Enough has been said about the importance of having a Mobile App for business. A Mobile App is a great way to communicate with your customer and boost sales. Mobile apps offer tons of benefits on little spending. They are easy to maintain and introduce your business to diverse groups of people.

But what are the types and categories of mobile apps? If you have a mobile app for your business, do you know what type and category it belongs to?

In this article, we’ll talk about different types and categories of mobile apps, and what purpose each of them serve for.

Types of Mobile Apps

Native Apps

Native apps are those apps which are specifically developed for a single mobile operating system exclusively and do not work on other systems. For example, apps build for systems like iOS, Android can not be used on any other platform.

Put in another way, you can’t use an Android app on iPhone. Besides being system exclusive, native apps are fast and offer high-performance ensuring good user experience. These apps are distinctly accessible from app stores to their target customers – who use systems compatible with such apps. 

Hybrid Apps

A Hybrid app is a software built using-platform web technologies ( HTML, CSS, AND JS). It combines elements of both native apps and web applications, with a single code base for all platforms. Hybrid apps are quite fast and easy to develop. Further, commonly used APIs like geolocation, accelerometer are also available.

One of their advantages is they can run on multiple platforms. 

Hybrid apps are known for their flexibility. They allow developers to write code for a mobile app at once and run on multiple platforms. Only problem is they can be slow at times because they add an extra layer between the code and platform, that makes them slower than native apps.

Web Apps

Web apps are written in HTML5, JS, and CSS, and they behave in a fashion similar to native applications. These apps use a browser to run and redirect a user to URL and offer the “install” option by simply creating a bookmark to their page. They are generally light and require a minimum of device memory. Because all the data is saved on the server, a user can access from any device – if he has internet connection.

Web apps are designed for a variety of uses and can be used by organizations and individuals for numerous reasons. For example, one can use a web app for online calculations, to manage an eCommerce shop, etc.

Categories of Mobile apps

By category of mobile apps, we mean the purpose for which these apps are used. Mobile apps can be used for numerous purposes like education, fitness, gaming, videos, etc. 

1. Entertainment Apps

Some people confuse entertainment apps with gaming apps, however, both types of apps have different goals. Entertainment apps are not restricted to one particular thing like Gaming apps – gaming apps only entertain with games. On the other hand, entertainment apps may provide games, videos, songs, and much more to entertain the user by any mean.

These apps are used by people of all ages, as their sole aim is to entertain and provide refreshing experience to the user. Such apps are highly engaging and can generate substantial revenue for the developers and owners.

2. Business Apps

These apps are popular because they can facilitate online buying, selling, billing, tracking work progress to sending emails, there are varieties of business apps available. There are a variety of such apps available – some are designed for B2B ( Business to Business ) and some for B2B ( Business to Business) purpose.

As the name says, the idea behind these apps is to increase productivity. These apps let you cut down extra expenses and boost productivity, be it your professional or family life. 

3. News Apps

News apps are popular because they are a great way to stay updated with domestic and international affairs. These apps are found in almost every smartphone because everyone wants to stay updated with the latest news. 

The same news can be shared by hundreds of sources, but the one with top-notch User Experience is bound to get more reads and share. A lot depends on how easy your app is to navigate and find the relevant news, for your user to come back again. Some of the examples of such apps are Buzzfeed, Smart news, Feedly, Reddit, etc. All these famous channels share the same news, but its the way they deliver it makes the difference!

4. Educational Apps

These apps are ubiquitous today. Who won’t want to learn a new skill for free? These apps have proven immensely helpful for people of all ages who want to continue learning, despite being on tight budget and schedule. Not only students but teachers too learn from these apps and innovate to improve their teaching style and overall education system.

5. Lifestyle Apps

As the world is progressing, people today are more cautious about their lifestyle – fitness, shopping, workout and much more. These apps offer people an easy way to keep an eye on their lifestyle.

Through these apps, people keep a check on their diet, analyze their routine, and learn useful tips to improve their lifestyle and so forth. Moreover, these apps provide solutions for trivial problems that often cause big troubles in people’s lives.