You could install apps on a portable device for years, but it never really took off until Apple opened the App Store for the iPhone. Now, according to a new study, 35 percent of US adults have apps on their phones.

This is a pretty remarkable tech-adoption story, if you consider that there was no apps culture until two years ago,” said Roger Entner, co-author of the report and Senior Vice President and Head of Research and Insights for Telecom Practice at Nielsen. “Every metric we capture shows a widening embrace of all kinds of apps by a widening population. It’s too early to say what this will eventually amount to, but not too early to say that this is an important new part of the technology world of many Americans.”

35% US adults now have apps on their cell phones — Pew survey claims [9 to 5 Mac]