Nearly one quarter of U.S. adults are now using cellphone apps, according to a survey by the Pew Internet Project released Tuesday.
The popularity of apps has grown substantially since the advent of what Pew calls “apps culture,” which can be traced back to the introduction of Apple’s first iPhone in 2007. The app boom started in earnest, however, when Apple opened its App Store in 2008, followed closely by Google’s Android Market.
“As the mobile phone has morphed from a voice device to a multi-channel device to an Internet-accessing mini-computer,” the report said, “a large market of mobile software applications, or ‘apps,’ has arisen.” LATIMES