Why do Android app users make relatively so many more casual observations than other users?

what i see since 2018 (below) is that there definitely are more casuals in CNC months, but it doesn’t seem that bad to me. there definitely are other months like Feb 2019 that stand out more to me as having unusually high numbers of casuals.

one thing that i do see is that the casual ratio is lower in more recent months. i’m not sure if that’s a function of older observations having had a longer time to get identifiers looking at them and classifying them properly (or, alternatively, more observations in absolute terms in recent months having overwhelmed the identifier community) or if there is a genuine improvement in more recent years.

one really interesting thing (to me) in the monthly numbers to me is starting around this year, Android seems to have edged out iOS as the largest source of observations. (that’s especially interesting when you consider my previous note about the geographic regions that have high numbers of Android users.)

Created Month All Total All Casual All Casual / Total Android Total Android Casual Android Casual / Total iOS iOS Casual iOS Casual / Total
1/1/2018 337,944 44,053 0.130 31,175 5,884 0.189 68,083 7,835 0.115
2/1/2018 332,136 48,572 0.146 39,564 8,317 0.210 80,627 9,909 0.123
3/1/2018 471,622 57,655 0.122 81,699 19,024 0.233 147,804 20,465 0.138
4/1/2018 1,073,190 173,598 0.162 227,360 56,425 0.248 443,395 77,033 0.174
5/1/2018 988,261 138,763 0.140 205,995 55,967 0.272 381,132 58,898 0.155
6/1/2018 871,475 103,155 0.118 188,603 47,271 0.251 321,634 36,174 0.112
7/1/2018 998,591 165,286 0.166 195,393 50,347 0.258 331,143 33,915 0.102
8/1/2018 1,019,235 216,523 0.212 181,934 46,463 0.255 313,268 33,800 0.108
9/1/2018 912,432 136,622 0.150 197,798 57,505 0.291 353,370 51,354 0.145
10/1/2018 841,344 115,575 0.137 174,748 53,476 0.306 307,362 41,694 0.136
11/1/2018 704,667 140,743 0.200 135,955 51,220 0.377 234,603 61,659 0.263
12/1/2018 573,141 57,951 0.101 84,335 22,147 0.263 143,638 19,407 0.135
1/1/2019 626,140 62,696 0.100 90,612 22,894 0.253 148,690 21,502 0.145
2/1/2019 765,663 200,042 0.261 190,755 97,670 0.512 182,675 41,304 0.226
3/1/2019 954,559 118,378 0.124 191,498 47,275 0.247 318,930 45,094 0.141
4/1/2019 2,272,726 422,623 0.186 647,063 190,698 0.295 859,914 136,227 0.158
5/1/2019 1,828,781 251,024 0.137 427,271 106,108 0.248 667,261 91,170 0.137
6/1/2019 1,738,770 196,067 0.113 425,690 91,605 0.215 652,339 74,729 0.115
7/1/2019 1,894,877 195,747 0.103 462,848 90,896 0.196 674,631 65,764 0.097
8/1/2019 1,858,526 203,110 0.109 450,487 91,789 0.204 649,730 66,158 0.102
9/1/2019 1,712,732 213,486 0.125 400,197 86,143 0.215 652,348 85,581 0.131
10/1/2019 1,405,707 182,071 0.130 334,242 77,602 0.232 475,259 65,360 0.138
11/1/2019 1,036,851 150,821 0.145 233,946 64,841 0.277 291,807 56,493 0.194
12/1/2019 874,135 90,539 0.104 172,277 38,563 0.224 213,151 30,646 0.144
1/1/2020 976,079 95,882 0.098 174,036 34,150 0.196 235,833 28,788 0.122
2/1/2020 1,173,542 252,193 0.215 204,325 41,055 0.201 261,456 34,347 0.131
3/1/2020 1,681,279 268,452 0.160 323,869 63,398 0.196 497,240 63,502 0.128
4/1/2020 3,144,957 436,080 0.139 745,845 163,649 0.219 1,132,316 179,022 0.158
5/1/2020 3,477,538 413,428 0.119 887,022 165,323 0.186 1,249,808 165,301 0.132
6/1/2020 3,315,133 351,014 0.106 890,885 154,515 0.173 1,129,997 122,992 0.109
7/1/2020 3,301,743 311,407 0.094 889,214 142,069 0.160 1,111,657 102,554 0.092
8/1/2020 3,082,797 285,460 0.093 809,159 132,628 0.164 1,017,505 97,035 0.095
