Four types of mobile apps

If you are a founder trying to create a new mobile app or an investor trying decide whether an app has enduring value, it is helpful to separate the ways that people use apps into four categories.

1. Time wasters: Apps that can be used for short bursts when you are waiting in line, etc. The most popular time wasters are games. Some apps are used sometimes as time wasters and sometimes as utilities – e.g. Facebook is both a time waster (checking status updates few minutes) and a utility (sending Facebook messages).

Time wasters tend to be faddish. It is easy to get hooked on new games and also easy to tire of them. If you want to build a big company that builds time wasters, you need to build a machine that builds, markets and monetizes apps, as Zynga has done.

2. Core utilities: As a rule of thumb, core utilities are the apps on your home screen: camera, phone, contacts, texting, calendar, etc. Core utilities map to deeply engrained use patterns that usually existed before modern smart phones. In the past people might have carried around a paper calendar, a standalone camera, etc. Core utilities tend to be very sticky – if you gain widespread adoption for a core utility you can build long-lasting value.

One entry strategy for a startup is to replace a core utility. This is what Instagram did to the built-in camera app. It is unclear whether the “Instagram for video” companies are core utilities (video app replacements) or time wasters. Creating a new core utility that doesn’t replace an existing core utility is very hard. Foursquare seems to have done this for the users who regularly check-in.

3. Episodic utilities: Episodic utilities are apps that typically aren’t on the home screen but are extremely useful in certain situations. Some examples: Hipmunk when buying plane tickets, Uber when you need a car, and OpenTable for making restaurant reservations. Successful episodic utilities target a well-defined situation and then become deeply associated with that situation. Making an app that is too broad or has multiple use situations can hurt you. Because many of these situations involve purchasing, these apps tend to be monetizable.

4. Notification-driven apps: This is an emerging category. Android has had a good notification system for a while, but the iPhone only made notifications useful in IOS 5. People tend to enable notifications for communication apps like email, texting etc. Thus far, notifications for other apps haven’t gotten widespread adoption because, among other things: it is easy to annoy users by over-notifying them, and running non-communications apps in the background tends to drain battery life. Expect this category to grow as apps get smarter about when to notify, and battery life improves dramatically over the next year or two.

http://www.facebook.com/kevinmarks Kevin Marks

a lot of mobile apps are in effect site-specific browsers. Offline reference would be handy, often missing

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

As a New Yorker who rides subway etc, I’d like more offline modes, but not sure if that is a decreasing need..?

http://about.me/adriansanders Adrian Sanders

Offline modes don’t necessarily have to include the totality of the app. To your subway point, I use Embark NYC which downloads train schedules so that you can do accurate route planning while underground.
http://rafer.tumblr.com rafer

More apps (like ours, natch) are at least making the current/last few sessions available offline so there’s enough data to get stuff done underground, et al.
http://www.ivpcapital.com/blog Michael Elling

It is important because of both coverage and cost issues of the connection vs local storage, processing, creation. See my other comments later.

http://twitter.com/davidvanderjagt David VanderJagt

Chris, would you consider an app such as MobileDay, focused on making mobile conferencing easy, more of an Episodic utility or Notification-driven app? Could an app like this ever become Core utility?

In full disclosure, I’m a student that just began interning with MobileDay but very interested in your feedback—this is new space to me.
http://www.activetheoryinc.com Alex Gourley

What would netflix be?

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

I don’t mean these categories to be mutually exclusive (and perhaps not even exhaustive), but I’d say episodic (when you want to watch a whole movie/tv show) or perhaps time waster (if you have just a few minutes to watch – not sure if people actually use netflix this way, though).

Anonymous

Instagram is definitely one that fits both the time waster and core utility categories, as I’m sure are quite a few of the other popular apps (non-games).

Feels like most would touch two of the four categories at most.

http://www.activetheoryinc.com Alex Gourley

So I bring up netflix because it occurs to me that your classification system makes the most sense when you are using your mobile device in a mobile context. The moment you drop it into it’s stand and make it your TV, video conference camera, sewing machine interface panel, robot brain, etc. it’s become something else – an appliance replacement.

