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Nearly 1 In 4 People Abandon Mobile Apps After Only One Use (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via TechCrunch: According to a new study on mobile app usage, nearly one in four mobile users only use an app once. TechCrunch reports: "Based on data from analytics firm Localytics, and its user base of 37,000 applications, user retention has seen a slight increase year-over-year from 34 percent in 2015 to 38 percent in 2016. However, just because this figure has recovered a bit, that doesn't mean the numbers are good. Instead, what this indicates is that 62 percent of users will use an app less than 11 times. These days, 23 percent launch an app only once -- an improvement over last year, but only slightly. For comparison's sake, only 20 percent of users were abandoning apps in 2014. On iOS, user retention saw some slight improvements. The percentage of those only opening apps once fell to 24 percent from 26 percent last year, and those who return to apps 11 times or more grew to 36 percent from 32 percent in 2015. In particular, apps in the middle stage of their growth (between 15,000 and 50,000 monthly active users), saw the strongest lift with retention and abandonment, the report also noted. This is attributed to these apps' use of push notifications, in-app messages, email, and remarking. While push notifications have always been cited as a way to retain users, in-app messages also have a notable impact -- these messages improve users retention to 46 percent, the study found. 17 percent will only use app once if they see an in-app message, but those not using messages see 26 percent of users abandoning the app after one session.
25% of mobile Apps are crap, and proof of that only becomes obvious when they are used for the first time.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
What would be lots more useful to me in understanding this data is how many of the apps abandoned after one use, had some kind of registration screen as the first step - I'm pretty sure that MANY apps are shedding users like mad simply because they ask for ANY information about you up front instead of just letting you use the app for a while before committing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
SMS, How Quaint. Using technology designed to use back channel communications for instant messaging that now runs over IP based networks, that does not provide realtime messaging.
There are much much better options available out there that have way better support for things like better Group support, audio/video support, chatbots and automated responses.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Telephones do not have many useful applications beyond making telephone calls and writing SMS. Yes, you can try to schedule events with them or use them as an alarm clock unless your battery runs out, but mostly they are just used for a bit of entertainment.
People in-the-know don't use mobile phones at all, except when they expect a call.
I didn't realize the definition of "in-the-know" was changed to "Old, outdated, left behind by current technology they are unable to adapt to their lives, typical /. user". When did that happen? Was there an announcement in the papers? I sure didn't see it in the latest news reel at the cinema.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I'm an iOS user. (just so we're clear that I don't play in the Google ecosystem)
At first (2009) I was app-crazy and tried out a large array of things. But within a year, I found I had settled on a core set of apps:
1. Games. Old games, like PacMan, Battleship, Sonic, Centipede, etc etc etc). Hell, the folder they're in is called "Time-Out" (Anyone remember Time-Out arcades?)
2. Audio utilities: DB meter, DB grapher, spectrum analyzer
3. Timekeepers -- a clock utility to detect and correct problems with clocks - mechanical, pendulum clocks, an addiction of mine, a watch log, to keep time of how my windup watches are doing
4. Creative: Painting, animation, not that I have any talent for this at all. And iBooks and Kindle, both which see much use, moreso in the ipad than in the phone. Also a video editor, video effects, and in the ipad, imovie. One can make a passable little movie with just a phone. An app to put speech balloons and make multi-panel photos out of many other photos.
After that, just a smattering of weird stuff like a Roman to Arabic number converter, a useless light meter that reads in foot-candles, crossword / anagram app, and ookla's speed test.
I haven't bought or downloaded a new app in more than a year. Why? I got all I need! Oh yeah, my first real nice app was Calcbot, because i like having a paper tape like in the old days.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
As a developer, "1 in 4" seems low based on usage stats. I know I almost never install "the app" for any brand - if/when I want something from them I just pull up the web site (and if their site doesn't work on my mobile device, fuck 'em). However, I'm happy to see corporations continue to pour money into the "we need our own app" hole.
I abandoned all the shit my ISP and phone manufacturer gave me after 0 uses!
I'd try and abandon a lot more software on my laptop if it was seriously pocket-change territory in terms of pricing.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
It would appear that 'apps' are rather intrusive if they are phoning home enough that we can say how many are opened only once. It would also appear that users are substantially less harsh in their assessments than the miserable shovel ware of the mobile world deserves if so many are being opened at all.
I guess telephone development ceased in 2005 for trolls? It's a shame, because in the last week alone, I've been able to use mine for productive purposes like...
