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iPad usage demystified What the hell are people using their iPads for?
By Alok Saboo on June 3rd, 2010

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Since the launch of the iPad (and even before that) there has been lot of debate on the utility of the iPad as a separate product. Many, including Robert Scoble, have vehemently argued about how the iPad is changing almost all the rules of the game. Some, on the other hand, have argued why the iPad may not be the best device for everyone. Despite this debate, the iPad is selling like hot cakes, which makes me wonder what is the value that people are seeking or getting out of their iPads. To unearth the motivation of users buying the iPad, I decided to take a deeper look into the usage patterns on the iPad.

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Methodology
One approach would be to ask current iPad owners about their usage patterns. However, this approach has problems associated with survey techniques, including sample size and respondent selection, not to mention the challenges of conducting such a survey. To get a broader and a representative picture, I used an alternative approach. I used the Top 200 free and paid iPad apps as listed by Appshopper and compared them with the top 200 free and paid iPhone apps giving me 400 data points each for both Categories iPad and iPhone. The iPhone apps provide a baseline to analyze iPad usage. This is important as app download does not necessarily indicate app usage (although it is a good proxy). If the app download Cheap calls (41) figures are skewed, they should be skewed in a similar fashion across the two platforms, thus mitigating Contests (10) the discrepancy between app download and app usage. The results are presented below. Deals (53) Free Calls (61) mVoIP (28) News (10) Opinion (49) Press Releases (1) Review (82) Tips & Tricks (49) Tools (76) Tutorials (53) Updates (26)

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iPhone vs. iPad Usage Patterns

Let us starts by looking at the charts for the top 200 apps free and paid apps for both the products.

October 2010 (6) September 2010 (5) August 2010 (4) July 2010 (6) June 2010 (7) May 2010 (5) April 2010 (7) March 2010 (10) February 2010 (6) January 2010 (7) December 2009 (7) November 2009 (9) October 2009 (7) September 2009 (8) August 2009 (9) July 2009 (15) June 2009 (10) May 2009 (9) April 2009 (7) March 2009 (4) February 2009 (6) January 2009 (5) December 2008 (8) November 2008 (9) October 2008 (8) September 2008 (12) August 2008 (20)

The difference is stark!! While Games constitute almost half of iPhone usage, they account for only about a quarter on the iPad. In general, on the iPhone the usage is restricted to a few categories of apps. The top three categories on the iPhone (i.e., Games, Entertainment, and Utilities) account for over 75% of usage. In contrast, on the iPad the top three categories (i.e., Games, Entertainment, and Productivity) account for only 46%. The iPad is clearly being used for a variety of purposes. While there are important differences, I would like to draw your attention to the difference between the reading habits. Reading constitutes an important element on the iPad. For example, Books, News, and Education apps are far more important in case of iPad, accounting for around 20% usage, whereas they only account for about 3% on the iPhone. The charts for free and paid apps separately lead to similar conclusion (click on the charts for a larger view). iPhone Usage iPad Usage

While this analysis was illuminating, I decided to dig deeper. I looked at the descriptions of the top 50 paid and free (i.e., total 100) iPad apps. Using the descriptions provided on the App store, I created a word cloud. Please note that I have removed common English words (e.g., as, in) and other words that you would expect in the App descriptions (e.g., Apple, great) so that the resulting cloud provides an insight into the usage pattern on the iPad.

The above cloud provides a further confirmation. As expected, words such as game, play, players, control, level, racing, etc. highlight the importance of gaming on the iPad. Interestingly, we see lot of words highlighting other uses of the iPad. For example, words such as read, news, world, reading, documents, pdf, text, content, page, books, information, save, kindle, etc. highlight the value placed on reading on the iPad. Next, words such as graphics, images, videos, photos, color, music, watch, interactive, tv, etc. indicate the importance of media consumption. Clearly, there is a lot more going on with the iPad then on the iPhone. Further, as visualized by Apple, it appears that the iPad is more a media consumption device (at least for now). Although it is heartening to identify and document these differences, the results are broadly along expected lines. To a large extent, the differences that we found are a function of the larger screen size. The larger screen lends itself very well to a variety of uses not possible on a smaller (smartphone) screen. It will be interesting to carry out a similar analysis comparing the iPad with a netbook or with another (possibly Android) tablet. I am confident that the difference would be even dramatic. Further, the results are driven by the nature of apps available for the iPad. We can argue that the current crop of apps for the iPad do not leverage the capabilities of the device. But heck, we can do a similar analysis in the future Would love to hear your thoughts on this?

Related posts: 5 reasons why I am not buying the iPad [Opinion] 6 reasons why Apple got it right with iPad while others screwed up in the past [Opinion] Whistle Phone: Make unlimited FREE calls to USA from your iPhone/iPad [Video Review] Why Apple (Steve Jobs) does not want to approve Flash on iPhone/iPad? [Opinion] Thank-You Apple for Blocking Google Voice App? [Opinion]

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shiplu 1 year ago

This is a very nice website ,i am very glad to see the site. i Pad Touch and i Phone, the i Pad runs a modified version of the i Phone OS and is controlled by a -touch LCD sensitive to fingertips, instead of a stylus as with earlier tablet computers.[16][17][18] It runs i Pad-specific applications as well as those written for the i Phone and i Pod Touch, including e-book readers. The i Pad uses WI-Fi or a 3G data connection to browse the Internet, load and stream media, and install software.[19][20][21] A BUS cable is required to sync the i Pad with iTunes on a personal computer
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Gdexa 1 year ago

Nice post but i personality mean that most of people use iPad for go on facebook,News,shopping online,..etc but less peapole use for games because iPad is not so good for games