Reading, Writing, and Reflecting

Today was the launch of iPad.   Hype, hysteria, and over-hype ensued during the day.  Twitter streams were inundated with tweets mostly glowing about the Ipad, but others expressing frustration with the invasion of Twitterland by iPad.

However, I personally am not yet ready to purchase an iPad, I’m still occupied by the iPhone– still discovering it and delving into new usage models. Just this past week, I found myself listening to Lady Gaga, watching a buzzer beater in the NCAA tournament live, e-mailing my boss, texting my wife, and tweeting about tangerines I purchased at the Farmer’s market and then left on the Muni train before I even tried them.    I then posted photos of the tangerines I took from my phone  into a photo a day calendar app I have on the iPhone, read some articles on Huffington Post and SI.com, and listened to some old school Tribe Called Quest on Pandora.  All this on my phone during my train ride home on the Caltrain.

This got me thinking– are my usage patterns and number of Apps I use typical of Iphone users or on the obsessed iPhone zealot side of the spectrum.     Couple of studies give an indication:

Mobile Advertising company Admob (recently acquired by Google) released a mobile metrics study on App Usage survey of different smartphones in February 2010 (SlideShare presentation below.   A key data point is on average, Iphone users are on average downloading 9 apps per month (includes free and paid).    Assuming that rate continues on a monthly basis, someone who has had the phone for 10 months would have downloaded 90 Applications.

An older Appstore metrics study (Sep 09) by a company called AppsFire presented their research findings on Appstore usage (below).   There study suggests the average user has downloaded 65 Apps.

Now, looking at my current App level on my iPhone, I have downloaded 92 applications.   Compared to the 90 that Admob’s data would suggest I have and the 65 from AppFire, I’d say I’m an average user.   I tend to believe the survey respondents in both of these surveys are likely to be skewed to being more heavy users.  I’d have said that even 65 seems too high, but these two studies do suggest that I’m an average user.