• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 23, 2011

Gaming or news apps -- which are more engaging? It all depends on a user's mood, according to a new report from analytics firm Localytics.

IPad users spend the longest periods of time reading news, listening to music and accessing health and fitness apps, Localytics finds.

Based on data from apps subscribing to the firm's analytics platform, users spend over two-and-a-half times as much time on news apps than on apps in general.

Yet Localytics also looked at data on sessions per app per month -- separated by app verticals -- to see which type of app receives the largest number of user interactions per month.

While news apps still rank near the top of the average sessions list, games apps dominate in an impressive fashion. With games, news and music apps rounding out the top of the frequency engagement list, another view of the most engaging apps appears.

Compared with the overall average session length for iPad users, apps in the "news" category clocked in with sessions two-and-a-half times longer, followed by music apps, 228% of the average; health and fitness apps, 210%; and reference apps, 162%.

However, it appears that iPad users spend shorter-than-expected periods of time playing games and interacting with their entertainment apps.

According to Localytics, getting a news app onto an iPad user's device seems to generate extremely long interactions between app and user, while iPad users play short, more casual games, rather than in-depth time-consuming ones.

Sports apps, meanwhile, may be used more to check scores than to truly delve into sports stories and news, while iPads and tablets seem conducive to deeper, more information-packed experiences, such as reference and health apps.

"These levels of interaction do have an important message to app marketers: Know your audience, and pick the right type of app to generate the most engagement possible," Localytics suggests.

"While a business tool may be a very useful app to create for your clients, an engaging news app can generate up to three times the engagement per session," it adds.

To determine time spent on apps, Localytics analyzed the average session length -- that is, the average time a user spends between opening an app and finishing and closing it -- and compared it across categories.