Half of U.S. cellphone users have mobile apps

A new survey from the Pew Research Center said on Wednesday that about 50 percent of all U.S. cellphone users have an app on their devices and one in every 10 American adults now has a tablet computer. According to the survey, the amount of U.S. cellphone users that have apps on their devices rose from 43 percent in May 2010. When cellphone and tablet app downloaders are combined, 34 percent of U.S. adults report downloading apps to one or both of these devices. The survey found that although app downloading is on the rise, it still concentrated in certain demographic groups which are mostly young adults with higher incomes and education levels, living in urban and suburban areas. Around 51 percent of users who have apps on their cellphones use them at least once a week and 39 percent of tablet users use apps more than six times a week. Meanwhile, as Americans embrace mobile connectivity in the forms of laptops, smartphones, tablet computers and e-readers, desktop computers have become less popular over time, said the survey. In terms of paid apps, games are the most popular and those people are most willing to pay for, followed by weather, social networking, maps, music and news. The survey, by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, was conducted from July 25 to Aug. 26 among 2,260 U. S. adults aged 10 and over. According to the survey, an "app", first introduced in early 2007 with the Apple iPhone, is an end-user software application designed for a mobile device operating system, which extends capabilities of that device.