Mobile Apps Mostly Used for Games, Social Networking

For the first time ever, daily time spent in mobile apps surpasses web consumption, according to a new analysis by Flurry. It has taken less than three years for native mobile apps to achieve this level of usage, driven primarily by the popularity of iOS and Android platforms, Flurry says.

The average user now spends nine percent more time using mobile apps than the Internet. In 2010, the average user spent just under 43 minutes a day using mobile applications versus an average 64 minutes using the Internet.

As is the case for tablet devices, new form factors and user interfaces are surfacing user behavior habits that might have been partially obscured in the past As it seems to be turning out, most users, in their work or consumer roles, do not typically need many of the "content creation" capabilities PCs provide, with the exception of simple ability to post photos, annotate content or create short text messages.

In a similar manner, mobile or PC app usage shows that apps most often are used to play games, not to interact with content or information on the web.

Games and social networking categories capture the significant majority of consumers’ time. Consumers spend nearly half their time using games, and a third in social networking apps.

Combined, these two categories represent 79 percent of consumers’ total app time. Consumers use these two categories more frequently, and for longer average session lengths, compared to other categories. Tablets really are content consumption devices, primarily, with text-based communications, photo posting and content sharing representing most of the remaining usage.

Growing at 91 percent over the last year, users now spend over 81 minutes on mobile applications per day. This growth has come primarily from more sessions per user, per day rather than a large growth in average session lengths.

Time spent on the Internet has grown at a much slower rate, 16 percent over the last year, with users now spending 74 minutes on the Internet a day.Facebook has increasingly taken its share of time spent on the Internet, now making up 14 of the 74 minutes spent per day by consumers, or about one sixth of all Internet minutes.

The predominant content consumption and social networking profile appears to a growing business issue as well. Beyond Apple's preference for apps, and Google's preference for native web access, other application providers seem to be angling for more control as well.

It appears the "app versus web" issue is becoming a matter of control for Facebook. Facebook’s "Project Spartan" is an effort to run apps within its service on top of the mobile Safari browser, thus undermining Apple's attempt to maintain control over its app experiences.

Still, the intriguing insight is how new devices and application formats are highlighting what users really want to do, and therefore require, from their apps and devices.

Mobile Apps Put the Web in Their Rear-view Mirror