- Alerting me to take cover immediately because there's a tornado at my location
- Giving me turn-by-turn directions when I travel to a new place
- Saving electricity by turning on/off my thermostat and lights based on if I'm at home
- Enhancing security by turning on cameras when I leave and alerting me if anything is amiss
- Warning me that it's about to rain so I can make preparations
- Allowing me to video chat with far away family
- Providing a flashlight in dark places
Plus, I used it as an alarm clock and for entertainment too, of course. ;)
From what I see, most apps are designed with a narrow view that comes from how the app's author wanted to use the app. There is no time taken to make the UI more robust so that it works for more people. I just chalked this up to a lot of self-starters making apps as opposed to people with real UI design training.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'd have guessed that at the very least 3 out of 4, or closer to 9 out of 10 apps only get started once. If 3 out of 4 people actually keep using apps they download that means that the quality has to be surprisingly high. Consider:
1) Most apps are free, lowering the bar to download and install it close to zero.
2) Most "pseudo-free" apps (read: nearly all the "free" ones) want money from you no later than when they showed you the basic functionality, i.e. what you get to see the first time you start it.
So that either means that apps really offer enough quality for people to throw money at them, or people are just generally dumb enough to sink micropayment after micropayment... Ok, ok, I stop here before I lose faith in humanity.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And SMS is still king because every single person with a phone has access to SMS. If I want to send a message to someones phone SMS is the only system where I know they will get it.
This is made more so if you are in a country where most mobile plans have unlimited SMS included.
I agree that smartphones are for the most part toys, but they definitely are useful replacements for other things that we used to carry around. When is the last time you saw an address book? Or a dayplanner? There is an app called CamScanner which uses the high-res camera on your phone to "scan" documents - I use this regularly when away from my home scanner. My bank has an app that lets me deposit checks by snapping photos. Quicken is pretty much dead, thanks to apps that let me keep track of expenses as they occur rather than sifting through a pile of receipts once in a while.
I'm also not sure how you could lump SMS into "useful" and not also throw email or other instant messaging services in the same pile. Ditto for Skype/Facetime.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why would a person use anything other than SMS/MMS? It's universal.
"I need to let my poker group know that I have to cancel tonight. I'll just WhatsApp Jim and... Oh shit, Dave is on Facebook Messenger. OK, I think they might both have... Oh wait, Bob uses that stupid app with all the goddamn anime pictures, whatever the fuck that is. And Tim still uses that shitty dumbphone. Guess I'll use SMS."
Nearly 1 In 4 People Abandon Mobile Apps After Only One Use...
How do they do that without using up all the space on their phone?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'll be honest - 90% (and that is based off of 10 group chats that I can find in my phone history for the past 4 years) I would have been just as happy without. Since I work in a location that has very poor cell reception (that was non-existant when I started here nine years ago, then barely appeared about the time NSA moved in across the street...we joked at the next company all hands meeting that our new off-site backup provider was nice enough to put an office by us) basic SMS works quite well for me - I can get messages, but anyone trying to send me more then that knows not to send it to my phone, that it'll have to wait until I get back home.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
OK, you just listed about ten uses for your phone, and several of them probably came preloaded on your phone, with no need to download them from whatever app store you use. Various App stores claim to have more than one million apps. What that tells me is that 1 in 4 is way too low, I wouldn't be surprised if 99 out of 100 apps are deleted within on use.
I wasn't addressing any of that. I was merely addressing the OP's statement that phones have an extraordinarily limited set of useful applications that hasn't really grown in the last decade.
For my part, I agree with you that most apps are crap, and I am, as you, surprised that the number was only 1 in 4. I can't count the number of times I've done stuff like downloading 20 apps in a category (e.g. weather, alarm clock, calculator, etc.), opened each once, picked the one I liked, and trashed the other 19.
People who get charged $.35 per message they send or receive? That shit gets old quick. I actually ditched Verizon because they wouldn't offer a reasonable SMS plan. It was either $.35 per (running up to about $15-$20/month) or an outrageous $20/month unlimited plan.
I read the internet for the articles.
I totally
lose != loose
SMS, How Quaint
Not really.
There are much much better options available out there that
That all require the users who want to communicate to all agree to download a particular app, and agree to particular terms of service from a particular entity, and connect to a particular backend.
I can SMS pretty much anybody; anywhere so long as they have an SMS capable phone or voip service. For a technology that's quaint... it accomplishes things that all its so-called replacements still can't touch.
