Calgary Herald

Weather apps tops in Canada

- MICHAEL OLIVEIRA

TORONTO — Is it any surprise that in a global comparison of what apps mobile users keep going back to again and again that Canadians ranked high for checking the weather?

In an online survey with more than 19,000 respondent­s in 27 countries conducted by Ipsos, users were asked what kinds of apps they regularly used.

Forty-seven per cent of the Canadians polled said they most often loaded a weather app, which was eight percentage points above the global average.

By comparison, only 22 per cent of the users in Saudi Arabia regularly used a weather app, and on the high end 56 per cent of South African users pulled up a weather app often.

About a third of the Canadians surveyed said they regularly use a banking app, and a quarter each said they use music and news apps frequently. Canadians were tied for third-last globally when it came to reading news through an app.

Forty-two per cent of the Canadian respondent­s indicated they’re just not big app users at all. They said they don’t regularly use any of the eight types of apps that researcher­s asked them about.

In another online poll of 1,009 Canadians conducted by HarrisDeci­ma for Rogers, respondent­s owning smartphone­s had an average of 21 apps on their device and tablet owners had an average of 29 apps installed.

iPhone users had installed an average of 30 apps, triple the number for BlackBerry users and 50 per cent more than Google Android users. iPad users had an average of 36 apps downloaded, about 60 per cent more than BlackBerry and Android tablet owners.

 ?? Weather Channel/ The Associated Press ?? Some 47 per cent of Canadians polled recently said they most often loaded a weather app.
Weather Channel/ The Associated Press Some 47 per cent of Canadians polled recently said they most often loaded a weather app.

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