iOS App Store Gains New 'Shopping' Category

[MacRumors]

Apple will be updating the iOS App Store today to introduce a new Shopping category that will allow iOS users to better find shopping-related apps. According to TechCrunch the Shopping category will be available to users worldwide and will encompass apps that offer shopping, auctions, price comparisons, coupons, product reviews, and more, transitioning them from the existing Lifestyle category to the new less noisy category.

Apple plans to use the Shopping category to highlight apps that support Apple Pay, its mobile payments service. Many apps now include Apple Pay integration, letting users pay for merchandise with a finger on the Touch ID fingerprint button on supported devices.

The new App Store category will include launch with several different collections of shopping apps, including a "Save While You Shop" category that will be offering exclusive discounts from a variety of merchants like Everlane, Zappos, Groupon, and Nordstrom. Nordstrom, for example, will offer a free gift when $100 or more is spent in the app, while Zappos will offer free 1-day shipping.

App Store users should begin seeing the category in the App Store later today, and in the future, it's possible Apple could expand it to the tvOS App Store as well. The tvOS App Store currently only supports two categories, Games and Entertainment, but shopping on the big screen has been a feature that's been touted by Apple.

Article Link: iOS App Store Gains New 'Shopping' Category

 

[dannyyankou]

It didn't already have this category?

 

[kirky29]

I was actually looking for a shopping category the other evening... Found it silly there wasn't one!

 

[BarmyGnome]

The category I've been waiting for!!

 

[Benjamin Frost]

This is welcome news.

Shopping apps tend to get lumped into Lifestyle, along with everything else. Now, let's have another 13 subcategories to accommodate other apps. I'm tired of wading through a sea of apps to get to the one I'm looking for.

 

[nutmac]

Makes sense. Lifestyle was a poor choice for shopping oriented apps. Now if only they would do something about Productivity and Utilities.

Better yet, how about an option to automatically create category folders?

 

[Adithya007]

Apple: Now, Accept Apple Pay in your Stores for us to add your app to the list. Will not you?

 

[nfl46]

Dang, about time! Just in time for Black Friday shopping. Clever.

 

[mdridwan47]

BREAKING NEWS!

 

[diego]

The app store ecosystem needs to be overhauled. There's so much garbage in there that it's impossible to find the ones that are actually useful. It's so frustrating to go in the App Store and just seeing stupid casual games and flashy apps that actually don't do anything to improve people's lives... we live in a world ruled by easy and fast entertainment.

 

[mrgraff]

I wish Google could find a way to bring back their "Catalogs" iPad app, and make it possible to buy anything from anyone via Apple pay.

 

[Juicy Box]

Any additions would be great. I think my wife would love this.

 

[unplugme71]

This was needed like 10 years ago. There's so many shopping apps - Best Buy, New Egg, B&H Photo, Staples, etc.. pain to always find them in different cats

 

[thogin]

The Apple employee in charge of adding the categories has to manually add them one at a time using the Apple TV remote touchpad, that's why it's taking so long.

 

[dk001]

This is welcome news.

Shopping apps tend to get lumped into Lifestyle, along with everything else. Now, let's have another 13 subcategories to accommodate other apps. I'm tired of wading through a sea of apps to get to the one I'm looking for.

Be great if,if Apple would fix search in the app store.

 

[6836838]

Not in the UK yet. We only got the Featured category yesterday. Still no categories.

 

[Jeremy1026]

Not in the UK yet. We only got the Featured category yesterday. Still no categories.

Are you talking tvOS? Because this is about iOS.

 

[Romy90210]

Yet they can't add a proper way to search for (Unfeatured) apps or useful set of categories to their new apple tv. or is that somethinng they are savign for the atv5... apple store categories.... smh

 

[ck2875]

I just wish they would update the featured apps within the categories more often.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Not in the UK yet. We only got the Featured category yesterday. Still no categories.

It's there now.

 

[TechZeke]

I was actually looking for a shopping category the other evening... Found it silly there wasn't one!

This category seems like a no brainer. I have a separate shopping folder on my iPhone/iPad. Not sure why it took this long to add this category when every retailer has a shopping app, including Apple.

 

[appledefenceforce]

The app store ecosystem needs to be overhauled. There's so much garbage in there that it's impossible to find the ones that are actually useful. It's so frustrating to go in the App Store and just seeing stupid casual games and flashy apps that actually don't do anything to improve people's lives... we live in a world ruled by easy and fast entertainment.

What you think is "garbage" might be useful for other people and vice versa. This is a free world, if you don't like those apps then don't get them. If you want your own life to be improved how about you stop getting worked up about mobile apps.

 

[Mums]

This is welcome news.

Shopping apps tend to get lumped into Lifestyle, along with everything else. Now, let's have another 13 subcategories to accommodate other apps. I'm tired of wading through a sea of apps to get to the one I'm looking for.

Spot on. They need a toggle to filter out video games. I look through top app lists and all I see are video games, which I never buy, and have very little interest in.

 

[FatMax]

Does Apple take a 30% cut off all sales?

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Spot on. They need a toggle to filter out video games. I look through top app lists and all I see are video games, which I never buy, and have very little interest in.

Oh boy, I couldn't agree with you more.

What I would love is a way to hide all the apps I don't want to see in the App Store. I get so tired of seeing the same dumb apps in the top charts. I want to be able to hide most of them.