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 diff erent 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 |
|
|
Mobile
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