Grocery shopping is one the few chores that I actually don't mind so much. The reason is, I make a list, get what's on it and get out. I guess I'm a typical guy when it comes to shopping. I've been using a different grocery list until I came across Grocery iQ and the quite frankly the difference is night and day!
They had me at "barcode scanning"
Grocery iQ takes the pain out of creating a shopping list. One of the things that immediately attracted me to this app was the ability to create your list by simply scanning the barcodes of the items that you need to buy. You can of course add things manually, or even type in the barcode (great for iPod touch owners), but being able to add just about everything to my list without ever touching the keyboard was phenomenal! This is one of those few apps that I really can't find anything wrong with. Every time I went to look for a feature, it was there!
So many features I don't know where to begin
It's clear that the developers of Grocery iQ really put a lot of thinking into this app. They thought of everything that I could think of and they wrapped it in a great easy to use interface as well.
Multiple Stores
You can not only create multiple stores but you can also even rearrange the isles for each store and eliminate the isles that your store doesn't have. For example, I doubt that "Better Health" has a "Beer" isle.
Rearranging the isles to match the store has a hidden benefit. It automatically rearranges your list in the order of the isles to speed up shopping. For example the Bread is in isle 2 of my Kroger grocery store. So when I moved the bread isle the bread moved to the second spot on the list automatically for that store.
Coupons
The app finds coupons based on your location. Once you select the coupons you want you have the option of printing them to an HP WiFi printer or emailing them to yourself to print on any printer.
Unfortunately there isn't an option to bring up the coupon on screen with a barcode for scanning at checkout. Also it's unfortunate that ti doesn't support direct printing to more kinds of printers. However, the email option is fine.
Sharing Lists
This one gives a while new meaning to "bring home milk." If you have a partner/spouse that you live with and you both have iPhones or iPod touch's you can setup list sharing right in the app by creating a free account. You are automatically hosting your lists with the people that you're sharing with and your lists show up on their devices and vice-versa. This is really cool! "Hey I headed to the grocery store. You want anything?"
Then they just add the items using their iPhone/iPod touch and by the time you get their you will have the items in your list. Grocery iQ also supports Push Notifications so that if either person updates the list(s) the other person will get a popup message.
Speaking of adding to the list
The barcode scanning just feels like cheating. It works so fast and accurately. Looks like the same technology as the popular RedLaser app but I can't say for sure. In any case this was the single feature that made me drop my other app on the spot. Of course you can enter items manually. You won't always have a barcode for the item you want to add.
You can also key in the barcode number in case you're doing this on an iPod touch that doesn't have a camera. Once you scan the barcode you'll hear a beep and Grocery iQ will look up your item on the internet, bring down the description and the box shot. Now if it could only look up the price at your store then we would really have a killer app! However, you can add the price for each item manually and it's a good idea to do it right then in there while you've got the item in your hand. If you do add the prices in, you'll get a nice estimated total of what you're about to spend before you go shopping. Very cool!
The stuff you would expect
As you check off items on the list hey drop down to the bottom. Once you've bought everything on the list you can tap "Check Out" and the list will be cleared. The items that were on the list will be added to your History so that you can add them again in the future without scanning again. You can also mark items as "Favorites" to get to them quickly.
