I know they track the number of downloads, mostly to brag about their popularity, which is fine.
But what about people who download, try it a few days, then trash it in disgust?
Does that get tracked/counted?
Not that they are in anyway obligated to adjust their figures accordingly or anything. But do they know? What if 2/3 of those who downloaded it trashed it within a week? Would they know or would they just see success in the number of downloads?
(They=writers? Composers? Coders? App makers? Not sure how to call them, to be honest!)
I made an android app a couple years ago and at the time, when you logged in as a developer, it showed the number of downloads and the number of active installs. I think it’s changed a lot and i don’t know if it still shows those numbers or not.
Colour me shocked that I can ask after an obscure song I can’t remember the lyric for, and haven’t heard in 20ys, getting the answer in under a minute. But even a techie rich board such as this, can’t answer what I sincerely thought a very simple question that most any IT professional could answer.
Or so I thought, anyway. Wouldn’t you think this would be a pretty widely known thing? Or, at least, not a deep dark secret?
I don’t think there’s any mechanism to track what happens on your phone with an app after download unless the app has some specific communications built in to check in periodically. So, no, you only can probably only track when something is downloaded.
This is further complicated by the many ways to download an app on different platforms.
Generally speaking, no. Most analytics software is run from within the app, connecting to a server on specific events. As the app doesn’t run when it is deleted it would not be able to send the information. However in theory, a naughty app on Android or a Jailbroken iOS device could install a service that checks what apps are installed and report those to the analytics service, although I have not heard of any doing this.
Here’s an example of what the Google Analytics API can track:
Long answer: we (mobile app developers and publishers) count Daily and Monthly active users. We don’t know the difference between those who have removed it from their device and those who simply aren’t using it. I am unaware of any reporting at all when an app is removed. I worked for a company well known for tracking everything the user did, and am certain that statistic was never recorded.
Thanks for the responses! I thought I’d inadvertently stumbled upon a SD stumper for a day or so!
I think it’s interesting that an industry that’s all about tracking and numbers, does not care to know how many times their app gets trashed inside of a week of download. I should think that would be pretty valuable feedback to have.
It’s too easy, in this day and age, to just assume everything is being tracked by someone.
Again, thanks for the info! I’ve been wondering about this for a while now, I’m happy to have an answer.