A day in the life of your apps: gaming, health and social

By David Nield February 9, 2014

iphone glitch stock apps — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The latest report from analytics company Mixpanel provides plenty of insight into how Americans use their phones and tablets. Using 17 billion Web and mobile “actions” collected each month, the firm split up its report based on three locations: California, the Tri-State Area, and the Heartland.

Gaming is the most popular activity, Mixpanel found, particular in the afternoon and early evening as the working day draws to a close. The second most popular category for apps is health and fitness, and these apps are particularly popular in California. Over in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, meanwhile, e-commerce and gaming activities start up as early as 5am or 6am.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

“One of the most fascinating things we saw was the serious jump in mobile activity after lunchtime,” co-founder Suhail Doshi told TechCrunch. “Web leads the way during morning work hours, but dips in the afternoon — in fact, Web activity drops off at the same time that mobile activity really starts to dominate. From about 1pm to 6pm, all of the action is on mobile.”

Image used with permission by copyright holder

A posting on Mixpanel’s own blog has more details. Social app use, for example, tends to spike at the start, middle and end of every day, while there’s also a jump in e-commerce app use right before bedtime. If you like to browse eBay before nodding off, you’re not alone.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

New Yorkers tend to turn in around 10pm, much earlier than Californian users who are still tapping away at their smartphones and tablets beyond midnight. “For those of us who just geek out on this sort of thing (shout out to sociology majors worldwide), the data paints an interesting portrait of three regions of the United States,” concludes the blog post.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Apps

Contributor

Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…

Mobile

The 10 best apps for a second phone number in 2024

OnePlus 5 soft gold with the phone app open.

Having a second phone number can be handy for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you want to separate your business and personal calls, or you want a junk second number that you can use to sign up for services so you can avoid giving out your personal number to so many places. That's particularly importance with the frequency of annoying spam calls and messages that can pile up when your phone number is made public. You might also want a second number to use in situations where you want to be able to contact people occasionally but you don't necessarily want them to be able to reach your personal device directly, like when internet dating or using an app like AirBnB. Whatever the reason, there are many situations where having a number that you can give out which you can make use of but isn't directly tied to your personal life like your main phone number is can be important for safety and security.

While you could get a second SIM card (or even an eSIM), an easier option for casual use is to use an app that lets you set up a second phone line. Whether you're after an Android app or an iPhone app, you'll find plenty of options to get a second phone line, including some which are free to use. We've hunted down some of the best options for apps that will give you a second phone number for whatever reason you need it, and we're sharing them with you below.
Vyke

Mobile

8 iPhone browser apps you should use instead of Safari

iPhone browser apps

By default, the Safari web browser is available on every iPhone, including the iPhone 15 series. Nevertheless, several other web-browsing options can be found on the App Store, each with at least one unique feature that distinguishes it from the others. While some web browser apps like Google Chrome, DuckDuckGo, and Microsoft Edge might already be familiar to you, others such as Aloha and Arc Search may not be.

If you're looking for a Safari alternative, here are our favorite iPhone browser apps you should consider using instead.
Google Chrome

Mobile

How to know if someone blocked you on WhatsApp

While it's still not won mass adoption in the U.S., WhatsApp is the world's most popular messaging app, and billions use it every day to chat with friends, family, local groups, and even businesses. But such an enormous user base means not every interaction is going to be positive, and that's why WhatsApp has a blocking system to prevent you from seeing messages you don't want to see.

It's entirely possible you've been blocked by a few people yourself -- but how would you know? Unlike blocking on social media sites like Twitter, WhatsApp doesn't let you know if you've been blocked, leaving you somewhat in the dark. However, there are a few ways to figure out if you've been blocked by a specific user, even if there's no list you can check to find out for sure.
Their WhatsApp profile pic and status aren't changing