Flurry posted the results of a recent study of app usage, taking a look not only at how Android stacks up against iOS, but also at app retention rate – the percentage of users that continue to use an app in the 12 months after acquiring it. The results are somewhat stunning, showing that the retention rate in the first month after acquisition is only 38%. That number then drops steadily, reaching 4% after 12 months. Do you find yourself discarding apps at such a fast rate?
One of the much-ballyhooed strengths of Android is its openness and how much choice it gives users. Those strengths are illustrated well if you want to pick a podcast client for Android. The iOS landscape may have changed in the last few months since I switched to Android, but I always found the iOS podcast experience to be lacking. Not so on Android, if you use DoggCatcher, an excellent podcast client.
Our new App of the Week series covers apps that we find intriguing or exceptional, be they for iOS, Android, WM7, Blackberry, or the web. We’d also love some suggestions from you!
If you like at-a-glance trending topics and daily news info, and you like it from multiple sources and in myriad forms, you will really enjoy Hitpad. Hitpad for the iPad is a slick way to get all the latest from multiple search engines, Twitter, and more; and without feeling like you’ve been hit between the eyes with a mallet. A lot of thought went into the user interface, and the resulting app is definitely one of the more beautiful ways iPad users can consume information.
Hitpad also allows you to search for a single topic, delivering results from all across the web, which is handy if you are doing some quick research. For example, I did a search for Springpad vs Evernote, and as you can see in the images below, I received news, video, and image results from Google, and recent tweets from Twitter (yes, the most recent result happened to be me tweeting out a post by one of our readers, Daniel Gold, from his own blog). There is also a column for web page results, which comes from Bing. I found that odd, considering that most everything else was from Google — but it was nice to see that our own post on Springpad and Evernote was in the top spot with Microsoft, too.
Hitpad feels like it might need a bit more in the feature department, especially if you are used to getting your information from an RSS reader. It does do what it is supposed to do, though, and it does it with flair and style, even if the thumbnails it clips of web pages sometimes load a bit slowly. Still, Hitpad would benefit from the addition of things like saved searches, the ability to choose news or search engine sources, and being able to choose multiple topics to search on. If you have an iPad, try it out! It’s free, and you can get it here.
Let us know what you think of Hitpad in the comments!
If you’re getting a tax refund this year in the U.S., and want to track the status of the refund, you can do so on your iPhone, iPad, or Android Device with an official IRS app, IRS2Go. The app is available as a free download in the iTunes App Store, and in the Android Market. Read more
Android users can get an automatic refund for a purchased app, by deleting the app from their devices within 15 minutes of purchasing it. This is a far cry from the 24 hour window that was provided to Android users until recently, but easier than the process in Apple’s iOS store. Shoppers in the iOS store can get refunds, too, albeit through a bit of a convoluted process. Read more
