An update for everybody that voted on this idea - iPhone will get this feature first, and it is coming along well in our internal testing. Here is a screenshot as a teaser, showing Golfing and Wine Tasting as custom categories/activities! :)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5rb0limdrdlphoh/2014-08-25%2011.10.54.png?dl=0

Hi Julian,
This is amazing. I've got a lot to think about here, and given your detailed input along with the high number of votes this idea of creating your own categories has received, it looks like this will make it on to the PackPoint roadmap. I will keep this thread updated as we progress!

Thanks again,
Ben

Ben
As requested here is my list. With some of my categories that might be useful to add. Obviously they can be cross referenced under other categories also

I’ve broken out some things like the medical kit and toilet kit which are under your essentials category. This allows control and easier use when I use it regularly. The essentials category is quite long and difficult to use.

I’ve also got some to-dos in this list. They don’t fit into the things-you-can-pack but they are very specific to travel and so I use the same check list format for them too.

Some suggestion for types of trip - Road Trip

You will also notice that my list might be not very common. So allowing users to create their own categories and providing a list of icons (that match your brand identity and styling) so that the user experience is seamless might be good option.

I know that the storage cost of maintaining user categories on the cloud might be quite high at scale. One way you can circumvent that is to ask users to provide their drop box account. Store the categories in each users respective dropbox account. Check out popular personal finance tool YNAB who uses this method . Of course this can be a premium feature. I would pay for feature

My list - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dNtabNDZorOjuv3gOMGchcJttKIcDh6K4Of_Rp6E5Bs/edit?usp=sharing

Cheers
Julian

Hi Julian,
Thanks for the thoughtful message! I appreciate you taking the time to help make PackPoint better. In the short-term, it will be difficult for us to enable you to create your own categories in PackPoint, but we can more easily add new categories for all PackPoint users to use.

We could create a "Kids" category next to the "Baby" category. Do you think that would be useful? If yes, what kind of stuff would you want to have in a "Kids" category?

Any other categories that you'd like to see added to PackPoint?

Take care,
Ben

Ben
I think the app has a great set of categories to start with but it’s not sufficient. I have been using various packing lists over the past few years and by now have my categories worked out. So I am looking for an app where I can input those categories and reuse for each trip.
Trying to work with the current categories has two challenges
1 the icon and titling don’t match. For e.g. I don’t have a baby but I have two young kids.
2. If I try to use baby to create the list for my kids stuff I have a large list of items that don’t make sense for non-babies and I can’t delete them or re-order them. Which mean a long scroll to the bottom every time I manage that list
Finally it’s a great app and I am happy to help you in any way to improve it.