In short, they’ve found that while free apps are downloaded like crazy, active use drops off fast. Paid apps tend to see more use after installation and are used for longer periods. If it’s a paid game, all the better.

Long before he stopped using his iPhone altogether, Om raised similar questions on GigaOM regarding app usage.

Does your own iPhone usage support this data?

Looking at my iPhone I find that most of the applications I actively use are those that support or work in cooperation with the web-based tools on my desktop computer. Even though I’m not using a wide variety of applications, overall I’m using my iPhone on a daily basis far more than I have used any other mobile device.

My app mainstays include Remember the Milk, Facebook, TwitterFon, Salesforce, BeejiveIM (expensive at $15.99 but worth it), 1Password and Box.net. I also regularly launch eReader, TWC (Weather Channel) and Now Playing. While I still have a few games on my iPhone, I can’t remember the last time I launched one.

I took a rare visit to the App Store to see what I might be missing.

#9 on the Top Paid App list is something called “White Noise”, which pretty much sums up what the store is like for me these days. Not much seems to stand out in a sea of mindless games and fluff entertainment.

Part of the reason I’m bored by the App Store is how often I’ve been burned by apps that don’t live up to their promise. The ratings aren’t as helpful as they could be since you can’t see which version the reviewer was using when they cast their vote. So instead, I tend to grab apps from developers I already trust or those that are recommended on other web sites.

What apps, if any, are still making your cut? How do you decide what to buy/download?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
• Virtual Worlds: Trends and Opportunities

A little over a six weeks ago, I finally switched to an iPhone 3G – I’d been holding out for the white 16GB model to arrive in the UK and pounced as soon as they started to arrive at O2 stores.

I’ve been as enchanted with the mix of goofy and useful applications from the iTunes App Store as anyone else. Initially, I sought to find and install the mobile counterparts of my desktop and web-based applications – eBay, Facebook, Twitteriffic, Last.fm, WordPress, etc

Of course, the real value of iPhone applications are in areas which truly leverage mobility – eBay as an iPhone app is only marginally more useful than eBay running in Safari on an iPhone.

However, there’s a class of iPhone app emerging that seeks to exploit mobility in ways that were previously difficult to conceive.

Mobile Safari has illustrated that phones can simply be conceptualized as handheld windows into the wider web. What applications such as Mocha VNC and G.ho.st illustrate is that a mobile handset can also be a window into remote computing resources.

Both applications enable users to remotely access a computer’s desktop; Mocha VNC is iPhone-specific and based on the VNC protocol (the virtues of which Samuel Dean covered recently) whereas G.ho.st supports a number of handsets, by dint of its browser-based client. Of course VNC servers can run on Linux, Windows and OS X desktops, bringing a kind of virtualization-lite to the iPhone platform.

I paired my new iPhone with my MacBook Pro’s desktop using Mocha VNC and my domestic WiFi network. The results were surprisingly responsive, with the iPhone rendering a legible, zoom-able, thumbnail of my Mac’s desktop. With some tweaks, Mocha and G.ho.st could enable mobile users to tap the full power of desktop computers from a handheld device…albeit with a cost in battery life, data charges and network latency.

Mocha is currently available as a free app, accompanied by a paid, more fully featured edition. You can learn more about Gh.os.st here and Mocha VNC here.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• How to Market Your iPhone App: A Developer’s Guide
• Virtual Worlds: Trends and Opportunities