Can you imagine a life without apps? We can’t either. This is pretty hard to believe because just 11 short years ago Apple’s App Store opened for business for the first time. Just to prove its extreme impact on society, ten million app downloads occurred in the first week of the App Store. Whether you want to track your calories or steps, look up that funny video you saw yesterday at work, check in to Facebook, check the weather, or you want to listen to music while you take a stroll, there is most likely an app for that. In honor of National Download Day this December 28th, we are going to look into the evolving history of app download and how it is still changing to this day.
First and foremost, we’ll describe the downloading process of an app. Apps are connected to the internet most of the time, but they do not have to be. However, you do in fact need internet access to download an app because app downloading services stock their “app inventory” on the internet. Most people download apps to expedite their life in some way, to get access to fun, games, or entertainment, to stay connected through social media, to manage finances, to check emails, plus many more reasons. The top two runners in the app downloading services are Apple’s App Store and Android’s Play Store. Surprisingly, Android’s Play Store actually offers 600,000 more apps that are available to download than the Apple App Store. However, they both offer more than 2 million apps available to download at your fingertips.
There was a survey conducted by the Data Scientists of Fort Mason Games for National Download Day, and here are some of the results:
- It is projected that 750 million apps will be downloaded in 2020 at the very minimum
- The top three categories of apps downloaded are games at number one, shopping at number two, and health and fitness at number three
- 35% of Americans who have downloaded games report they use these apps as a destressing remedy
- 87% of Americans who own smartphones download three or more apps every year
- Games in the puzzle category are the most downloaded type of game
Celebrate National Download Day this year by downloading some new apps that could simplify your life, reorganizing the apps you have on your phone, freeing up storage space on your phone by deleting apps you don’t use (then download more you will use!), or downloading a new game, so you can take a minute to enjoy yourself.
