Whether you are a graphic designer, a small business owner, an entrepreneur or just a gadget freak, you have to admit that the world of apps is getting more and more intriguing by the day. These apps are multipurpose and many times ease and enrich your work. Just a little research and practice and you can master them in no time; thus, increasing creativity and productivity. Though many of these apps are free, some come at a price.
Mobile App Categories:
Broadly mobile apps are categorised into three main types based on their utility...
Native Mobile Apps - Native mobile apps as the name goes are basically specific to one platform; whether it’s Apple iOS, Google’s Android, or Windows Phone. This platform can be advantageous since it focuses on optimising the user experience. Having been developed specifically for the platform, it is faster and more intuitive.
Hybrid Mobile Apps – As the name suggests, the Hybrid Mobile Apps work on a hybrid model. They can be installed on devices similar to native apps, but they run through web browsers. HTML5 programming language is used to develop the Hybrid apps. While Hybrid apps have a greater capacity for streamlining the development process, they are not as fast or reliable as native apps.
Web Apps - Most popular programming languages are used to build Web apps, but they can’t use hardware on mobile devices or be sold in any app store. While responsive websites switch to a different design when they are accessed from a mobile device; adaptive web applications scale to fit the different screen sizes of mobile devices.
Types of Mobile apps:
Mobile apps can be categorised into 6 main types – Lifestyle, Social Media, Utility, Games & Entertainment, Productivity and News or Information.
Let us take a sneak peek into each of these types and then take a call as to which one would be useful (on an individual-to-individual basis)…
1. Lifestyle Mobile Apps – The purpose of a lifestyle mobile app is to ease your day-to-day life. It helps to support the facets that define your lifestyle.
These would be mobile apps related to:
- Fitness
- Dating
- Food
- Music
- Travel
People tend to get addicted to these apps, rather they become an important element in their lives. These are apps that people tend to use to order food, home delivery of household items, music download, call a cab etc. Some of the leading lifestyle apps are - Spotify, Swiggy, Zomato, Tripadvisor, Uber, Ola, Amazon, Myntra, Jio Mart, Grofers Blinkit, Dunzo etc.
2. Social Media Mobile Apps – The Social media apps are the apps that we get completely hooked on to and keep checking at regular intervals. They help build our social and business networks. This app category is very popular and widely used. Facebook alone reports over 1 billion active daily users.
Some common social media apps are – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, Clubhouse etc.
3. Utility Mobile Apps – These apps are very often pre-installed on the mobile and serve specific functions. Some Utility mobile apps are – Reminders, Calendar, Calculator, Flashlight, Weather, Clock (Alarm), Camscanner, WhatsApp, Zoom, Google Meet, Signal and Telegram.
4. Games & Entertainment Mobile Apps – This category is huge and is widely used. Today’s stressful world tends to divert everyone’s attention to a stress buster and what better than an app on your phone! You can spend hours on them as you play or binge on Movies. Some of the most popular ones are – PUBG, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Candy Crush, Angry Birds, Clash of Clans, Hotstar, Zee5, Word Crush, Ludo King, Dubsmash, You Tube, Podcast etc.
5. Productivity Mobile Apps – These are another very popular category of apps and help users accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently. Some of the most popular Productivity apps are – Docs, Sheets, Wallet/Pay, Evernote, Wunderlust, Canva, Inshot, WPS Office, Grammarly, Journeydiary, Note Maker etc.
6. News/Information Outlets Mobile Apps – As the name suggests these apps have a clear cut purpose and are used to supply news and information to users. Some of the most popular apps in this category are – Buzzfeed, Google News and Weather, ANI, Quora, Goodreads, Inshorts, Feedly, LinkedIn Pulse, Smartnews, Flipboard, Reddit etc.
Let us look at some cool and out-of-the-box apps:
Poncho – This app helps you talk to people about things you care about and find interesting. Through this app, connect with verified users and discuss universities and workplaces.
Momento – This journaling app for the iPhone is apt for capturing and revisiting your life experiences and adventures.
Carbo – An awesome health app, specifically designed for the type 1 diabetics, whose purpose is to run around the counting process of carbohydrates,
Loopimal – This is a complete fun app, enjoyed by children and adults. It helps to explore sequences, loops, and music. Children learn a lot through this app too as they have endless opportunities to create rich compositions and explore loops and computer sequencing within an easy-to-use pre-programming framework.
City Mapper – Navigation in your city gets easier with this turn-by-turn directions app; use it for all your public transportation, walking, cycling and scooter trips.
Scanbot – This is a premium mobile scanning app for your Android and helps you create high quality PDF scans and send them via email, or upload them to Evernote and other cloud services.
DuoLingo – Wish to become a Linguist? Try this app to learn various languages.
It can get tricky as you keep downloading the apps; so look at it from the utility point and keep only those apps which you need to serve the six main purposes listed above. Also select only a few apps from each category, based on your requirement. Even though you may be tempted to download all the apps, be warned – this may slow your phone as it will take a lot of space!
