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Shopster soups up your shopping list with its geo-learning feature
Shopster is a new app from Quadion Technologies that'll help you avoid that dreaded moment when you realize that you forgot to get that critical ingredient for tonight's dinner. Rather than a static to-do list with date reminders, Shopster uses geo-fencing as a trigger to alert you about items on your shopping list. You can be reminded to pick up a dozen eggs when you pass by the farm down the street or grab a dozen bagels when you are closing in on the bakery downtown. At its core, Shopster is a shopping list app that is geared toward items that you buy on a regular basis. You can check off items as you buy them and they will be saved to a past purchases list. Their location will also be stored in the app's database. Over time, the app will geolearn the location of your entire shopping list. When you need to go shopping again, you can easily add purchased items back to your active shopping list. The geolocation feature then kicks in when you are out and about the town. Shopster will track your location and alert you when you are nearing a place that sells an item on your "to buy" list. Shopster is perfect for the person who shops at multiple nearby stores. You will be reminded to stop at the whole foods market for your veggies, the bakery for your bread and the butchers for your meat. Shopster debuted today in the iOS App Store and is available for US$0.99.
Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie! lets you bump and share your grocery lists
Gone are the days of the handwritten grocery list. With apps like Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie!, iOS owners can ditch the pen and paper and grab their iPhone the next time they head out to the grocery store. Design Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie! has the look and feel of your typical paper shopping list. The top part of the app has the appearance of a ripped piece of paper and contains the items on your shopping list. The bottom half of the app is dark grey and holds the items that are checked off your list as you shop. There's also a list management screen that allows you create new lists and manage multiple lists. The top part of the app is also where you build your list, one item at a time. You can type in an item or select one using the pre-installed entries. Unlike some shopping apps that have hundreds of items (most of which you won't use), Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie! includes a variety of staple foods like milk, OJ and carrots. The items in the database are not written in stone. You can delete each item or modify it to reflect your personal preferences. For example, you can easily change the entry for mayonnaise to Hellmann's Mayonnaise so you remember to buy the brand name instead of the generic. Each item in your list can have a quantity that you choose when you add it to your list and a color to help you organize your list. Unlike other shopping companions, Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie! uses colors instead of categories or aisles to sort your list. Though the colors look nice, I found them difficult to remember, especially when dealing with a long list of items. I can easily recall that milk is dairy and bread is bakery, but I was constantly forgetting that milk is yellow and bread is green. This labeling convention got easier as I used the app, but it still isn't as intuitive as text-based categories. Functionality Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie! is delightful to use. Its emphasis is on easy management so there are not a lot of details to enter or settings to tweak. Adding two cartons of eggs is as easy as typing Eggs:2 and hitting enter. You can also select items from a database that ships with the app. This list of shopping items in the app's database is dynamic, and the app stores new items that you add to your shopping list. It also prompts your to enter these stored items the next time you try to add them to your list. When I added Fluff to my most recent grocery list, it was also stored in the database. The next time I went to add fluff to my list, I typed "fl" and the app prompted me to enter "Fluff." It's a small feature, but a handy one that helps to minimize your typing time. Similar to other shopping apps, Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie! has a syncing feature that lets you share your list across multiple devices. The app syncs to an account you create through Skript, the company behind the Buy Me a Pie! app. Syncing was extremely quick and notification support made sure everyone else following your list was alerted of any changes. The latest version of the app also adds a bump feature that allows you to bump two iOS devices to share a list. Conclusion Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie! is a lightweight shopping app that makes it easy to manage multiple shopping lists on your iOS devices. It doesn't have the advanced features of other shopping apps like Grocery Gadget, but it makes up for it with a clean, efficient UI and fast syncing. Grocery List - Buy Me a Pie! is on sale this week for US$0.99, which makes it a must-have for iOS owners. Pros Neat, clean interface Quick and easy way to enter items on your device Fast syncing of lists between devices Cons Missing features like aisles, coupons and photos that are found in other shopping apps Color coding to sort items is visually appealing, but harder to remember than categories Who is it for? Anyone looking for a lightweight grocery shopping app with easy entry of items and blazing fast syncing.
