Holiday results are in, Apple iOS usage 12x higher, we think

Application analytic company Localytics, a company that provides real-time insights into app usage, is reporting that this holiday season saw mobile usage for both iOS and Android grow a staggering 12 times between December 23 – 26 of 2011 compared to other weekends this year.


According to Localytics,

Over all, Localytics saw a total increase of 12.5 times more iOS devices over the weekend. Although iPhone is still the most popular iOS device by far, the strong growth of iPad and iPod touch certainly contributed. In the US, Localytics registered 21x more iPods compared to 14x more iPhones.

Also from the report, Android seems to be outgrowing iOS in the top 20 countries. The report is rather vague, and fails to explain exactly what we’re looking at in the study. On the one hand, Localytics tells readers that the growth is new devices, but then fails to mention whether or not these new devices are actually new phones, like the iPhone 4S, or just new people using applications that integrate with their analytics product for the first time. It’s a pretty important differentiator: Are the new devices just new devices to the Localytics network, or are they actually brand new phones?

I’m not exactly sold that we can take away anything from the report other than the fact that 12 times more people used the Localytics serviecs during the holiday weekend when compared to previous weekends. We certainly can’t make any assumptions about sales figures, or holiday success for Apple and Android.

Actually, the more I write about this, the more I wonder why I’m writing about this news. Actually, I think I’m going to stop now.

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.