The average smartphone user has 22 apps on their smartphone and 50 Billion apps will be downloaded by 2012. While 28% of the apps in iTunes are free, 64% of Android apps are free. These fun facts have been reported by the App Genome Project.
The project also shows differences in sensitive data that is accessed by Android and iPhone
apps as well as an explosion of third party code in apps
across both platforms.
Their survey showed: differences in the sensitive data that is being
accessed by Android and iPhone applications, as well as a proliferation
of third party code in applications across both platforms. Stats
include:
- 29% of free applications on Android have the capability to
access a user's location, compared with 33% of free applications on
iPhone - Nearly twice as many free applications have the capability to
access user's contact data on iPhone (14%) as compared to Android
(8%) - 47% of free Android apps include third party code, while that number is 23% on iPhone*
* Examples of third party code includes code that enables mobile ads to be served and analytic tracking for developers.
Previously,Android
was releasing user location data into logs in a way that made it
accessible to other applications. That vulnerability has been addressed
by Google and is fixed in all versions of Android, v.2.2 and beyond.
At the Black Hat security conference this week, Lookout security
researchers will release the full findings from the App Genome project
and also demonstrate new vulnerabilities caused by inadvertent developer
practices and platform issues.