I've started using telegram... because its the 'least objectionable' solution I can find that does a few things i want that SMS doesn't do -- desktop client, sync across multiple devices, almost-but-not-quite open. (client is GPL... server... not)
But the thing about telegram... is only a few people i know use it.
Show the real stats. How many months does the average paid app actually last on a phone.
The mobile app market is little more than a giant pyramid scam. They make broken operating systems then you guy to play detective to figure out which app half ass solves the problem until Google or Apple get around to fixing it. Which someone takes years even when three are millions of ppl demand often the most simple features.
It seems to me Google has bitten off far more than they can chew and Apple really doesn't care as long as their profits are high. Google really has no business designing UIs. They don't have a single app with good UI. If they are in charge of our top mobile OS, we are all screwed.
Not to mention Google's main point of existence and most direct profit model is literally to mine personal data as much as possible. The more personal data an app can get and 'share' the more money Google makes.
That's why the app store has such light regulation. Google doesn't want to be too hyrpocritical, but in doing that they are asking everyone to put all their most personal data into a totally insecure platform.
I've never seen a time where private information security was so bad. Even in the PC days the limiting factor was that people only tend to put a limited amount of personal info in a PC. A phone is even more personal and with todays app looking for every personal data angle it's worse than ever. Combine that with unregulated foreign manufacturing, OEM software controls of apps and OS updates and the general splintered nature of Android and Google OS is mostly a joke.
Internet devices are going to make Android look stupid and at the rate Google is going they will never catch up. They are try to do too much and not focusing on the OS. All that app revenue went to their heads I guess and they forgot that if they ignore the core platform uses will start to hate everything Google since they have a daily reminder with the phone OS and apps that they are no longer happy with.
The mobile experience just hasn't improved enough for the amount of money people have spent, mostly based on hype and trend buying. It's a bubble because smartphones have not lived up to their promises. They are not automating our lives and in general I think they slow us down by offering inferior ways to do things we used to do with less time on a PC.
Instead of scheduling our tasks to get them done fast many people try to complete tasks on mobile devices where input is many times slower. That may be convenient, but your daily productivity will go down in most cases if you use a smartphone for much else than taking calls, reading texts and reading emails.
As soon as your inputting data into a smartphone, you're losing work hours and productivity, You also have turned your workers portable communications devices into some all in one entertainment gaming system. Most users need to game or watch significant entertainment on their phones. They need apps that directly improve productivity by REDUCING the amount of time we spend doing things and AUTOMATING our lives.
Smartphones are doing the opposite. They a time sinks and primarily for entertainment. In many cases the access to these huge app stores winds up harming the phone and distracting the phone owner without providing enough benefits for the time they waste. It's not a great device to read on. Many times they are inferior to flip phones for calling and certainly far inferior in battery life.
The list goes on as to why smartphones have mostly failed to be anything other than overpriced and entirely unnecessary entertainment devices instead of the personal assistants most ppl wanted. Tailoring these platforms into productive platforms just takes far too much expertise for the average person. Yet Google could easily add in all the proper voice command and shortcuts as well as proper altering code to fix smartphones.
They just don't care because the more time you waste on a phone the more money they make. They don't see any direct r
Ouch, my ass hurts just looking at those numbers. $.35/message? In this day and age? I'm not saying I don't believe you, just shocked that kind of things still exists.
Thank you for an illustrative example of crapp.
Ezekiel 23:20
A well known quote called Sturgeon's Revelation or Sturgeon's law is "90% of everything is crap". It's certainly true of the software code I've seen, and of the (small) sample of accounting work I've had reason to examine.
In addition, two other factors are probably are work.
If I intend to use an app for something I do often, I frequently click to download the top two or three, trying out each one as the next one downloads. If I'm going to use it often, I may as well select the one I like best. This is more true on Android than iOS, because iOS has fewer free apps. I'm unlikely to BUY three apps in order to compare them.
On the other hand, if I download an app for something I do NOT do frequently, I may well use the app for the task at hand and be done with it. It's not that I didn't use it again because it sucked. Maybe I only used it once because I only need to build one set of stairs, or fix one ipad, or whatever. It may have worked perfectly well, so the job is done and I don't need it anymore.
