Selection of mobile applications
- The Google Play Store for Android and the Apple App Store for iOS are the two largest distribution channels for mobile applications, therefore why we focus on these two platforms.
- This research was conducted in Janury 2016 and repeated in June 2017, as we wanted to observe trends and/or changes in the app behaviour over time.
- In phase one we tested a total of 96 applications, 51 are iOS and 45 are Android. These were the most popular applications as of January/February 2016 that handle sensitive user data, across 10 different categories.
- The iOS applications were tested on an iPhone 6/ iOS v9.0.1 and the Android applications on a Motorola Moto e/ Kit Kat v4.1.
- In phase two we tested the same application with few new additions.
- The iOS apps were tested in an iPhone 6 iOS v10.3.3 and Android apps were tested in a Samsung Galaxy S4 GT-I 9505 v.5.0.1.
- In total we tested:
Category |
Application |
iOS |
Android |
Business |
Adobe Reader |
|
|
ADP Mobile Solutions |
|
|
Dropbox |
|
|
Facebook Pages |
|
|
Indeed Jobs |
|
|
Read.co.uk |
|
|
Smart Scan Express |
|
|
Finance |
Barclays Mobile Banking |
|
|
PayPal |
|
|
Pingit |
|
|
Food & Drink |
Burger King |
|
|
Domino's Pizza |
|
|
Hungry House |
|
|
Just Eat |
|
|
Games |
Angry Birds |
|
|
Bubble Witch 2 |
|
|
Candy Crush |
|
|
Fruit Ninja |
|
|
Get the Emoji |
|
|
Monsters |
|
|
Piano Tiles |
|
|
Temple Run |
|
|
Two Dots |
|
|
Health & Fitness |
Clue |
|
|
iTriage |
|
|
Lose it! |
|
|
Map My Run |
|
|
My fitness Pal |
|
|
Period Tracker Lite |
|
|
Withings |
|
|
Drugs.com |
|
|
Music |
Capitol FM |
|
|
SoundCloud |
|
|
Spotify |
|
|
Ultimate Guitar |
|
|
Productivity |
BlackBoard |
|
|
Google Chrome |
|
|
Safari |
|
|
Weather |
|
|
BBCWeather |
|
|
Weather |
|
|
Reddit |
|
|
Shopping |
Amazon |
|
|
Ebay |
|
|
Groupon |
|
|
GumTree |
|
|
Wish |
|
|
Social Networking |
Facebook Messenger |
|
|
Instagram |
|
|
Skype |
|
|
Viber |
|
|
Whatsapp |
|
|
Travel |
Booking.com |
|
|
Easyjet |
|
|
Expedia |
|
|
Google Earth |
|
|
Kayak |
|
|
Tripadvisor |
|
|
Trivago |
|
|