Daily active users (DAU)
Daily active users (DAU) is the number of different people who used your app on a given day.
Also called DAU.
In plain words
3,912 people used Fern yesterday.
How Apparent would say it about Fern, an example app in the live demo.
How it's worked out
Count each person once per day, however many times they opened the app.
Good to know
It answers the simplest question there is: how many people did something in your app today? Someone who opens the app ten times still counts once.
What counts as "active" is a choice. Most tools count anyone who opened the app. Some count only people who did something that matters, like adding a plant or finishing a lesson. Pick one and keep it, or the line will jump for no real reason.
One day is noisy: weekends, holidays and a feature in the App Store all move it. Look at the trend over a few weeks, or at the weekly and monthly numbers next to it.
Where the number comes from
Your app's own events (an SDK such as Apparent's). Apple's App Analytics also shows active devices, but only for people who agreed to share data with developers.