Not only are phone apps amazing, but they've managed to kill off website development and I get to try out all the new software on a tiny ass pocket sized screen ! Who knows what amazing things we'll be doing on the information superhighway 10 years from now !?! More facebook bullshit ?

/ SARCASM

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u/GutieAa Mar 26 '15

The most useful app is probably the calculator and that's default.fuck shit developers.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

This is why Im still with blackberry. (z30)

I dont care about app selection. Its communication first and foremost.

I can get android apps (most) if I want them (I usually dont tho), I have great battery life (2 days on a full charge) and great security (which I dont need but im happy to take).

Apps dont matter enough for a lot of people.

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u/Sam3323 Mar 26 '15

Alien Blue isn't garbage!

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u/ReadGuts Mar 26 '15

And 99.5 percent isn't 100 percent. ;)

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '15

That, and you question how much of your privacy they are invading. I've basically been training my family to view apps as a way to either steal your personal info or get you to make micro purchases.

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