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

Yeah, perhaps switching “modes” like that requires a new set of categories since it’s almost a different device at that point.

http://twitter.com/PTPells Peter Pelberg

As you noted, I wonder how you see our interactions with our phones changing in “mobile mode” as apps become more contextually aware (running ambiently) and [perhaps] more interconnected?

I see the push notification changing drastically as our phones better gather, manage and communicate information to us without our explicit engagement.

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

I tend to think push will become increasingly important over the next decade, although I don’t know exactly what for right now. Waiting for smart entrepreneurs to show the way.

http://twitter.com/PTPells Peter Pelberg

I am in complete agreement with you on push.

http://twitter.com/manpreets7 Manpreet Singh

Great classification, Chris.

One comment on category #4 though: at-least on iOS, the functionality of notifications has been more or less disconnected from the issue of battery life by push notifications, which are basically delivered via a cloud service. Going forward, this should happen more and more because most useful notifications will have to be the result of non-trivial computation/correlation across data sources, which is more suitable via cloud services.
http://engag.io/ William Mougayar

Where would you place location-based ones like Foursquare?

Twitter is a core utility, but it created a new category, no?
Rauno Rüngas

Time-wasters and utilities are a distinctly clear for everybody.

But notification driver apps?

I would understand “location-aware”, “time-aware” etc – apps that try to use ( help/manipulate) you as an oppose to the time-waster and utilities where you take the first step by opening them.

Wouldn’t classification make more sense this way?
Because you will get both time-wasting and utility notifications

Rauno Rüngas

In addition, both categories “initiated by user” or “Notification based” would have both core and episodic events and examples.

http://twitter.com/lchamberlin Luke Chamberlin

#4 seems like a sub-category of the first three. “Hey come back and waste some more time.” “Hey come back and check your messages.”

What would be an example of a notification-driven app that isn’t just one of the first three + notifications?

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

highlight, foursquare radar etc? I dunno, but seems like an interesting new trigger.

http://twitter.com/lchamberlin Luke Chamberlin

Definitely interesting. I am trying to think of more examples.

Health alerts? Fitness apps? Take your medication? Pray in the direction of Mecca? Call your mother?

I think games still have a lot of area to explore here. Notifications are often meaningless and spammy. What about a massive online strategy game that notified you when it was your turn or when someone encroached on your territory?

http://simplifilm.com/ Chris Johnson

Fitness apps I think may be able to be a different category here. Or aspirational aps, or a “human performance overlay” Something like that.

http://www.facebook.com/sandy.mckinnon Sandy McKinnon

Quantified self apps for sports / health / diet – are niche – but could be big niches
http://www.gplus.to/arkadiuszdymalski Arkadiusz Dymalski

Exactly. i wonder how to categorize our current experiment – NanoKoan. It’s aimed at boosting performance (thus could fall into ‘episodic utility’) however strongly notification driven. And actually not that episodic for people who need it.

http://www.victusspiritus.com/ Mark Essel

Could extend #1 to cover all four. Aren’t we all just passing the time?

http://twitter.com/abhvious abhi

5. Confluence apps: Apps that use camera-computer-network to disrupt traditional multi-step workflows. Eg, scanner apps (receipts, business cards, unwarping pictures of pages from books, barcode reading for shopping), panoramic stitch apps (Photosynth, Occipital), and of course my startup Arqball (shameless plug) that does 360 product photography for ecommerce and eventually 3D geometry scanning.
Pingback: Four use cases for mobile apps – Chris Dixon | Pro Phone Cards
Pingback: Mobile Development News Roundup for Tuesday, May 22, 2012 — Global Nerdy
Pingback: 移动应用的黄金四分类 | Cheerfly开源平台
Pingback: 你正在開發的是行動應用「黃金四分類」的哪一類？ | TechOrange
http://pegobry.tumblr.com/ Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

The interesting question is whether utilities, especially episodic utilities will get subsumed by Siri, which was the plan of its original incarnation. You could book a restaurant or flight through Siri via the APIs of OpenTable, Kayak or whatever. For some reason Apple removed that option when it introduced Siri as a core iOS feature, I assume for technical reasons. If it brings it back, then Siri will become the distribution mechanism for many “utilities” type apps.