Get your giving sorted out with Gift Plan
Keeping track of all the holiday shopping and the various recipients of gifts among family and friends is a chore that's just crying out for an app. There are plenty of gift organizers on the App Store, but one of the newest and slickest is Glasshouse Apps' new release Gift Plan. This US$1.99 app gives you all the tools you'll need to manage your holiday, birthday or other occasion gift-giving. Gift Plan lets you organize by date, shopping list or by recipient/occasion. Once you've added your likely gift recipients (from your contact list, Facebook birthday sync or manually), you can file away ideas for the next gift, likes/dislikes, and clothing sizes. You can also keep track of what you've already gotten for each person, to avoid repeat gifts. You can filter your upcoming occasions by birthday, anniversary or holiday giving, just to keep from being overwhelmed by the prospect of all those presents. All this is wrapped up in a graceful and straightforward interface, which is just what you'd expect from the team that brought us The Early Edition, Barista and Cellar. Happy holidays, and happy shopping! %Gallery-111682%
Ablegamers releases shopping list for disabled players
If you are a disabled player or know one, you might need some help with your gift shopping. Well, worry no more: Ablegamers.com has compiled a pretty nice list of items for your loved ones! Let's say you want a great iPad mount -- well someone has made one. Perhaps you're really needing an old-fashioned joystick controller, complete with extenders and customizable buttons? Well, there's one of those too! There are literally millions upon millions of disabled people in North America alone. Of those, a good percentage are gamers -- or want to be gamers but have issues connecting to and participating in these wonderful games that we all love. Why not buy one of these items for the disabled person in your life? Or perhaps you could locate a stranger who needs the item -- just ask your gaming buddies. Don't be surprised when someone knows somebody else who could use something that appears on this list! Thanks to Ablegamers.com, some players will not be left out of the game!
Nintendo patent application describes a grocery list app, takes the DS shopping
If your pocket or purse makes room for a smartphone there's a good chance you've started managing your shopping lists digitally. Nintendo, however, is trying to make an ever-greater case for taking your DS with you instead, and if instant trading of content with strangers isn't enough incentive, maybe tracking groceries is. Nintendo of America has applied for a patent describing an "in-store wireless shopping network using hand-held devices." Those devices are, of course, game systems, and the images with the patent app all show a DS being used to track needed quantities of such exciting items as milk, eggs, and salsa. The picture below gives an idea of what the interface might look like, talking to a database of items and their locations to give shoppers an idea of where to find things in the store. Net result? Planning your route becomes a thrilling strategy game -- or at least keeps you from getting lost in the supermarket, ensuring you can continue to shop happily.
HP's Retail Store Assistant: a wallet's worst enemy
Fellas, if you thought Ralph Lauren's literal window shopping contraption was your wallet's arch-rival, we've got some unfortunate news, and for the ladies (or guys) who just love to spend it up, HP's about to become your very best friend. The clever gurus at HP Labs have developed a marketer's dream tool that enables customers to enter a retail store, swipe a card, and instantly receive a printout (shown after the jump) that includes "a personalized shopping list, relevant coupons, notice of associated store discounts or sales, and even a map to where the items can be found in the store." The inaccurately named Retail Store Assistant (we were thinking more along the lines of Wallet Depleter) is currently in the "experimental" stage, and would include an in-store kiosk which customers could access via a loyalty card or by inputting their phone number. Of course, this isn't the first stab we've seen at retailers using previous history to target consumers, but the team behind this apparatus insists that it will be much more effective than the typical junk mail that barely graces our eyes before hitting the trash. Best Worst of all, the system will reportedly be available even on the web, meaning that those with an urge to shop can log on during the waning hours of the workday and plan out their shopping spree for maximum efficiency. Oh, the humanity.
