Smartphone apps dial up privacy worries

Depending on whom you ask, messaging is either the most important mobile phone feature or the second-most — after regular-old phone calls.

Mark Zuckerberg had a strong case this week for why Facebook is making its new Home app for Android that replaces your normal Android home screen. 

As of February, China became the world's biggest user of smartphones, bumping the U.S. out of the No. 1 spot.

As more employees use mobile devices for work, IT departments are getting nervous. They are required, in some cases by law, to track and control the the data stored on these devices. A type of software called mobile device management (MDM) helps them do this. It can find a lost device, add rules for passwords and even backup the data or remotely wipe it.

Statistics about how much people use their smartphones seem to constantly contradict one another. The real numbers matter, because major advertisers won't think of putting more money into mobile if our eyeballs aren't glued to the small screen for hours and hours every day. Here are some recent data points: