Nielsen has some interesting new data out today about Americans' smartphone usage. The big takeaway: Americans love their mobile apps.
How much do they love mobile apps, you ask? For starters, the average number of apps on a typical smartphone has jumped from 32 to 41 over the past year, an increase of 28%. Second, the average American smartphone user spends roughly 81% of their time using apps on their smartphone versus 19% of the time on the mobile web. Last year, that ratio was 73% of time spent on apps versus 27% of time spent on the mobile web. And finally, Nielsen shows that the widespread adoption of mobile apps has coincided with the widespread adoption of Android and iOS, the two mobile operating systems that offer the widest selection of apps for their users. In all, 84 million Americans use either iOS or Android, more than double the 38 million Americans who used iOS or Android last year.
Click here to read more about Nielsen's report.
On a somewhat related note, I remember the very first time I realized that Research in Motion and BlackBerry were in deep, deep trouble came in late 2010 when ex-co-CEO Jim Balsillie told attendees at the Web 2.0 summit that apps weren't really that important since the mobile web was the ultimate smartphone application. In other words, Balsillie said that RIM's strategy was to deliver the best mobile web experience possible since that's what mobile users really wanted anyway
"You don't need to go through some kind of control point," Balsillie explained. "That's the core part of our message…It is really not about a set of proprietary rules or about 'appifying' the Web. The Web needs a platform that allows you to use your existing Web content, not apps."
Less than two years later, we can see how well *that* particular strategy panned out for RIM...