Putting Grocery iQ to the test
So I decided to really see how this app would hold up on a shopping trip to my local grocery store (Kroger). My goal was to test as many features as possible while at the same time doing a little shopping. So I started the list at home by scanning a few items that I needed. For the ones that I had prices for I put them in on the spot. The I had my wife add something to my list and it was something that I didn't even know what the packaging looked like. The next time I looked at my list the item was there. I got to the store and immediately started arranging the isles in the order they were in the store. I also checked off items as I put them in the basket, added missing prices and scanned new items that I either buy regularly or was going to buy on this trip. It all worked fine. The only problem I had was I tried to add a case of water to the list that apparently I had already added to the list of another store. Grocery iQ didn't like this nor did it warn me about it. The item just would never appear on my Kroger list. I finally figured that it must not like it being on the other list so I deleted it and it let me add it then. However, it was weird because it still didn't show up on the actual Kroger list. Every attempt to add it from that point on popped up a window that said that it was already on the list. It wasn't until I got home that I realize that it never really deleted from the first list. Could have been user error or just a fluke. Otherwise the app rocked! Also the total at checkout was very close to being on the money! It was within a few dollars of the Grocery iQ total. Keep in mind that I bought the water which wasn't in the total and I have a discount store card that subtracted a few bucks that Grocery iQ wouldn't know about. Overall it was a very pleasant experience and more importantly having this app kept me from "over buying". I wasn't just throwing a bunch of stuff in the cart (like usual).
The Bottom Line
This app freakin' rocks! I'm always blown away when an app works exactly like I want it too and takes advantage of the iPhone/iPod platform in clever ways. This app is definitely a TOP NOTCH APP and you should "just get it!."
However, I'm going to have to give it 4 out of 5 stars because I feel the coupon thing could be handled a little better with more printer support and perhaps a feature that lets you check off all the ones you want and then email a single PDF for printing. Also I gotta believe that there has to be away to avoid the whole printing thing altogether. Just thinking about it, how cool would it be if it "automatically" alerted me to coupons based on what I added to the list? That would save me the trouble of looking through the available coupons each time just to see if there is one that I might use.
Another smaller nit is that there doesn't seem to be much control over the Push Notifications. They are either on or off, and I don't see the standard controls over turning on/off the popups and perhaps even specifying what actions would cause a notification. Otherwise this app is a no brainer.
Grocery iQ
Grocery iQ is probably the most sophisticated well thought out grocery list app I've ever seen. It's the BEST!
- Coupons.com
- Get on App Store
- $0.99
All info was collected on 21st January, 2010 when the app was reviewed.
About Terry White
Terry is the co-author of The Best Selling "The iPhone Book" 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions. He has been active in the industry for over 25 years and is the founder and president of MacGroup-Detroit, Inc., Michigan's largest Macintosh Users Group, host of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and a technology writer - Terry White Tech Blog.
Looks like a great app. Do you know how it works in an international perspective? Is this "US" only (currencies, bar-code look-up, etc)?
I gotta ask…. How long have you been using the product "Kiss my face Obsessively"?
This looks like a neat app. Especially the barcode list feature.
It’s how I stay so youthful looking Calvin
Good choice… it's been my grocery app, too. For me, being able to match the aisle order to your store is a biggie any time you have a long list.
I was looking at this app just last night ,Enough said if you like it i'm getting it .^_
as I see it, it has a lot of similarities with an App that's quite popular in Holland
it's called Appie and it has a lot of possibilities when you do your shopping at the Albert Heijn (Ahold-concern)
I think you have a great app to use..
Greetings
A lot of the negative iTunes reviews focus on the the coupons, which users see as obtrusive. Ads showing up in your shopping list for things you're NOT shopping for would indeed be annoying, methinks.
Haven’t even noticed it once. So either they fixed this or it’s really not annoying at all. IMHO.
I've been using Grocery IQ for a long time, and I'm honestly not that impressed with the new version. The coupons only work at Safeway (I'm at King Soopers). I hate that you can't turn off the annoying "grocery IQ would like to use your current location" popup I get every time I launch it. Printing only works on specific HP printers. I've tried at least 10 times with the bar code scanner on different products, in different light areas, and on my 3G it doesn't work at all.
I'm still using it because I've paid for it, and don't want to just buy another one without trying it first. It does a decent job, but the new features I'm not too excited about.
How did I miss the barcode scanning? I use that app!
Hi Terry! So glad you reviewed this app — I've had it quite a while now and the upgrades have been phenomenal and made it totally worth the purchase (love those free updates!!). I discovered the new scan feature quite by accident and it worked so well on the very first try that I thought it had to be a fluke. I was actually talking out loud to myself because I was so amazed at how well it worked… I may have even tweeted about it!!
