Many of them come pre-installed on your device and serve a single function. Utilities are the types of mobile apps that we may use most often without thinking about them as apps. This functionality will keep your users coming back to share again and again while comparing with their networks. They make it easy for their users to share something they feel passionate about without having to leave the app.Ĭonsider adding social sharing features to your app if you will be providing a service or selling a product that your users can share with their networks.

Many other apps allow you to share a product, high score, or news item with your social network. You can essentially form an online running partnership or even an entire team without ever meeting face to face. It not only tracks your activities but allows you to compare your stats with other people in your network (and even strangers). For that reason, even apps that don’t necessarily fall under the social media category may want to include social sharing functionality.įor an example, let's look at the popular running and cycling app, Strava. Today’s society shares more about their day-to-day lives than ever before. Social media apps have to be fun, fast, and continually integrating the expanding features of the social networks they support. Naturally, we want to have the ease of access a mobile app provides. Facebook alone reports over 1 billion active daily users. We build our social networks, and most of us check in with them every day. Social media apps are some of the most popular types of mobile apps available. Something your users just can’t live without. Something that your competitors don’t do. If you’re developing a lifestyle app, you’ll need to do something to wow your user.

They’re the apps that help them find themselves, what they like and dislike, and where they’re heading next.Īt the risk of getting a little too deep, I’ll stop there. These are the apps that people turn to on a daily basis to help them find the next new song, restaurant, or destination.

The beauty of these apps is that once they’re a part of a user’s lifestyle repertoire, they’re likely there for good. By this I mean those types of mobile apps related to: A lifestyle app is one that accelerates or supports the individual facets that define your lifestyle. Lifestyle apps have come on strong in recent years. Let’s get started! The 6 Main Types of Mobile Apps 1. Plus-as establishing a base of regular users is vital to an app’s successful monetization-I’ll be sharing advice about the goals of each app to improve the user experience and retain your users. Read on, and I’ll outline the 6 major types of mobile apps to help you determine in which category your mobile app belongs. Determining where your mobile app idea fits is an important step toward making your idea into a reality. To my count, there are 6 defining categories that you need to understand before you begin developing your app. How many categories, you ask?Īs of the publication date of this article, there are 32 categories in Google Play and 24 in the App Store, but I think they’ve gone a little overboard. While some are doing their best to stay ahead of the tech curve, many are simply meeting customer demand for an app that makes their lives easier.Īs such, there is a wide variety of apps that fit into an increasingly vast array of categories. Today, even businesses who never would’ve needed apps in the past are getting into the game. The marketplace is crowded with all types of mobile apps. At this point, apps are an integral part of our daily lives.

Application software categories