According to the 2017 US Mobile App report, Facebook and Google collectively own eight of the top ten apps used on Smartphones.
Although the top ten used Smartphone apps is an interesting look at what is important to the user, I cross referenced that information with which apps populate our home screens and which have over a billion downloads on unique devices (*). This not only shows which smartphone apps are used most often, but gives an understanding of which apps we want within range of our fingertips.
Looking at the relationship between most downloaded, most used and most frequent occupation of the home screen, I discovered that the top apps were ones with which we connected to the world. Smartphone apps that link us to our communities came up tops. Apps like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Google Play construct communities, while Facebook Messenger and Gmail build lines of communication and apps like Google Maps get us around safely.
Personally, the ones I found missing and reach for most often were Twitter, Slack and Whatsapp.
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