iPhone Usage Among U.S. Teens Hits 40% as iPad Continues to Gain Traction

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster today released a report outlining the results of his semi-annual survey of U.S. teenagers, revealing that iPhone and iPad usage continues to surge among the demographic. The survey of over 7,700 teenagers shows that 40% of respondents currently use an iPhone, up from 34% in the last survey conducted just six months ago.

We believe it is a positive sign for the power of the iPhone among younger users that Apple was able to expand its market share with teens despite no new product launches between our Spring and Fall 2012 surveys.

Apple also appears well-positioned with teenagers going forward, with 62% of survey respondents stating that they plan to obtain an iPhone as their next phone.


On the topic of tablets, Munster found that 44% of teenagers now have a tablet device of some sort, with 72% of those using an iPad. Roughly 35% of survey respondents who do not yet have a tablet (20% of total respondents) are planning to obtain one in the next six months. Of those, 74% are planning to purchase an iPad.

Apple's rumored "iPad mini" also appears to be a strong potential draw for teenagers, with 43% of those planning to purchase a tablet reporting that they would be more likely to do so if Apple launched a smaller iPad priced at $299.

Munster notes that attracting young users is a key part of Apple's strategy, as moving them into the Apple ecosystem at a young age helps lock them in for the future. The iPod touch has long been seen as a gateway device to attract younger users into the Apple ecosystem, but with the iPhone and iPad gaining in usage among these young users as smartphone and tablet prevalence continue to grow in general, many are moving into Apple's higher-priced devices at younger and younger ages.

Component Suppliers Say Apple Has Ordered Parts for 10 Million 'iPad Minis' in 4Q 2012

While some sources have indicated that production challenges with components for Apple's forthcoming "iPad mini" will limit launch supplies of the device, The Wall Street Journal now reports that many component suppliers are moving ahead to meet Apple's plans to build more than 10 million units of the device during the fourth quarter.

Some component suppliers to Apple in Asia say they have received orders to make more than 10 million units of the smaller tablets in the fourth quarter. That is roughly double the order that were placed for Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets in the same quarter, these suppliers say.

The figure indicates that Apple believes demand for the product will be strong, despite stiff competition in the market.

Mockup of 7.85-inch "iPad mini" (courtesy of CiccareseDesign)
Just last week, the publication reported that mass production of the iPad mini had begun ahead of an introduction said to be coming at a media event sometime this month. One recent rumor has claimed that invitations for the media event will be going out this Wednesday, with the event presumably following approximately one week later.

Average Wait Time for Mac App Store App Reviews Rising Significantly

iOS developer training firm Shiny Development has been tracking review times for iOS and Mac App Store submissions for some time, crowdsourcing data from developers disclosing their waits in Tweets. The tools provide an interesting look at how review times have varied over time, and they reveal that there has been a substantial increase in those times for Mac App Store submissions over the past six months.

Shiny Development's annual trend graph for Mac apps shows average review times of a few days to a week through approximately April 1 of this year, after which time the trend began a fairly steady rise. That rise has accelerated in recent weeks, with developer reports now indicating that their apps are spending an average of nearly a month in review.


The sample size is admittedly small for Shiny Development's Mac App Store calculations, with 62 reports having been collected over the past 30 days, but the firm reports that the data is generally fairly indicative of broader trends in their experience.

The averages on this site are based only on the data gathered from Twitter which are a very small subset of the total number of apps which go through review each day. However in our experience it does give a reasonable indication of how review times are changing over time.

The trend for iOS apps is less severe and is based on more substantial data as would be expected for the larger iOS App Store, with 471 data points being included from the past 30 days. Average iOS App Store review times have been within a range of 3-11 days over the past year and currently sit at one week after declining from their peak roughly two months ago.

Developers interested in contributing to the project can find tweet their waiting times using the respective #iosreviewtime and #macreviewtime hashtags, and Shiny Development offers a few guidelines on how times should be calculated.