This past Sunday was National App day.

National App day was created by CJ Thompson – founder of the mobile marketing agency Platinum Edge Media — when app downloads reached more than 175 billion. 

“There is an app for that!”

We all know this phrase. It’s well-known since Apple trademarked it, and it aired in a commercial for their 3G iPhone in 2009. The phrase drives home the idea that there is an app for everything you might need. 

Since 2009, millions of Apps have been created. Last year, more than 250 million apps were downloaded each day. That’s about 91 billion apps downloaded each year.

There is an app for shopping on amazon, etsy, ebay, Target, Walmart, and your bbq grill – I’m looking at you, Traeger. You never have to leave your home to shop.

There are apps to watch movies and tv on youtube, AppleTV, Paramount, Disney, Netflix, and Hulu. There are streaming apps for horror fans, classic movies, and whatever you want.

An app for your email, of course. And then, there is an app for your more private – sure no one is reading it proton mail email, and an app for authenticating 2FA for the password app. 

An app from your cell phone provider, an app to block all the annoying spam calls, an app for your coffee shop, your smoothies, and your workouts.

An app for your expensive speakers, an app for lawn care, an app for your lawn mower, an app for just in case you get hacked and that password manager didn’t work to help you protect your credit score.

An app for your home and car insurance, for your kid’s baseball team, an app for Santa Claus, for home remodeling, for food delivery while you’re trying to remodel, for alcohol delivery to help numb the pain of the remodel, an app with GPS to provide you with turn by turn directions when you accidentally use a nail gun to nail your hand to the wall in your remodel, and another app with GPS because you don’t always trust the one that came default with your phone because you want the app to tell you where the speed traps are.

An app for the air conditioner, an app for your outdoor camera to spy on the neighbors, “but really it’s pointed down at my driveway, honest…. “

There is an app to get on video with your company so you can talk about the apps you’re developing.

When it comes to healthcare, there is an app for your doctor’s office, an app for the hospital, an app for the telemedicine visit, an app for the pharmacy, an app for your labs, an app for your dermatologist, an app for your vet. There is a Health app on the iphone that tells you how well you slept – thanks apple.  There is an app for your dentist, an app for your health insurance, an app or two for your fitness tracking, oh and don’t get me started about doctors and collecting your own medical information and what they actually find useful and what they don’t.

Seriously, healthcare could use a singular app that connects all your data sources and doctors in one…. when you make your first million on that – be sure to cut me a check for that idea that no one has ever stated before….

Are we app’d out?

Before you think of me as the old man screaming at the clouds and saying get off my lawn, consider how many apps is too many to manage in a given day – and the stats around how many apps get downloaded and never used.

The average person has installed about 80 apps on their smartphone. But, according to ample data collected on this, 50 of those apps don’t get used every month. In fact, 25% of apps are used only once after being downloaded and then never used again.

What does this mean? It’s simple. People download the app and then ignore it.

In a recent article on SHRM.com titled, Are Employees Overwhelmed by Too Many Apps?, Nadir Ali, CEO of Inpixon, was quoted as saying, “Having too many disparate applications and platforms can waste time, impede productivity and deliver a poor experience,” Ali said. “Employees of large organizations may have ten or more work-related apps, each with a different user interface and operating characteristics. Simply finding the desired app can be a chore, and switching apps can interrupt the user’s workflow.” He called it, Employee ‘App-athy’.

The average person uses nine mobile apps daily and 30 apps every month.  But as stated above, has over 80 apps on their phone.

In looking at app usage by Age:

Notably, the 65 and older crowd is less infatuated with apps. If you’re in healthcare and your audience is the people who see their doctor more often, you’re usually talking about an older population.  In a world where the older you get, the less you are downloading and using apps, you’ve got a tough uphill battle, especially when the word of the day is “patient engagement.”  

Taking the above in stride, this is why RazorMetrics decided to go against the grain and not develop an app to download on your phone.  We developed a better system, and our customers agree that engaging physicians first is the way to lower drug costs for employees, members, and patients.  In fact, patients agree as well; 80% of consumers surveyed said they want their physician to help them save on drug costs for them—[Let’s talk if you want to know more about the secret sauce].

So, on National App Day, I did the opposite; I removed a bunch of apps that I don’t use from my phone.  Because, let’s face it, I needed extra room to take more pictures of the dog running in the backyard, acting crazy.