9/1/2020 3,015,813 342,643 0.114 750,734 130,007 0.173 1,069,087 133,667 0.125
10/1/2020 2,465,066 289,207 0.117 592,692 112,811 0.190 805,399 115,655 0.144
11/1/2020 1,902,416 298,875 0.157 446,644 100,077 0.224 553,446 125,212 0.226
12/1/2020 1,409,062 151,890 0.108 295,785 55,992 0.189 316,008 44,439 0.141
1/1/2021 1,453,469 131,028 0.090 311,642 60,615 0.195 320,302 37,225 0.116
2/1/2021 1,409,831 149,322 0.106 293,920 51,729 0.176 338,210 49,135 0.145
3/1/2021 2,118,900 236,446 0.112 501,676 92,756 0.185 619,985 86,945 0.140
4/1/2021 3,262,524 376,008 0.115 836,557 147,254 0.176 1,121,053 146,532 0.131
5/1/2021 4,960,055 580,448 0.117 1,429,016 255,285 0.179 1,581,501 188,227 0.119
6/1/2021 3,889,463 378,217 0.097 1,097,442 166,139 0.151 1,250,259 111,966 0.090
7/1/2021 4,113,958 373,524 0.091 1,141,064 155,448 0.136 1,274,272 92,619 0.073
8/1/2021 3,675,674 310,387 0.084 985,579 133,837 0.136 1,111,289 85,532 0.077
9/1/2021 3,406,093 330,507 0.097 894,532 130,588 0.146 1,133,554 120,485 0.106
10/1/2021 3,074,436 287,925 0.094 795,056 126,712 0.159 959,322 99,435 0.104
11/1/2021 2,254,284 368,541 0.163 533,222 112,216 0.210 636,788 110,904 0.174
12/1/2021 1,727,492 157,404 0.091 383,270 63,220 0.165 423,244 46,726 0.110
1/1/2022 1,796,634 147,796 0.082 368,869 56,191 0.152 421,042 42,106 0.100
2/1/2022 1,670,226 139,998 0.084 366,374 56,498 0.154 416,020 49,893 0.120
3/1/2022 2,298,880 209,204 0.091 553,754 88,367 0.160 711,049 80,748 0.114
4/1/2022 3,840,129 411,336 0.107 1,101,144 188,005 0.171 1,337,933 155,682 0.116
5/1/2022 5,457,339 620,655 0.114 1,627,412 295,649 0.182 1,716,573 187,423 0.109
6/1/2022 4,370,746 346,264 0.079 1,273,600 174,887 0.137 1,412,447 104,365 0.074
7/1/2022 4,579,764 311,195 0.068 1,299,491 156,287 0.120 1,464,126 90,862 0.062
8/1/2022 4,109,297 329,791 0.080 1,109,781 140,174 0.126 1,246,457 85,633 0.069
9/1/2022 3,822,817 323,558 0.085 1,011,120 142,086 0.141 1,284,681 121,353 0.094
10/1/2022 3,511,831 315,905 0.090 985,657 143,413 0.145 1,060,194 102,248 0.096
11/1/2022 2,582,145 280,208 0.109 726,950 144,952 0.199 686,584 85,826 0.125
12/1/2022 2,086,915 174,300 0.084 473,761 63,778 0.135 507,679 49,303 0.097
1/1/2023 2,196,681 140,611 0.064 505,312 68,705 0.136 530,776 40,297 0.076
2/1/2023 2,082,034 145,483 0.070 491,415 66,644 0.136 544,590 48,332 0.089
3/1/2023 2,952,048 227,082 0.077 746,711 101,103 0.135 871,047 78,397 0.090
4/1/2023 5,236,757 496,784 0.095 1,648,303 252,323 0.153 1,737,730 170,645 0.098
5/1/2023 6,320,331 587,798 0.093 1,954,254 302,255 0.155 1,970,334 176,546 0.090
6/1/2023 5,306,521 358,487 0.068 1,600,577 187,190 0.117 1,695,649 103,622 0.061
7/1/2023 5,522,359 310,440 0.056 1,645,703 160,405 0.097 1,725,819 87,240 0.051
8/1/2023 4,975,272 299,388 0.060 1,464,189 152,399 0.104 1,506,578 80,692 0.054
9/1/2023 4,401,112 315,609 0.072 1,177,843 124,867 0.106 1,409,815 99,960 0.071
10/1/2023 3,858,025 240,575 0.062 1,026,927 106,906 0.104 1,193,528 85,095 0.071
11/1/2023 2,987,732 226,169 0.076 798,151 95,544 0.120 818,801 72,239 0.088
12/1/2023 2,676,743 178,805 0.067 670,708 85,970 0.128 669,948 57,631 0.086
1/1/2024 2,607,488 192,799 0.074 598,343 62,509 0.104 630,822 45,629 0.072
2/1/2024 2,699,785 190,077 0.070 695,055 87,523 0.126 693,481 55,738 0.080
3/1/2024 3,885,323 279,878 0.072 1,086,510 137,978 0.127 1,215,833 94,780 0.078
4/1/2024 7,412,013 797,288 0.108 2,626,290 454,746 0.173 2,410,338 220,985 0.092
5/1/2024 6,089,869 455,535 0.075 1,948,384 245,189 0.126 1,893,336 131,786 0.070