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Instagram will show how much time you waste looking at food porn
Google's new digital well-being initiative is aimed at making sure you spend more time with friends and family instead of your screens. Android and YouTube will soon include things like usage stats and notification reductions to make tearing yourself away from your phone easier. Now Instagram is planning something similar. TechCrunch found code inside the Android app that refers to a "Usage Insights" feature that will show you the time you spend swiping through all those square photos. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom has confirmed the upcoming feature with a tweet that said, "It's true."
Facebook knew about Snap's struggles months before the public
You may have only recently discovered that Snap isn't having much luck attracting new users, but Facebook knew months before -- and there's a chance you helped it find out. The Wall Street Journal has learned just how Facebook has been using app usage data from Onavo Protect, the VPN-based security app from its Onavo team, to see how Snapchat adoption has changed over time. The social network looked at aggregated info about the frequency and duration of app use to determine that Snapchat use slowed down soon after Snapchat-like Instagram Stories became available. In other words, Facebook knew it could double down on its anti-Snap strategy within just a few months.
Comcast's 1TB data caps start to roll out nationwide
Comcast's data restrictions are going from testing to reality for most of its customers. Its 'XFINITY Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan' is already in place in a number of places, and will roll out to 18 new markets (including California, Michigan, Florida and others listed on its FAQ) beginning November 1st. For its part, the ISP claims 99 percent of customers use less than 1TB of data per month, and that median use is just 75MB (correction: 75GB). Of course, with digitally delivered games and software, and streaming video that is increasingly coming in HD and 4K resolutions, that could change rapidly.
Apple's WWDC 2014 in numbers: 40 million on Mavericks, 800 million iOS devices and billions of apps
Charts, graphs and stats: These are the things Apple keynotes are made of, and today's WWDC 2014 kickoff was no different. CEO Tim Cook took to the stage this morning at the Moscone Center in San Francisco armed with enough numerical ammunition to put your best boardroom PowerPoint Keynote to shame. Cook kicked things off boasting that over 40 million copies of OS X Mavericks have been installed and more than 50 percent of the install base is working on its latest OS. He went on to point out that while PC sales continued to slip (down 5 percent, according to Cook), Apple's computer sales are growing.
Stats suggest plastic iPhone 5c is catching up with its prettier sibling
After a couple of high-profile reports about how the plastic iPhone isn't faring too well in the laser-cut shadow of the iPhone 5s, here's a bit of evidence to the contrary. It comes courtesy of stat collectors at an app marketing platform called Localytics, who claim they've spotted a distinct upwards trend in the number of Americans using a 5c relative to a 5s. Whereas usage of the flagship metal iPhone was 3.4x higher during the launch weekend, this ratio has drifted down to 1.9x one month later, suggesting that a secondary wave of not-so-early adopters is happy to give the cheaper model a bit more consideration. Of course, these ratios don't tell us anything about absolute sales figures for either handset -- we'll have to wait on first-hand info from carriers or from Apple itself (perhaps as part of today's event) before we know those.
Shazam mention, blackout at Super Bowl drives mobile engagement
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 they reveal quite a bit about when we picked up our phones during the game. Velti says that while the Ravens may have won the game, Jack in the Box was the biggest win on the mobile side: The company's "Hot Mess" commercial (which featured a big plug for Shazam, who we spoke with about exactly this situation at CES) was the most active mobile engagement driver during the entire show. Viewers saw the bug, and immediately picked up their phones, presumably to either check out Shazam or use the app on the commercial spot (though it was only 30 seconds, so they had to hurry). Mobile engagement also spiked, says Velti, during the brief blackout delay that the stadium experienced. In that same vein, the halftime show was actually the point at which viewers were least engaged in their phones, suggesting that Beyonce's song and dance distracted them back away from the smaller screens. And the game itself distracted viewers from their phones as well -- the relatively boring first half had more mobile usage, while the second half of the game, when the 49ers staged a comeback against the Ravens, saw mobile usage drop. There's a lot of very interesting insight in there about exactly how mobile users make use of their second screen devices. The Jack in the Box / Shazam spike is no mistake, and we can likely expect to see even more moves like that in the future. Our mobile phones are nearly always with us these days, and other screens, including television, have lots of opportunities to use Apple's platforms for even more engagement.
