Comments on: Most iPhone applications gathering dust

Somewhere around 95 percent of iPhone users who download an application from Apple's App Store stop using it after less than a month. Are iPhone apps just not that compelling?

[raghavny80]

I am also not surprised. The problem here is not with apple or their app store or the application itself. The problem is with the people who buy applications they do not need. This is a very large segment of the population and apples prime target market. To understand why this happens, one needs to take a course in human psychology not technology.

[nbvail]

Funny, I am with people everyday that uses their iPHONES as tools. But then my wife uses her iPHONE as a phone and a little bit as a business tool. I agree with others I have a couple hundred apps on my laptop and most haven't been open in a long time; then all of a sudden I am using one again - go figure, I agree what an idiotic article, CNET seems to need fillers so they can have more popup ad locations.

[dtabraha]

The App Store is great, but just a mess to navigate.

You can't go by rating because there are so many bogus ratings out there, half of which come from the app developer. You should only be able to rate an app if you have an iPhone and have downloaded it!

You can't go by number of downloads, because an app could have a thousand downloads, but people download it and delete it after 5 minutes.

The App Store should be more like a newsreader, where you can mark an application as "read" so you can get to the new ones and ignore the stuff you've already skipped over. Most of the time when I'm looking for a new app I have to page through 150 other ones I've already heard of before I get to something I want to see.

If Apple is really keeping usage statistics like this article states, shouldn't they rank popular apps based on what is really used all the time?

[No invasion of privacy]

Quote: "You should only be able to rate an app if you have an iPhone and have downloaded it!"
You can only rate an app if you have 'bought' it and downloaded it. That is the way the store works. If you haven't downloaded it then you can't rate it. So it does work the way you want it to work.

The problem with the rating system is that you have people voting 1 star when it should be 5 and vice versa (there is no indication which rating is for best and which is for worst) and you also have people voting who shouldn't be, such as gaol-breakers (who suffer more crashes in apps because of the background processes they end up running and their random configurations that developers can't test against).

[SongLeeK]

Yes, but I have found three applications that I keep on using: Facebook, AP News, MotionX-GPS

I use them every day. It's pretty obvious why: Connect, News and jog, find my way, get to places, measure my performance.

So for Navigation, Facebook and News I use my applications on my iPhone every day.

[smshadow]

Well no ****, Sherlock. If there are as many apps as they say there are, only a small percentage are going to be used on a regular basis. Just like any other software on any other platform.

To draw a conclusion like, as you say, "most people don't find iPhone applications very compelling," from that is absolutely ridiculous. Do you really think your readers are that dumb?

[robof4uber]

TK SEZ ...Most iPhone applications gathering dust.... sounds like "APP-ENVY" t o me ,, wonder how many free meals TK got from those "other" robot phone makers,,to write this ...

I for one love my iphone and eventhough I dont use the apps all the time I am constantly amazed at how fun/usefil/interesting/insiteful/stimulating it can be ,, my guess is the iphone will only get better (video/flash) leaving the other phone to "gather dust"....

[chuck.rogers]

The real problem is the lack of a hierarchical storage system on the iPhone. With 20,000 applications yet only 148 icon slots available on the 9 screens, users have to be picky about what applications they have on their iPhones. Many, like me, end up loading different sets depending on what we are doing or where we are going. When we purchase a new app, very often we have to get rid of another to make room. Right now, the number one problem with the iPhone is the lack of folders or some other storage metaphor so users can keep more apps on their phone - or even compare multiple applications that do the same thing.

[danno321s]

Apple does not allow time-centric apps to to be triggered by the iPhone OS. For example, there is no way for a ToDo to alert you if it is not running. This is why I still use my Palm T3 (now 5 years old and still ticking).

[ArtInvent]

Maybe this phenomenon simply reflects the general move into the cloud. Most things done by iPhone apps are probably better done by websites. Like finding a restaurant. There are websites for that, and they are ever changing and staying up date and adding functionality.

It's just the same as what's happening in computing in general: apps are moving into the cloud. Locally installed apps are getting used less and less in favor of browser based apps. For everything but really heavy data intensive things like video editing etc. And phones just don't do anything data intensive anyway.

Take the iPod - why carry around all your music in a giant memory bank when you could access all your music from a web service like LastFM or a subscription service.

