Waiting for the bus, in between meetings – while you had a few minutes to kill what were you doing?

If you, like so many million others, own a smart phone, chances are you used a mobile application. More than 300,000 apps are available at present, resulting in an approximately 10.9 billion downloads. IPod Touch users spend about 100 minutes every day on some sort of app; a study by AdMob has shown.

Apps are becoming part of everyday life for many of us, checking Facebook and Twitter at anytime of day with just the press of a button.

Introducing the iPod Touch had a huge impact on app usage. On average iPod Touch users download 12 apps per month, 37 per cent more than smart phone users.

With those numbers continuing to grow, app developers are doing their best to make life easier. An app for your shopping list, an app to get the latest news – considering the market is key to designing a successful app. Many of the younger app users, download them purely for entertainment value – seeing which games reach the top ten selling apps list on iTunes before then downloading.

Closely following gaming apps in the top ten, are more helpful apps such as news and navigation.

Whether it’s for mere entertainment or actual usefulness, mobile app usage is on the up and only expected to continue to rise with hand-held devices such as the iPad available. According to forecasts by Asymco, which performs industry analysis of mobile technology, 50 percent of the U.S. population will own smart phones by the end of 2011.