iOS App Store Gains New 'Shopping' Category

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.

iosappstoreshoppingcategory
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.

Top Rated Comments

thogin Avatar
110 months ago
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. :)
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Benjamin Frost Avatar
110 months ago
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.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
diego Avatar
110 months ago
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.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dk001 Avatar
110 months ago
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.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Romy90210 Avatar
110 months ago
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
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nfl46 Avatar
110 months ago
Dang, about time! Just in time for Black Friday shopping. Clever.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

reset password request iphone

Warning: Apple Users Targeted in Phishing Attack Involving Rapid Password Reset Requests

Tuesday March 26, 2024 4:34 pm PDT by
Phishing attacks taking advantage of Apple's password reset feature have become increasingly common, according to a report from KrebsOnSecurity. Multiple Apple users have been targeted in an attack that bombards them with an endless stream of notifications or multi-factor authentication (MFA) messages in an attempt to cause panic so they'll respond favorably to social engineering. An...
iPhone Home Screen Gradient Blank Spaces 1

Sources: iOS 18 Lets Apps Be Placed Anywhere on Home Screen Grid

Sunday March 24, 2024 1:33 pm PDT by
iOS 18 will give iPhone users greater control over Home Screen app icon arrangement, according to sources familiar with the matter. While app icons will likely remain locked to an invisible grid system on the Home Screen, to ensure there is some uniformity, our sources say that users will be able to arrange icons more freely on iOS 18. For example, we expect that the update will introduce...
Generic iOS 18 Feature Purple

iOS 18: What to Expect From 'Biggest' Update in iPhone's History

Wednesday March 27, 2024 11:10 am PDT by
At least some Apple software engineers continue to believe that iOS 18 will be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Below, we recap rumored features and changes for the iPhone. "The iOS 18 update is expected to be the most ambitious overhaul of the iPhone's software in its history, according to people working on the upgrade," wrote Gurman, in a r...
maxresdefault

Apple Announces WWDC 2024 Event for June 10 to 14

Tuesday March 26, 2024 10:02 am PDT by
Apple today announced that its 35th annual Worldwide Developers Conference is set to take place from Monday, June 10 to Friday, June 14. As with WWDC events since 2020, WWDC 2024 will be an online event that is open to all developers at no cost. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. WWDC 2024 will include online sessions and labs so that developers can learn about new...
apple maps 3d feature

Apple Maps May Gain Custom Routes With iOS 18

Tuesday March 26, 2024 3:10 pm PDT by
Apple may be planning to add support for "custom routes" in Apple Maps in iOS 18, according to code reviewed by MacRumors. Apple Maps does not currently offer a way to input self-selected routes, with Maps users limited to Apple's pre-selected options, but that may change in iOS 18. Apple has pushed an iOS 18 file to its maps backend labeled "CustomRouteCreation." While not much is revealed...
iPad Pro 2024 Landscape Camera Feature

New iPad Pro Again Rumored to Feature Landscape Front-Facing Camera

Monday March 25, 2024 5:43 am PDT by
The next-generation iPad Pro will feature a landscape-oriented front-facing camera for the first time, according to the Apple leaker known as "Instant Digital." Instant Digital reiterated the design change earlier today on Weibo with a simple accompanying 2D image. The post reveals that the entire TrueDepth camera array will move to the right side of the device, while the microphone will...
sonoma desktop wwdc

Apple Releases macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 With Fix for USB Hub Bug

Monday March 25, 2024 10:10 am PDT by
Apple today released macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, a minor update for the macOS Sonoma operating system that launched last September. macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 comes three weeks after macOS Sonoma 14.4. The ‌‌‌‌macOS Sonoma‌‌ 14.4‌.1 update can be downloaded for free on all eligible Macs using the Software Update section of System Settings. There's also a macOS 13.6.6 release for those who...