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

Yeah good point. Siri or a similar technology has a chance to increase use of “long tail” apps/websites, which I think would be healthy for users and app makers.

http://www.thenewspaceper.com Alexis

What about news apps and Twitter ?

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

Time wasters and sometimes utilities (like FB)

Pingback: 移动应用的黄金四分类 – 氧吧
Anonymous

This was well written until the final one. First, you couldn’t resist making a fandroid dig at iPhone. Second, it’s just plain wrong that battery life or anything is hindering adoption. At least on iOS where notifications are pushed, there is no significant battery life issue. I don’t know Android, so can’t speak for it.

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

I’m actually an Apple/iOS fan and user and dislike Android. Notifications are perhaps the one thing Android did well & first.

Anonymous

I apologize for mistakenly calling you a fandroid.

But the point you make about battery life argues that while Android may have been first, Apple took its time to do it right, that building a push notification infrastructure is more critical than getting the UI right the first time, that severely limiting apps from running in the background, pushing background processing into the cloud, was where Apple got it right and Google got it wrong.

http://www.ivpcapital.com/blog Michael Elling

What if you create a matrix of these 4 vs time, financial, space and emotive cost savings or value propositions. That might quantify the utility value better. (I would use “time soakers” vs time wasters, btw.) We are just at the beginning of understanding fully the power of the smartphone and the distinction between fixed and mobile and context/states. But broadly I think we transact, communicate, process, create and think (assimilate) across all these devices (smartphone, connected device/appliance, tablet, laptop, desktop, TV) to varying degrees. So that can be a 3rd axis if you really want to focus the value proposition and or understand all the exogenous issues potentially impacting an app or creating an ecosystem framework. Then we can really begin to “digitize” the real world around us by all the I/O that can happen or be controlled in real time via the smartphone.
Pingback: Rob’s Radar 5/22 | Robert Croak
http://twitter.com/rohit_x_ Rohit Sharma

Agree that this list is not meant to be exhaustive… I’d suggest at least one more category:

Composite Apps: Apps that knit together meaningful I/O to/from multiple other apps in a coordinated way. Siri is (almost) the first such app. There will be more.
Something like :: pipe the output (alert) from Calendar to iMessage to deliver to specific recipients + trigger a call to thermostat to turn off + Call Uber + Call up Flight Status Check App +…..

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

Yes, it would be really interesting to have more interaction between apps.
http://twitter.com/manpreets7 Manpreet Singh

Sounds like this kind of an app would use a lot of APIs from different services and would end-up sending you notifications for certain things – so would end up in #4.

http://twitter.com/albertobrizio Alberto Brizio

How do you know that battery life will improve dramatically over the next year or two? I couldn’t find anything relevant on this claim.

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

The inevitable march of new tech. e.g http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/21/2890127/broadcom-gps-chip-indoor-positioning-bcm4752

http://twitter.com/albertobrizio Alberto Brizio

Ha. I thought you meant batteries would pack more energy because of some new technology, but you really are saying mobile devices will be less power hungry. I certainly hope you’re right but I am not so sure this is going to be the case.

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

I would expect you’d get battery life benefit on both sides (better batteries and more efficient hardware/software).

Pingback: Daily Run Down 05/22/2012 | Wayne's Workshop
Anonymous

Why will battery life improve dramatically over the next year or two?
Pingback: 【总结】移动应用的黄金四分类 | 【zhaoNew.com】找牛网
http://www.vigill.com Barry Nolan

I believe it distills down to two core classifications – apps that sate desires, or apps that solve problems

Desires -“a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.”

