Is there no way to influence the app library at all?

[jonhoy]

For the most part I have enjoyed the app library since it was introduced. It pretty much improves upon the way I was already using iOS before it.

There is one wrinkle with it and it's the logic for some of the folders. I have a jumbled Other folder that in my opinion could very easily be compartmentalized further. It has my navigation & travel apps; Google Maps, Maps, and Uber. It also has a food delivery app which bothers me because I have 6 other apps related to food delivery/ordering in another folder labelled Shopping & Food. I even have UberEats downloaded to separate the use-cases for Uber and UberEats. I could understand why this rogue food delivery app sits with the travel apps but I am certainly not a courier and in fact there is a courier-specific app for the food delivery service which I am not using. I assume it's up to the app developer to properly label or categorize their apps? Lastly, I have an app for scanning and buying lottery tickets. This is perhaps the single app on my phone that I would truly categorize as Other, if not Utilities.

To make things worse, my Entertainment folder consists of Netflix, Youtube, Music, and Podcasts. I would agree that this is the proper place for all of those apps. I recently deleted Podcasts and now the remaining three apps have been moved to the Other folder. So now my Other folder has navigation and travel, food delivery, entertainment, and a miscellaneous app.

It's kind of mind-boggling at this point. I wouldn't assume there's a minimum number of apps required for a folder, my Photo & Video folder has only ever had the stock Photos and Camera apps. It's not a big enough deal for me to stop using the app library and manually create folders for each category but if there's anything I can do to influence the app library logic I'll gladly do it.

 

[russell_314]

I don’t know of a way to change it. I think it’s going to be one of those things that Apple releases and doesn’t touch it again.

 

[now i see it]

It’s Apple’s “machine learning” and “Ai” doing what it does best - getting stuff wrong.

 

[jonhoy]

If anyone is interested or curious, I may have found a temporary work-around. So last night I went kind of overboard thinking about this. My first thought was to delete the apps that I wanted to move and re-download them. If I deleted all apps in Other except for Entertainment apps then the folder must become Entertainment, right? Well... no. The folder stayed labelled Other even though it was just Music and Netflix. This worked for the food delivery app as it was moved to Shopping & Food. However this also moved Youtube to Photo & Video which isn't really better than the previous state of things.

I decided to download a bunch of apps in new categories to try and get the AI to think about new folders. I downloaded 5 education apps (previously zero), 5 games (previously zero), and many more Photo & Video apps and Entertainment apps. Initially this did nothing as everything new was going straight to Other. I left my phone overnight and this morning I wanted to try restoring from a back-up. As I backed up to iCloud this AM, I noticed the app library refreshed itself. It split the huge Other folder into Entertainment, Games, and Education as expected. It also moved Youtube to Entertainment. I was having a problem with Youtube and that food delivery app being in wrong spots, but after deleting & re-downloading, backing up again, they get moved. I think it's safe to say the act of backing up triggers some sort of refresh. I still have my navigation apps and the lottery ticket app categorized as Other but everything else appears to have fixed itself. At this point, I'm happy with what I have.

I can't guarantee things will stay like this going forward. I would not be surprised if when I download a new app some logic is changed and folders get re-arranged. But for now... it is what it is I guess. ??‍♂️

 

[minimo3]

No, Apple knows what’s best for you. Accept it with gratitude ?

 

[braddick]

No, Apple knows what’s best for you. Accept it with gratitude ?

And if you can't, there is an app that will teach you how to be grateful.

 

[cynics]

Apps have a very strong bias to categorize themselves with the appstore category the developer used in their apps metadata. Devs can give there app two categories and if its a game a subcategory (puzzle, role playing, action, etc) so you could have Educational Game Puzzle for example. You can see one (and only one) of those categories the dev used in the apps information in the appstore. These are the categories for the appstore....



The point of that is to get traffic and eyes on your app from people that are researching the same thing. Type in Amazon and you'll likely see the Walmart app on the list as well and thats because they are both Shopping apps....



For example I have a "Travel" folder in my App Library. It contains Lyft, Uber, Maps, Google Maps, Waze and GPS Diagnostic. GPS diagnostic in practice is a utility/tool, you would not use it to navigate or travel. However if I look in the app store, its category is 'Navigation'.



That is very suspicious because its definitely not a Navigation app, yes it can locate satellites and you COULD navigate using it but you'd be just as good using the Compass app to navigate. To test that theory further I found another app called "GPS Plan", similar GPS naming and function however in the app store its categorized under utilities, not navigation....And imagine that, it was filed under Utilities in the App Library.





Keeping on that topic, if you squint you can see Find My in Utilities too, again if you look in the appstore its categorized under Utilities. That makes sense but I have GPS utilities/tools in 'Travel' and apps I've used to actually travel with (directions to friend) under Utilities...

Apple says on their webpage iOS utilizes the users app behavior and home screen organization. Thats not the case at all though, I have an app called Assistant for No Mans Sky. I have it in a Games folder, its not a game its more of a guide but it makes sense to me to have a game guide in with my games. Nope, in the App Library its under entertainment which its not...its a guide (utility)...its the opposite of entertaining... If I look in the appstore...



So as long as devs are categorizing their apps for traffic (more views, more downloads, more revenue) there are apps may not get put in the proper folder. In their defense the list of categories doesn't exactly cover every possibility.

