The rise of handheld devices in the mid to late noughties completely changed the mobile phone landscape and opened the door to creative app developers. Since Apple first launched the iPhone there have been millions of app releases, some of them good, some of them bad and some of them downright terrible.
But we’re going to forget about the bad and the terrible in this article, and instead focus on the 5 most popular apps of all time. If you feel like we’ve missed any amazing apps out, let us know in the comments section below.
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#5 WhatsApp
The encrypted messaging service which is currently owned by Facebook has an estimated 1.5 billion monthly users, and is absolutely massive! In most countries, the service allows users to text each other free of charge and has been an absolute game changer in mobile communication.
There’s no need to buy costly mobile phone packages with a certain amount of texts or SMS included per month. WhatsApp lets you communicate with your friends free of charge and without worrying about going over your monthly mobile limit.
In some countries such as those in Latin America, users have to buy packages with WhatsApp, but the service is still vastly cheaper than the main mobile network providers. WhatsApp desktop also allows users to sneakily text their friends whilst at the office computer!
#4 Instagram
The social media photo site launched in 2010 and has become incredibly popular in the last eight years, reaching 1 billion users in mid-2017. Every major tourist destination in the world and the vast majority of restaurants are full of people uploading pictures to their Instagram profile.
The platform was also instrumental in the birth of social media influencers. Travel bloggers, fitness gurus and food experts have used Instagram to reach massive audiences and reap the rewards of lucrative sponsorship deals.
In-keeping with the theme of Facebook world domination, Instagram was purchased by Mark Zuckerberg’s company in 2012.
#3 YouTube
The American video streaming service emerged in 2005 around the same time as MySpace, but unlike MySpace, YouTube has gone on to claim world domination. The site was purchased by Google in 2006 for a reported $1.65 billion and uses Google’s AdSense service to create revenue.
It’s a free app on both Android and Apple devices and has been downloaded over a billion times. The app’s new music subscription service is expected to rival Spotify and Apple music and make the app even more popular to users. The third-most popular app of all-time is the last entry on the chart not to be associated with Facebook.
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#2 Facebook Messenger
Let’s just be honest here, Facebook owns the world. Forget Donald Trump, Theresa May or the EU, nothing has the world wide influence on the social media site. In recent years the Facebook Messenger app has had a revamp and developers have made it more user-friendly and simple.
Facebook users can now connect with all of their contacts whenever they want, make groups and share multimedia content. It’s almost an improved version of WhatsApp in that it has the potential to attract a much bigger audience.
#1 Facebook
No surprises at all that Facebook is the number one most downloaded app of all-time. In the first quarter of 2017 the social media app was downloaded just under 30 million times world-wide which reinforced its position at the top of the popularity charts.
1.47 billion Users log onto Facebook every day with 1.15 billion of them using the app to do so, and the site has over 2.23 billion registered users which is effectively the majority of the developed Western world.
Despite a tumultuous 2018 fraught with political scandal and voter influencing, Facebook has remained at the peak of its power and it shows no sign of losing popularity.
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Final thoughts
Mobile apps have made people’s lives easier; banking on the go, translating foreign languages and monitoring your calorie intake are all possible from your mobile device. However, the most popular apps are still social ones that allow users greater connectivity with their friends.
Virtual reality casino apps, immersive mobile games and TV streaming sites may well be released on a daily basis, but it is unlikely that they’ll ever be able to break the strangle hold of popularity that sites such as Facebook and YouTube have.
Our most popular app
Whilst it hasn’t made an entry in the top 5 most popular apps world-wide, we feel that Google Maps deserves a special mention. Can you imagine a world where you have to buy a map and navigate your way around town from it? Do you even know how to use a map?
Google Maps has made everything so much easier for us in the past 8 years, from creating simple and straightforward navigation to enabling the development of advanced gis software, and we certainly don’t think we could live without it, whereas we could definitely live without Facebook…maybe.