Parent iPhones can track kids' non-iPhones with MobileKids
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, subject to negotiation. Some parents may choose to know as much as possible about what their kids are doing online, and in turn they want their kids to know that they know. MobileKids, the parent / child paired app launching in the US today, aims to replace uncertainty with information whenever possible; the goal, according to development house Bipper, is to bring back the transparency of kid tech usage that we had before mobile took over. "We aim to help parents define limits for a mobile generation much like parents did in previous generations when the only phone in the household was a landline attached to a wall," says founder and Norwegian mom Silje Vallestad, who was moved to launch the company when she noticed her daughter's friends using cellphones... at the ripe age of 6 years old. The child app (only available for Symbian and Android at the moment, with a limited iOS client coming soon) delivers usage reports for the kid phone directly to the adult phone. Bipper previously offered a SIM-based parental reporting tool in Europe, but now focuses completely on apps (including the adult SOS app bSafe). The platform-independent parent app can monitor kid device usage, check location (much like Find My Friends), set time controls or other usage thresholds, and in future versions will include geofencing alerts on the kid phone location. The parent app runs on both iPhone and Android, plus a web portal. Full-on iOS households, however, aren't going to derive the maximum benefit from MobileSafe. As mentioned, right now there's no kid app for iOS at all; when it does arrive later this quarter, it won't be able to do the detailed monitoring that the Android and Symbian versions can deliver. It will, however, keep most of the location features and the Safety Alarm / SOS alert that kids can trigger to notify guardians of their location. Of course, it's possible that even iPhone-loving parents might choose a different device for their kids, and in that case the MobileKids pair may work well. The MobileKids app has already launched in the Norwegian App Store, and now US customers will be able to give it a try. The SOS alarm and basic features are all free to use; the advanced reporting features (most of which are not applicable if the child uses an iPhone) require a subscription plan at US$5.90/month or $59.90 per year.
Flurry details app retention by app category, users love weather apps
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 find easily, keep and engage with them. The results are pretty much what you'd expect: Weather and news apps are able to keep users for a long period of time, because most users choose one they trust and then stick with it. In terms of frequency, I'm not surprised to see streaming music apps listed high: Lately, the Slacker Radio app is probably the most used on my iPhone 5. Social games and social messaging apps are also used frequently, showing that people are most engaged when their friends are as well. On the other side of the spectrum, you can see that music apps tend not to keep users around for long. I'd guess that's because Apple's own music apps are probably what most people end up going back to. Health and fitness apps are also down there, and retail and deals apps are also in that lower quadrant. That's also not too shocking. Most people interested in retail apps or deals probably use them until they buy what they need, and then move on. These are just general comparisons of categories. Not all weather apps command high retention, and there are some health apps that get used all the time. But it is interesting to have a big picture of which categories are being used more often on iOS.
Chitika: iPhone 5 beating out Samsung Galaxy S III in web usage already
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 is consuming more web data, according to Chitika's research. There are a few reasons for this. First, the iPhone 5 is enormously popular, and has been selling very quickly already. Second, I've personally found that the iPhone 5's 4G and LTE connections make for faster web browsing in general, which could prompt users to spend more time on a data connection as opposed to WiFi. Finally, many of the iPhone 5's apps are easy to use, which means almost all iPhones see more bandwidth usage than their non-Apple counterparts. Given those points, these numbers aren't all that surprising. But it is interesting to note just how quickly the iPhone 5 is rising through the ranks in overall usage. [Via All Things D]
iOS claims 65% of mobile web marketshare
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 figures line up to almost 15% growth. That's incredible -- it's a sign that not only is Apple selling more and more iOS devices (including those new Retina iPads, which certainly made up a nice chunk of this new Internet browsing), but that users are depending on them more and more for connecting to and interacting with the Internet. It's also worth noting that iOS users are generally heavy 'net users as well. Even though there are more Android phones out there, iOS users are browsing enough to keep the totals in their favor and growing. [via 9to5Mac.com]
Study: One in four iPad customers are new to Apple
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, the NPD group says 25 percent of buyers in the US snagged the iPad as their first Apple device. In its heyday, over 70 percent of Apple product owners purchased an iPod as their first Apple device. This number drops to 57 percent when you poll people who bought their first Apple device in the last two years. During this same two year period, the number of people picking an iPad or an iPhone as their first Apple device has climbed to 33 percent. Not surprisingly, this transition is reflected in Apple quarterly sales, which has shown a steady decline in iPod sales and increasing iPad and iPhone sales. [Via AppleInsider]
Internet Explorer claws back a bit of market share at the expense of Chrome and Firefox
It may have been on a steady decline for years (albeit still the number one web browser all along), but it looks like Internet Explorer has now once again found itself on a bit of an upswing. According to the latest numbers from Net Applications, IE (all versions included) gained a full percentage point in the past month (following a similar gain in January) to sit at a market share of 53.83 percent, its highest level since September of 2011. That growth came largely at the expense of Firefox and Chrome, which each dropped less than a percentage point to 20.55 and 18.57 percent, respectively (Safari and Opera also saw slight declines). As others have noted, Net Applications did recently tweak its method for measuring browser usage, although it's not clear if that alone accounts for the shift in IE's favor -- perhaps the new ad campaign is working? You can find the full breakdown at the source link below.
