Apple Launches New App Store Category

With the overflowing number of apps in the App Store, it’s definitely hard to get organized. With more than 500,000 apps (and counting), Apple has managed to overthrow its competitor’s virtual marketplace in terms of sales and strength. The Android OS’ Google Play has about 400,000 apps while RIM’s BlackBerry World has only 70,000 apps for their users to choose from. The iPhone maker also proved to be so effective in pushing to sell iPhone apps that it made four times more than Google Play in terms of sales. With all these numbers to crunch, how exactly does Apple manage to keep up with their App Store?

Here are the possible answers: One, they regulate their app developers well; and two, they manage their app categories well! You never have to go bananas finding out just what you need in a certain area of your life for your iPhone. All you have to do is look it up and find the right categories, because as they say: There’s an app for that! As of last week, the tech giant updates and manages about 22 categories in the App Store. But just last week, the iPhone maker made finding apps for chefs and eaters easier by creating the Food & Drink category on the App Store! Apple’s plans and the details of the said new category were emailed to app developers early this month. The Food & Drink category went live on July 12, 2012.

Prior to the Food & Drink category, apps like Epicurious, Starbucks, Urbanspoon and Zagat were all listed in the Lifestyle category together with Groupon, eBay and Amazon. To put some order into the chaos of the apps listed on Lifestyle, the tech giant finally started migrating apps that have something to do with eating, cooking and drinking (just so the hungry people can find their way into the App Store). Reports say this new category is just one of the very many tweaks the consumer electronics monster has been doing for the last few weeks.

App developers who also sell iPhone 3GS apps says that Apple’s prime motivation for creating a new category for these apps is because of the very apparent success of apps that serve as tools for managing recipes and finding local places to eat. You’ll also notice that the Cooking category in the App Store isn’t there anymore as it has been migrated to the Food & Drink category. So now, if you’re looking for apps that can help you cook, bake and mix drinks as well as collect recipes and find restaurants, all you have to do is to go to the Food & Drink category. This new tab in the App Store, however, will not feature apps that are for dieting, shopping, coupon clipping, and games that are food related.

As of the moment, the App Store’s Food & Drink category features more than 4,000 free apps for the iPhone. About 2,800 more applications are also migrating into their new home to help sell iPhone apps like Foodtruckie, WDW Dine and more.