Now the 'Other' folder... The things my Other apps have in common are, 1 They are one off apps that wouldn't really work in a folder with anything else and on my Home screen I have them in an 'Xtras' folder, 2. There just isn't a good category for them due to most of them being specific home automation apps that are all categorized Lifestyle. There is no way for me to say for certain but I bet the thing they all actually have in common is they don't have a secondary category and its defaulted to 'Other'. Its put a couple similar home automation apps in Utilities, some here, some there...

I never used the App Library and I can see I'm not missing much. Its actually a good place to hide a seedy app because its unlikely anyone using your phone will find it, hell you probably won't find it. There is very little organization or flow to the app placement at all. I can organize my home screen exactly how I want it, I don't see the purpose of the app library except for a visual representation of an app you have hidden.

TL;DR. I'm fairly confident the categories in the App Library are mostly based on the apps appstore category in its metadata assigned by the developer. I can't say 100% because we can only see one of the two categories they can use. However for me all but two apps are in an App Library folder named after the category the dev assigned too it.

 

[BornAgainMac]

Maybe a future version will allow user-specific tags for Apps that can solve this problem.

 

[cynics]

Maybe a future version will allow user-specific tags for Apps that can solve this problem.

Again I only have my limited sample size indicating that.

Not knocking anyones opinion however what is the appeal of the App Library when you can actually customize the Home screen(s) the way you want it?

 

[Taz Mangus]

The only thing I find useful about the App Library is the alphabetical view.

 

[sparksd]

The only thing I find useful about the App Library is the alphabetical view.

Agree. I use my own labeled folders in lieu of the app library - I wish there was a way to force alphabetical listing within them. Instead, I just sort them by my level of interest.

 

[jonhoy]

So as long as devs are categorizing their apps for traffic (more views, more downloads, more revenue) there are apps may not get put in the proper folder. In their defense the list of categories doesn't exactly cover every possibility.

Now the 'Other' folder... The things my Other apps have in common are, 1 They are one off apps that wouldn't really work in a folder with anything else and on my Home screen I have them in an 'Xtras' folder, 2. There just isn't a good category for them due to most of them being specific home automation apps that are all categorized Lifestyle. There is no way for me to say for certain but I bet the thing they all actually have in common is they don't have a secondary category and its defaulted to 'Other'. Its put a couple similar home automation apps in Utilities, some here, some there...

Yeah, I understand that app developers need to categorize their apps in some fashion and in doing so they might not cover every use-case of their app. My problem (which has since reverted and I am back at square one) is that any new app I download just goes straight to the Other folder for my problem categories. You brought attention to the categories page in the app store which I am now using to ensure I am downloading apps that are categorized correctly.

For example, my Food & Drink folder is working as expected and downloading a new food app (categorized under Food & Drink) goes there. My rogue food app in the original post is categorized as Food & Drink yet refuses to go to its proper home.

Outside of that food delivery app, my problem apps and their categories as dictated by their app store pages are Navigation, Travel, Lifestyle, Music, Entertainment, and Photo & Video. The last three surprisingly all have different categories yet in the past have been neatly bundled together as Entertainment, which to me is a perfect level of organization, going further is a little too granular for me. Downloading additional apps in these categories does not force the app library to consider creating a new folder - it just all goes to Other. Perhaps I'll just download a ton of relevant apps and let it sit for a week. Maybe I'm not giving the AI enough time to really mull it over...

Anyway, I admit defeat. Like I mentioned before if the solution is achievable I would do it. If not, I can live with it. As for creating my own folders that was how I used iOS in the past but I like the app library all things considered. For the most part the categories make sense. The ordering of the categories based on my usage also makes sense (though the Suggestions and Recently Added categories are a waste for me). I also like having apps 1-3 of each category accessible without having to expand the folder. Looking at my apps now, I can say the 4th most used app in almost all categories is used that much less than the top 3. I like having a one-page home screen with the bare essentials and everything else one swipe away in the app library. I understand that statement is still true if I had my own folders on page 2, but like I said, I'd be missing out on some of the app library benefits.

 

[dk001]

…

Anyway, I admit defeat. Like I mentioned before if the solution is achievable I would do it. If not, I can live with it. As for creating my own folders that was how I used iOS in the past but I like the app library all things considered. For the most part the categories make sense. The ordering of the categories based on my usage also makes sense (though the Suggestions and Recently Added categories are a waste for me). I also like having apps 1-3 of each category accessible without having to expand the folder. Looking at my apps now, I can say the 4th most used app in almost all categories is used that much less than the top 3. I like having a one-page home screen with the bare essentials and everything else one swipe away in the app library. I understand that statement is still true if I had my own folders on page 2, but like I said, I'd be missing out on some of the app library benefits.

One of my pet peeves with the App Library, 1-3 in most of the folders are not the 1-3 used apps. I’d say it is closer to 50-50 at best.

Examples…
Correct: Info & Reading - Kindle, Weather, Reddit. Actual is Kindle, Reddit, Translate … unless the Weather Widget count?
Incorrect: Photo & Video - Camera, Clips, LR. Actual is Halide, Camera, and Photos

Would like the Alphabetic view to be the default.

 

[Abazigal]

Don’t fight it. It’s just like jogging in quicksand.