Track US new iPad adoption in real time
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 iPad and the tablet's unique display resolution of 2,048 x 1,536. Right now, the new iPad is sitting at 0.875 percent, which is what you would expect for a brand new device. Looking forward, it will interesting to see how quickly its percentage climbs. [Via BGR]
AT&T aims to have developers pay for app bandwidth usage
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 AT&T wants to make more and more money off of the climbing amounts of network usage, and one idea they've had is to have app developers subsidize the cost of that data. In other words, a developer like Rovio would pay AT&T directly, and then Angry Birds would come with some kind of a "No Network Usage" label, meaning that users wouldn't need to pay AT&T for any data that app happened to use across the network. TechCrunch's Jordan Crook doesn't waste any time taking the charge to AT&T for this, saying that the whole thing is a "boondoggle" designed to sneak more money out of both developers and users (who are already hit by the rising costs of usage plans). The fact is that most uses don't go anywhere near AT&T's data cap, but it's in the company's best interest to make them think they're almost there, sending out warnings and cautions about how much bandwidth is being used. AT&T's Donovan claims that a plan like this would allow AT&T to avoid raising user costs, but let's be honest: They'll still go up as AT&T charges users more and more on network usage, and they'll also add on costs to developers (who also will likely pay for way more bandwidth than their users actually use). All of that said, it's doubtful we have much input on this anyway: If AT&T does offer such a usage plan, there are probably plenty of developers willing to pay if it gains them even just a few more app users.
App usage doesn't drop during Super Bowl -- except during halftime
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 week's big game, not only was the app audience (according to the apps that the company is actually monitoring) almost as large as the Super Bowl audience as a whole, but as you can see above, app usage steadily grew throughout the game. With one interesting exception, that is: During the Madonna halftime show. During the show itself, viewers finally looked away from their smartphone devices and tuned into the television. Obviously not all of them did, but that is a big enough dip (along with the drop during the final minutes of the game) to say that yes, there's a big correlation here between what people are seeing on their televisions and how they're using their mobile devices. The opposite story is also true: Flurry was actually able to rank app usage versus the most and least popular commercials during the game. As you can see from the final charts in their report, on commercials that people generally liked and paid attention to, app usage dropped significantly. That's very intriguing: Most of the second screen work brands have done so far is designed to keep people using ads during commercials, but a study like this would suggest that customers would rather pay attention to good commercials. They postpone their interaction with those "marquee" ads until later on -- or during other ads, including possibly those of competitors. At any rate, this study definitely shines a new light on this second screen thinking, and we might see some new trends in apps trying to make use of this habit going forward.
AT&T to adjust data plans January 22nd, offers more gigs for more money
Good news and bad news here, folks: the good news is that AT&T will begin offering new data plans with a higher monthly allotment. The bad news is that, once again, it's going to cost you more. The plans, which will offer 300MB of data for $20, 3GB for $30 and 5GB (including mobile hotspot access) for $50, will take effect beginning this Sunday. Are you still on one of the older plans? Fortunately, you're still grandfathered in and won't have to change unless you absolutely want to. But remember that once you move to the new data rate, there's no going back; the only legacy plan sticking around is AT&T's 250MB tablet feature for $15. The change in plans appears to be priced the same as Verizon, though the two higher rate plans on AT&T have an advantage in that it hooks you up with an extra gigabyte of data capacity. The question is, will it be worth paying an additional $5 per month for that extra gig? Oh, and we're still waiting on that shared data plan in the meantime, Ralph.