[hardmanb]

I don't see anything abnormal. It's the same with desktops. My 6 year old iMac has 192 apps. My wife's PC has 94. Some are used very infrequently...only when needed for video applications, photo manipulation, annotation/research, checking diagnostics, performing ordinary and extraordinary maintenance, and even games that only the grandchildren play. In a given week, my wife uses only 3 or 4, and I use ten or less. Hell, I have software packages that cost a lot (Quickbook Pro) that I've never even installed.
My daughter says she often will download five or more apps on her iPhone that do similar things, and just keeps the best. She always checks new apps that offer her some advantage in her work. Her company offers a weekly prize for "best new app discovery of the week" each Friday. She says she tries about 25-35 new apps a week to "keep up" with finding apps that offer work improvements or to discover cool new or fun things.
But she says she doesn't use many but once in a while, and is steadily adding, reviewing and deleting. Seems pretty normal to me.

[Lenter101]

You take superficial, shallow people, with no value system, other than concern about how something looks or is perceived, and this is what you get. Apple is about image, social staus, feeling superior for buying something different from Microsoft. It's # 40 on the Stuff White People Like, right up there with sushi, hating corporations, having a black friend, yoga, tattoos and having two last names. It's all about feeling superior to others, similar to the reason people become vegans, in fact I suspect there are a high percentage of Apple users who are vegan, tattooed yoga enthusiasts who download their new apps and lost interest in them shortly after bragging to their friends that they just downloaded the coolest app for their iPhone.

[SkateNY]

It doesn't matter how often people use their apps. I don't use most of kitchen appliances, the tools in my garage, or the machinery in my shed on a daily basis. What matters is that people are downloading apps to the tune of a half-billion of them.

[bchang1943]

most phones cannot easily download applications and definitely my last 14 years of mobile phones I never downloaded one. I have now downloaded more than 50 but after months only used about 20.

[heshields3641]

When an app looks interesting and useful the only choice is to buy it and try. Often they are either useless or not ready for prime time. No refunds. So they are discarded, or at best you wait for updates to appear on iTunes and try them again.
But there are many apps on my iPhone that do not get used very often but are good to have available. And there are some that I use every day and would not want to do without.
It's hard to tell from the user "reviews" - some seem like blatant adverts from the authors or their friends, some are very negative because someone didn't read the instructions, some are negative because the author just likes to **** on somebody's parade.
But I'll admit that I'm addicted - I have nine full screens of apps, and I have deleted many apps and built back up to nine screens again multiple times.
But I have also replaced almost all the native apps on the front page (and those on the Bottom Line) with developer apps I have found useful in my daily life.
There's good stuff on iTunes - but it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

[mathue_tax]

The theories being put forth on this story are really amusing :)

.99 apps are cheap (in more ways than one), person tries it, might not like it and they move on. People criticize Apple for promoting inexpensive apps, people criticize Apple for selling products that are too expensive. People criticize Apple to rejecting apps, then when Apple lets them in they get criticized for the junk apps.

The 'I don't like anything Apple' crowd will always find some nitpick. Why on earth these people let a corporation control their anger is beyond me, is their life so care and conflict free that they can dedicate their lives to hating 'bit player' company? Yeesh!

[jz33040]

Not surprising. The mistake made is that iphones are too bulky, over rated and have too many features that seem useful but aren't in most cases. Adding extra apps on top of an already bloated package ends up being just for the fun of it. As soon as people get bored of the apps, they stop using the ones they don't actually need, which happens to be most of them. I'm usually a gadget person, but realized that just because it was sleek and had touch screen etc, doesn't mean I had to have it. And oh, yes, I can afford it. But I prefer my small phone that fits neatly in my hand or pocket. I make phone calls on it. Not play games, or surf the net. 99% of the time, if I'm out I wouldn't want to be on the net. I'd be waiting to drive home to use my computer when I'm not moving around. OR, if I'm in a mall, I'm there to shop. At the restaurant, there to eat. I will say that I downloaded 3 small games for my phone when new, but never used them again. And I'll agree there are some that could really benefit, but being honest, what percentage of people is that? I'd think, it's fewer than most would be willing to admit. I think the problem is that most people want to have it all in one package. And in doing so, end up with too many bells and whistles they'll never use, even if it looks cool.

[hardmanb]

Why not "PC users have very short attention spans."

In the PC world there is much more free, cheap, crapware...and "unused" apps gathering dust.

How many everyday use the 1,400,000 PC apps available?

[brendahalls69]

My husband wants to buy and iphone tomorrow. He's so excited about the phone and thinks that he'll use the apps to the fullest. We'll see...

[Rick Cavaretti]

My wife is guilty of this. Many untold $$ spent on all kinds of software and other apps on multiple platforms that never get used. Keep it simple, keep it lean, and have a little money left in your wallet.

[ggirton]

I don't usually use an iPhone app the day that the purchase is recorded. So what? I don't eat all the food I buy at the grocery store on the same day either and -- shock of shocks -- I don't even OPEN IT UP! When I do get around to using that latest new fangled contraption, guess what. I don't have to dust it off. What a stupid story idea.