Years ago I built a small tool to make summary data from the information contained at Uses This (“A collection of nerdy interviews asking people from all walks of life what they use to get the job done."). This weekend I got an itch to see if it still works, and, lo and behold, it does! With just one small change to the naming convention in my script that builds the extracted data, I was up and running again, and able to then update the no-doubt-embarrassing R code that creates some summary info of interest.

The last time I wrote a bit about my tiny project, I was looking at text editors at Uses This.

Here’s a snapshot of the current data, comparing top iOS apps now to the list the last time I ran this, in 2012:

Top 20 iOS apps by frequency:

     JAN 2018                       JUNE 2012
     instagram-ios         : 48     instapaper-ios        : 22
     kindle-ios            : 32     instagram-ios         : 17
     tweetbot-ios          : 32     simplenote-ios        : 17
     twitter-ios           : 32     kindle-ios            : 15
     instapaper-ios        : 27     twitter-ios           : 14
     simplenote-ios        : 25     reeder-ios            : 13
     reeder-ios            : 20     tweetie-ios           :  9
     foursquare-ios        : 14     words-with-friends-ios:  9
     paper-ios             : 12     evernote-ios          :  8
     dropbox-ios           : 11     foursquare-ios        :  8
     vsco-cam-ios          : 11     tweetbot-ios          :  7
     words-with-friends-ios: 11     facebook-ios          :  6
     evernote-ios          : 10     flipboard-ios         :  6
     safari-ios            : 10     yelp-ios              :  6
     flipboard-ios         :  9     ego-ios               :  5
     ia-writer-ios         :  9     goodreader-ios        :  5
     procreate-ios         :  9     ia-writer-ios         :  5
     spotify-ios           :  9     safari-ios            :  5
     tweetie-ios           :  9     twitterrific-ios      :  5
     ibooks-ios            :  8     dropbox-ios           :  4

My data and visualization senses have evolved since I last played with this, so maybe I’ll continue to update with some new summary information and plots. There’s a lot of longitudinal info to potentially watch, as well, so stay tuned! And let me know if there’s something in the data you think might be particularly interesting for me to explore deeper.

If you haven’t ever browsed Uses This, or even if it’s just been a while, go check it out. The hundreds and hundreds of interviews and lists there are great fun to explore. If you’re interested, you can find my code and data at github.