So you want to build a mobile application but you don’t know what category your application should be classified as. There are 23 categories for Mobile Applications. Out of the 23, the most popular are games followed by weather applications and Social Networking and Maps apps.
The 23 categories are Books, Business, Catalogs, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Games, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Medical, Navigation, News, Newsstand, Photos & Video, Productivity, Social Networking, Sports, Travel, Utilities and Weather. I have listed each category and their definitions.
• Games – The most popular and competitive category in the App Store. If your gaming application is geared towards kids, make sure you focus on Kids as a sub-category selection.
• Entertainment – Mostly for novelty type mobile applications. Note that many of the apps in this category have stayed on the top spots for long periods of time.
• Utilities – Perfectly suited for calendars, test writers, camera apps, alarm clocks, eReaders, and browser applications.
• Social Networking – Mostly for extensions of social media services like Facebook, Bebo, Urkot, EyeMe, WhatsApp, Instafriends and many more.
• Music – This application category is self explanatory, music applications belong here as well as any DJ-type apps such as Garageband, TuneIn Radio, Free Music, djay for iPhone and several 1000 others.
• Productivity – If your application was built to help users be more productive and/or works in-sync with other productivity services, choose this category and chose a logical sub category for best results.
• Lifestyle – Any new age, lifestyle, fashion or niche type application should be submitted with this primary category. Applications that have done very well within this category are Icons Pro, Stylebook, iTheme, Cupcakes and many more.
• Reference – If your application was build to help users make better or more informed decisions like The Night Sky, WolfamAlpha, iHandy Translator, Choose this category.
• Travel – Travel companion applications like maps, tourist guides, and localized information apps will need to be categorized here.
• Sports – Sports applications offer much more then just scores and highlights, if you have developed a sports game type application like Rotowire, NFL fantasy, DkyDroid then you should chose this as your primary category when submitting to iTunes.
• Navigation – This category is best chosen for GPS apps, Map apps, Location finder apps, tourist information apps and any other navigation type application.
• Healthcare & Fitness – Applications that focus on this category are gaining in popularity as users become more focus on their own person health related issues. Applications like Sleep Cycle, Calorie Tracker, P90X exercise application are among the top rated for this category.
• News – News and resource applications like Craigslist, Downcast, Instapaper, reeder and all apps within this category and if you have developed news related applications, then you should chose this as your primary category.
• Photography – The photography category is very competitive. Applications like Camera+, BamBamCam, PicFX and others are the most popular and if you have build an application that offers similar functionality you should chose this as your primary category and also chose a secondary category that applies as well.
• Finance – If you have created an application that helps the end user keep track their investment portfolio or gain instant access to financial info like Ace Budget, Stocks live, DataMan or StockWatch you should chose this as your primary category.
• Business – Some of the most useful apps on the market place are business related and this category has a very wide audience so if you have built an application that falls into this category be sure the add lots of details and screen shots so that visitors can instantly understand the functionality of the app and how it will help them in their daily lives with business related tasks.
• Education – All apps that increase the user’s skill set and knowledge belong in this category. Applications like Solar Walk-3D, Mathemagics, Algebra Touch, TeachMe are all great applications that have been submitted under the category of education.
• Weather – This is one of the most popular categories and application like NOAA, Dark SKY, MyRadar Pro, Weather Live and many others have been very successful.
• Books – Books are doing extremely well in the App Stores. Some are interactive and some are read-only materials. Book applications have changed the world as we know it so if you have developed an application like Free Books, AudioBooks, Classics and many others are offered under the primary category of Books.
• Medical – If your application focuses on medical issue education and information like Pregnancy++, Pill Identifier, Anatomy & Physiology 1 and Total Baby are all great apps that are categorized under Medical application.
Within each category you can search and find 1000′s of applications to choose from.
With over 650,000 applications available for downloading, it can be difficult for users to find your app so be very specific in its description and it’s very important to classify your application correctly so that users are able to find it quickly.
Some application may fit into multiple categories but when you upload to any of the market places, you will only be able to choose one primary and one secondary category.
An application may have social networking capabilities but the primary focus is on Productivity so this would be your selected primary category to submit under. Keep in mind that you will choose the categories yourself but Apple will have the final word.