Apps in this category range from the disposable (this months game, 5 minutes of sudoku on the john, check techmeme for whats going down) to the deep and habitual (discover, news, newsfeeds, sharing).

Typically desires = eyeballs … monetized in usual and unusual advertising mechanisms

Problems – ‘a thing that is difficult to achieve or accomplish’

The genius of apps is born partially out of their 4‘inch (ish) form factor constraints, supercharged by context (camera, location). That is, apps are designed to glide us through solving one task, simply and quickly.

In the problem solving we absolutely have the episodic (Open Table, Yelp); emerging lifestyle (Fitbit, calorie counters); to a new breed of companion apps that allow us to engage and remote control our physical world services with an ease of use that apps uniquely afford us. The best of these latter provide persistent utility and user convenience – “Barry, your flight will gate 54 at 13:00. Do you want to pre-order WiFi” “Barry, your credit card has just been used in Rome, Italy. Everything OK” – and will replace existing world interfaces. They are effectively concierges for the task at hand, orchestrating memorable tasks for customers, and can be enormously valuable and sticky.

As to push, its just one incarnation of user engagement for these next breed of ‘aware’ apps.
http://twitter.com/NateLassiter Nate Lassiter

Great article. Good way to categorize the categories of mobile apps.

We’re aiming for the episodic utility with http://app.SeeWhos.In when you’re getting a group of friends together for fun.

Nate
Pingback: Separate the ways that people use apps | My Blog
http://twitter.com/BeginningiOSdev Beginning iOS dev

Interesting read.
The ‘Time Wasters’ category seems to be the most popular category
in the app store at the moment but as you mentioned, these apps seem to die off pretty quickly.

I’m working on a hybrid time waster/utility app and I’m hoping it’ll be a little more ‘sticky’ than the average fad app
Pingback: Four types of mobile apps | LA PhoneGap
http://twitter.com/skompdev skompdev

Great article. What do others here use for Push Notifications? I’m looking at Parse and Urban Airship. Has anyone here seen Scringo yet? Great new social layer for your app.
http://reecepacheco.com/ reecepacheco

curious if you consider tablets “mobile?”

i’d argue that the form factor changes enough between phone and tablet that some apps can be time wasters on phones but episodic utilities on tablet

http://www.cdixon.org/ chris dixon

I was thinking of phones when I wrote this. I think tablets have some of the same characteristics but also think developers & users are still figuring tablets out.

http://reecepacheco.com/ reecepacheco

fair enough

Pingback: 锐视野｜ INNOMATIVE'S BLOG » 移动应用的黄金四分类
Pingback: PDmobile-专注移动产品设计 » 移动应用的黄金四分类
http://twitter.com/culturengine Andrew McPhee

2 Types of App:

Save Time + Spend(Invest/Waste) Time.

A single app could potentially fulfil both use cases (Twitter for example).
http://www.facebook.com/kminkstein Kris Minkstein

I just spent a little too long trying to think of an app that didn’t fit into those categories, but I think you nailed it.

Funny think about #4 is a) how important notifications are for the majority of apps already and b) the fact that it’s free.

I can’t decide if it’s Apple’s way of locking companies into iOS by creating the most unbelievable means to communicate with users for free? Or will they eventually begin charging for sending Push like an ESP? Even if it was a fraction of a cent per push, that would be a lot of money.
http://www.facebook.com/kminkstein Kris Minkstein

Does Fart App become a Core Utility if it’s on my Home Screen?
Pingback: 移动应用的黄金四分类 | DaD Asia
Pingback: Affiliate and Online Marketing News You Can Use – May 2012 | ppc.bz
Pingback: FullContact Is Solving The Worlds Contact Management Problem | Del-iberations
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | TechCrunch
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | Krantenkoppen Tech
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | Network9ja
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | Welcome To My Site
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | SIMPLYGRAY
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | Hastings News | Hastings Local News
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | Mendota Heights News
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020?
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | Rosemount News
Pingback: How Will The Web Monetize In 2020? | Gaster Tech Blog

Chris Dixon