Over 500 million Chinese citizens now connected to the web
The number of internet-connected Chinese citizens jumped 4 percent in 2012, pushing the country's total number of users over the 500 million mark. A report issued by the state-owned China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) reveals that over 37% (513 million people) living in The Middle Kingdom are now traversing the information superhighway. Unsurprisingly, the majority of these internet connections (close to 70%) can be attributed to mobile phones; as we've seen over the past few days, this mobile-centric user-base has generated very high demand for certain cellular products. Those scrutinizing the CINIC's report note that the statistics quoted by the Chinese government could be a wee bit on the high side. The report considers a user "internet connected" if they are over the age of six and have been online in the past half year. Hit the source link for more surfing stats from the Far East.
Nielsen's 2011 media usage report: conventional TV still rules, but online viewing is skyrocketing
2011's come and gone, but Nielsen's media report on the year remains. The latest figures from the year that was have been published, and conventional television is still riding a wave of popularity. We're told that 290 million Statesiders are still ogling at least one television, with around one in three American homes (35.9 million for the mathematicians) owning four or more of the things. Across the wire, some 211 million Americans are online, with a staggering 116 million aged 13 and up accessing the mobile web. Other figures include 253 million DVD players owned, 162 million game consoles, 129 million DVRs and 95 million satellite subscribers. There's also some 111 million people watching timeshifted programming, and Netflix itself has four times the average viewing time per person, per month compared to the boob tube. Concerned about mobile? Android's US market share (again, according to Nielsen) is pegged at 43 percent, while the iPhone has 28 percent and RIM's BlackBerry OS claims 18 percent. Hit up the links below for more charts, numbers and things that your grandmother couldn't possibly care less about.
Talking Points Memo sees Windows visitors decline, Mac and iOS users soar
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 visitors to TPM were using devices running some flavor of Windows (blue line). Total share of Windows devices started a rapid decline in the years that followed, thanks mostly in part to the increasing popularity of Macs (red line). By 2009, Windows devices had fallen 13% while Mac devices rose by 10%. But what's really interesting is what started to happen in 2009. With the rise of mobile devices like the iPhone 3G, mobile visits (green line) to the site skyrocketed from 3% in 2009 to 14% in 2011. More interesting is that mobile devices continued to take a huge chunk away from Windows devices. While Mac usage on the site only declined 2% between 2009-2011, Windows usage took a big dip, going from 65% to 57%. TPM does note that the sites visitors tend to slant towards the Mac-favoring side anyway, but still founder Josh Marshall rightly points out that that the decline of visitors running a Microsoft OS from 78% in 2006 to only 57% is huge. TPM further notes that the breakdown of mobile OS traffic is about 77% iOS and 23% all other mobile OSs. When you combine the 28% OS X traffic with the iOS traffic, devices that use an Apple OS account for a whopping 40% of the site's traffic. Not bad for a company that only had a 20% share of the traffic just five years ago. [via Daring Fireball]
Study: 2/3 of tablet users play games on the device
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 of users say they're playing games every single day. Over half of tablet users are also using their devices to browse YouTube, listen to music, or read an e-magazine or ebook. Those are all pretty expected uses of the tablet at this point (and look where the innovation in iOS 5 is happening -- right along those usage lines). But what I find most interesting about these numbers is that the iPad and tablets of its type aren't necessarily "stealing" attention from any other specific device -- it's taking time away from a number of other devices, including traditional computers, other gaming devices, and other music devices. The tablet isn't replacing anything we've got already -- it's borrowing uses from a number of other devices in our lives, and consolidating them into one screen. That's interesting. Originally, the debate for tablet adoption was really around whether you'd need a full laptop or a tablet PC. But Apple's iPad, especially, has carved out a whole other place for the tablet, as a supplementary device for a number of functions. ComScore didn't ask about using the tablet in conjuction with other devices, but I'd suspect that as people are reading on their tablets or playing games, they're also watching TV in the background, or working on other things. How we're going to use our tablet computers isn't completely narrowed down yet (obviously, software has to catch up as well, in order to