Most mobile apps, as in nearly 90% of them are utter crap and deserve to be abandoned after one use.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
they put any form of advertising on my phone, i figure if the include advertising then they built the app to make money (not that theres anything wrong with that) but i want small simple apps that stick to the UNIX philosophy "Does One Thing and does it well" if i want a more elaborate app i will pay for it, an android phone has just about everything i want in a smartphone, so if i put on an addon it was because i was bored and spending my spare time browsing google play store for some interesting technology that can use my phone in a new way, not that i needed anything, if i really needed something i would rather pay cash for it than be spammed ads that turns my phone in to a hand held billboard of advertising, adware is the first to go, next is apps that dont work cleanly and good, i also look at required permissions and package size, if they seem too bloated or want to do more than required then i wont install them in the first place,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Typically I decide I need an app to do foo. Read the reviews, install the top 3-4 that look like they'll suit my needs, try them all out, then stick with the best one. The others get deleted.
As someone else pointed out, the #1 thing that makes me delete your app before even getting to it is a registration screen, or some other screen that makes me do something other that what the app does. Had one app a few years back that, it turned out, I'd only installed the screen that asked for my credit card info so it could download the real app. Did anyone actually fall for that?
Also, anything that is particularly popular will likely get built in shortly.
Maps, navigation, calculator, web browser, email, music, all built in.
Outside of that I use facebook, an rpn calculator, whatsapp (for foreigners, probably a corner case for US use), a dating app if I'm single, a podcast all (I'm guessing built in soon), Netflix, Hulu, and HBO, to control my TV.
Part of the issue is most apps suck (as in most sites make an app worse than their home page with limited function).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
last time you saw an address book?
I've never used one. All of my contacts are stored in email. Always worked perfectly and has never failed in 20 years, I haven't had to learn any new software, is perfectly searchable (I have a unique tag that I use for different types of information and forward it to myself) and is available on any device with internet connection including a vt100 n a vax. I have even written papers in email programs and imported them (cut&paste) into word processors for final formatting.
Or a dayplanner?
Never used one, but calendar.google works perfect.
I use a Windows Phone. It's got all kinds of shit built in. I actually don't have any "apps" installed, and I use my phone pretty much constantly. Having to cobble together everything my phone does with lots of unrelated, 3rd party apps would suck. I cringe every time I see an iOS or Android phone, and the main menu screen looks like my grandparent's Windows 95 desktop.
I don't respond to AC's.
If only there were a universal protocol that ties people to a domain name and can allow them to send messages between each other. Maybe a few set of protocols as well, one for chat, like an Internet Relay Chat, and another one being a Simple Mail Transport Protocol.
Nobody wants to publish standards anymore, they just want to create their own shitty infrastructure based around obscurity.
Sig: I stole this sig.
It still uses javascript, that needs to be interpreted, that runs within an incredibly resource hungry app called a browser.
Native apps run much faster and consume much less resources. On top of that, they integrate much better with the rest of the system.
The times are changing. Why not try everything? It's all free to try if not free outright, and it's just as easy to procure the software as it is to read an article about it. So of course this won't have the commitment we're used to on older platforms. There's no barrier to participate. No financial commitment, and no difficulty finding and installing the software.
Probably 90% of bundled games don't even get installed, or only used for Steam card farming.
I abandon most "Apps" when i see the ridiculous permissions they want (and don't need to function).
Forgive him, he's from US. You know, the country where people are charged for everything up to the maximum ammount they can bear. Then charged some more if they want NOT to be charged. It's all for they convenience, you know :P
Some countries don't even have SMS any more, or at least half the providers have turned it off and the other half charges a small fortune per message. This is particularly true in Asia where the need for multi-byte characters makes the 1120 available bits only good for about 70 characters per message. I remember at least as far back as 1999 with the introduction of iMode, Japanese carriers were supplying every phone with an email address and cheaper email access than SMS.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"However, just because this figure has recovered a bit, that doesn't mean the numbers are good"
Arg! These ARE good numbers!
In the past we had to actually buy software, or find a demo on some random web page or download site that might be filled with viruses.
Now I go to a single location where I can find millions of programs, and instantly try them to see if I like them.
How can anyone think this is bad? It's simply Sturgeon's law sped up.
Your solution seems to work for you, and that's great. But they didn't make address books for no reason, people used to use them! Typically you would have two or three. At the least, you'd have a big "family" one at home that was basically a master file. Then you would have a portable one. That would fit in a purse, pocket, glove box, etc. and would only have a subset of your numbers in it. If you were white collar, you probably also had one at work - probably a Rolodex :) By analogy, it sounds like you don't have a need for the little portable one, and that's great. Many of us need access to our contacts while out and about, though. I had an address book, a Casio "organizer", then a Palm Pilot, and now a smart phone.