I haven't really delved too much into the coupon aspect, because functionally, you have to plan ahead, and if I see the coupon while I'm AT the store, the ability to pull it up and have the cashier scan it from my iPhone would be ideal, so I don't have to think about sending the coupon to my email to print it (which all sounds a bit like a hassle to me)… I usually just add things to my Grocery IQ lists on the fly and when I get to the store, see what I have a'waitin for me to go buy. (if the coupons looked like they do with the barcodes in CardStar, it would be ideal!)
I only have one real complaint, and that's with the multitude of stores I've created, some are of a similar genre, while others are not. My example is this: let's say I shop at natural food stores, and there's certain things I can ONLY get there, but I have specific separate stores set up for places like Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Mother's Market, Trader Joe's. Let's also say I have several grocery store retail chains near me, including Ralph's, Albertson's and Vons… but I've also made a shopping list for Target, where some items will appear here as well. Next, let's say I add something to my list that I want to show up in certain multiple lists, but not others… perhaps I want Amy's Frozen Vegetarian Lasagna (just made this up, but Amy's really is a natural frozen food line & I *do* know they make a tofu lasagna!). I want this to show up in my Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Mother's Market and Target lists, but not Ralph's, Vons, etc… because either they don't carry it or it's too expensive there.
I'd love to see the support to add items to multiple select lists (like a check-off feature when I select the "store" list that the new item should show up in), because as of right now, they only support adding an item to one particular store, or to have it show up in ALL stores — and neither is the perfect solution for me. If they could fix that, then it would truly be the one and only perfect shopping app!! (That's not asking for too much, right? I mean hey… they got the laser barcode scanning thing working…)
This looks interesting. Can you reuse the lists?
How well does it work with an iPod touch?
I'm not sure how well this would work for me. I shop only at small, locally owned health food, gourmet and imported specialty food stores. There are very few bar codes and no coupons. I buy lots of bulk food items and I don't buy big corporate brand name items, except for a few cleaning products. Would setting up and using Grocery iQ be worth the effort for me?
Reeee,
I think it would be just as useful in a small store.
The way I use it, I very rarely type in a name brand anyway. Regardless of the store, any time involved is entering the item the first time. (It saves items entered for future use.) For example, the first time I want it, I'll type in "peanut butter." I don't have a need to type in a brand, so it really doesn't matter if it's a name brand or not.
The items can be reused on a new list but not the list itself. So once you put an item on a list, check it off, and check out the item goes in your "history" to be used again the next time you need to buy that item.
It should work fine on an iPod touch 2nd or 3rd generation.
Great review. A lot of the criticism leveled against the app is the paid advertising that the app now contains. Do you find that distracting?
Haven't even noticed it once so not it's not distracting at all.
I am trying to set up the list sharing and have sent an email to two different email addresses for my husband. He has not received an email from either. Has anyone had a similar experience?
I had Grocery IQ and loved it but some months ago I replaced it with Shopper. Shopper is also integrated with the Red Laser Technology and to me it's an even more logical interface and workflow. Maybe Terry, you could investigate Shopper or maybe I should go back (some months later) and take another peek at Grocery IQ. haha. It's great to have choices.
Terry,
Another similar app to check is from ZipList. It’s a new online shopping list service, and their app came out last week. It’s at http://www.ziplist.com/iphone.
The free app categorizes, sorts by store, scans barcodes. You can also search for recipes from the app and add them to your grocery list. It’s nice.
Erin
CouponCravings.com
I don’t get it… I am supposed to already have most of the things I’ll be buying next week, so I can scan their barcodes?
What don’t you get?
You have the option of scanning a barcode for an item that you want to buy AGAIN or you can enter it manually if you don’t have the item. Since most people buy the same things over and over again it’s not a stretch that they would scan an item that they are about to run out of to add it to the list. