Android App Update Timing: A Measurement Study

Abstract

Over the past decade the pace of software publication has increased dramatically. Thanks to the advent of "app markets" software distribution on mobile devices is centralized and software updates are, by default, fully automated. In this work we study the pace of software updates on Android smart mobile devices. Specifically, we measure the rate at which users experience software updates, and the delay between the time an app update is made available, and when it is actually installed. Our data shows that, of the top 12 most popular apps in our dataset, over 10 of them are updated more frequently than once every two weeks. On average users install an update for at least one app every 56hrs.