Same story with dayplanners. Google calendar is also my replacement for a home calendar. For the little spiral-bound notebook replacement, though, it's not very portable. The Casio organizer was not up to the task, the Palm was though. But once I had a phone in my pocket anyway, the Palm went bye-bye.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Having write once run everywhere apps that can run in an interpreted environment in browser, what could possibly go wrong? Why didn't someone think of this 20 years ago?
....And exactly ZERO of those will help you work or make you any money. I guess people stopped knowing what "Productivity apps" meant in 2005?
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
It was weird, I came from living in Germany and people used SMS over there all of the time, the US hardly at all. It was only like a penny to send in Germany, but like a nickle here, then it went to 15cents. It was crazy.
Of course it wasn't announced, why would anyone want you to ditch their perfect person tracker that also sends unencrypted SMS and phone calls right to their servers?
Winmo 6.5 had cameras ten years ago,guess what,you could take a photo of a page of text and save and share it..
Almost everything that a smartphone can do was previously done by a different device, so I'm not sure where you are going. But in this case cameras have improved and now even fine text is readable, even after the automatic cropping, rotating, and distorting is done.
Is hardly a good use of enough computing power that in theory should be able to run three full desktop pc systems
By itself, it's a terrible use. But since you are carrying it around anyway... kind of like with music. Smartphones are terrible MP3 players. My iPod from 10 years ago was a better experience. But why carry two devices?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Who said anything about productivity apps? I wasn't talking about them. He wasn't talking about them. So why are you assuming we were? You do realize that if someone says, "There was a lot of action at the game today", it doesn't mean they've gotten the Action and Sports genres confused, right? I talked about "productive purposes", but I clearly wasn't talking about the genre of apps, and the word "productive" doesn't just refer to work done in the service of your employment any more than "action" only refers to car chases and blazing guns.
Yeah, the problem being nobody knows what IRC is, and most people (especially those who don't use email at work) never checks email, even if their phones require an email address to function as intended (like Android).
Somebody should make an app which looks like whatsapp but works over standard email. The overhead of the standard email headers could make it quite inefficient, but at least we wouldn't have to worry about who uses which service.
I guess I wasn't clear. That was one of the reasons I ditched Verizon and went with a carrier with free SMS. Coverage isn't as good, but it's sufficient for my needs.
I read the internet for the articles.
There are a number of reasons for using an app only once or a few times. Some of them signal failure by the developers; some do not.
The out and out failures: the app may be poorly designed. It may not do what it claims to do. It may not run reliably on my hardware. It may have advertising that is excessively intrusive. It may continually update and drain my battery. It may not provide as good an experience as the company's web site does.
The competitive failures: I may discover an app that I like more. When I'm looking for an app for something I will often download three or four competing apps, try them out, and choose one to keep.
The semi-failures: It might be a game that I enjoy playing a few times but then get bored with.
The non-failures: I may have downloaded an app for a one-time or short-term need. An example is a transit app for a city I am visiting. The app is just fine, but I no longer need it once I leave that city.
I'm sensing irony here, but I honestly don't get what you're referring to. Care to explain?
Of course it wasn't announced, why would anyone want you to ditch their perfect person tracker that also sends unencrypted SMS and phone calls right to their servers?
People in-the-know find being tracked, while being aware that you are being tracked, to be a tactical advantage.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Thanks, I didn't know that.
Here in Australia SMS is free on anything other than a cheap plan. Sure Whatsapp and others have market penetration but you wouldn't want to rely on it.
At a dollar or two per app, I might well get a few different apps to see which is the best. If a good app for doing X is worth $10 to me, then I can run through five at $2 each to find the best.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
don't have a need for the little portable one
? Full functioning email is available on phones now.
Not in the US. But are you saying a verizon mobile won't receive an SMS?
Obviously I meant mobile. But what cell phones have you got that don't get SMS? Even my old analogue mobile got sms.
Well then I'm very confused. You ARE using your phone to play the part of an address book and day planner.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
A search "sandra qqaddr" pulls up all the addresses with sandra in the record. Likewise search qqdate "Jul 1" pulls up all records that have a Jul and 1 somewhere in the text. I used to store things more structured (/friends, /business, /emergency, /relatives, /etc), but realized that search was as useful. It's horribly inefficient, but is still instantaneous, it's easy and I can store whatever unstructured type of information I want.
That's super, but just an implementation detail. I thought you were debating my point, sorry for the confusion.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.