Usage Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Shazam mention, blackout at Super Bowl drives mobile engagement

by Mike Schramm (Feb 5th, 2013)

Velti is a firm that runs advertising on mobile platforms like iOS and Android, and they were paying close attention during last Sunday's Super Bowl game to how and when mobile users were on their phones. The company has released a few tidbits about mobile usage during the big showdown, and ...

Parent iPhones can track kids' non-iPhones with MobileKids

by Michael Rose (Jan 24th, 2013)

The delicate dance of independence, safety and personal boundaries between anxious parents and digital-generation kids is always tricky. Some apps and device usages are A-OK, some are a highly concentrated essence of bad choices (looking at you, Snapchat) -- but most fall into a gray area, ...

Flurry details app retention by app category, users love weather apps

by Mike Schramm (Oct 22nd, 2012)

Flurry has looked at app engagement and retention with its great series of reports on app usage, and the company has now returned to the subject in a new release. This time, the mobile advertising firm looks at app retention within certain categories to see which kinds of apps users are able to ...

Chitika: iPhone 5 beating out Samsung Galaxy S III in web usage already

by Mike Schramm (Oct 12th, 2012)

The latest report from mobile marketing firm Chitika notes that the iPhone 5 has already supplanted the Samsung Galaxy S III in general web data usage after only a few weeks on the market. The Galaxy S III shipped in May 2012 and the iPhone 5 hit shelves in late September, yet Apple's handset ...

iOS claims 65% of mobile web marketshare

by Mike Schramm (Jul 2nd, 2012)

NetMarketShare has released its latest report on Internet usage by mobile devices, and not only has iOS remained on top for Internet usage, but Apple's OS has grown its lead up to 65% of total mobile Internet traffic. In just the last month, usage on iOS went up by 3%, and the year-over-year ...

Study: One in four iPad customers are new to Apple

by Kelly Hodgkins (Apr 27th, 2012)

Remember the early generation iPods - they were so popular and it seemed like everyone, even non-Mac users, had one? A recent NPD report about the iPad suggests the tablet device is slowly replacing the iPod as the device that gets people into the Apple ecosystem. In its Apple Ecosystem Study, ...

Track US new iPad adoption in real time

by Kelly Hodgkins (Mar 16th, 2012)

Do you wonder how many new iPads will be lovingly opened and used to browse the Internet today? To find the answer, head to Chitika's website where you will find a tracking page set up for the third generation iPad. As noted by BGR, the tracker looks for both the user agent string of the new ...

AT&T aims to have developers pay for app bandwidth usage

by Mike Schramm (Feb 27th, 2012)

At an interview during the Mobile World Congress going on in Spain this week, AT&T executive John Donovan told the Wall Street Journal that the company is apparently hoping to have app developers pick up some of the cost of network usage. The whole idea sounds kind of dumb, but obviously ...

App usage doesn't drop during Super Bowl -- except during halftime

by Mike Schramm (Feb 8th, 2012)

Mobile advertiser Flurry's latest report, on app usage during the Super Bowl, is fascinating for those of us who have been following the "second screen" phenomenon: The tendency of mobile device users to use their devices while also watching television or other media. Flurry notes that during last ...

Talking Points Memo sees Windows visitors decline, Mac and iOS users soar

by Michael Grothaus (Nov 27th, 2011)

The progressive left-leaning political news site Talking Points Memo issued an interesting set of (non-partisan) statistics that shows just how much the share of total devices running Microsoft Windows has declined in the last five years. As you can see from the chart above, in 2006 78% of ...

Study: 2/3 of tablet users play games on the device

by Mike Schramm (Oct 14th, 2011)

ComScore has released a new study of the habits of tablet users, and it's interesting to note that like smartphones, tablet devices are more often running games than not. 67% of tablet users report that they're playing games on the devices at least once in the last month, and almost a quarter ...

Finch usage tracker for OS X disappoints

by Erica Sadun (Aug 26th, 2011)

For $8.99, Touch Studio's Finch app for OS X promises to to quietly track your computer usage as you work. With it, you should be able to monitor which apps and sites you spend the most time in, and adjust your workday accordingly. Finch runs in your menu bar, keeping track of your usage by ...

Verizon unlimited data to end in July

by Mike Schramm (Jun 21st, 2011)

Bad news, Verizon users. The rumors were true, and Verizon will be ending its unlimited data plan this July. According to AllThingsD, Verizon confirms it's moving "to a more usage based model in July," with exact details to come later on. Unfortunately, it's unclear what Verizon still plans ...

15% of mobile apps launched while offline

by Michael Grothaus (May 10th, 2011)

Real-time analytics firm Localytics has issued a report that says 15 percent of all mobile apps are launched while the device they are running on is offline. That's a clear sign that developers would be serving their users better if they built "offline" modes into more apps, according to Ryan ...

Nielsen: iPad maintains 82% of tablet market

by Mike Schramm (May 5th, 2011)

No surprises here: the iPad is dominating the tablet market in the US right now, with over 80 percent of users owning a version of Apple's tablet. The latest survey by Nielsen gives that figure, and says that 3G and Wi-Fi versions are almost equally split among owners, with 39% sticking with ...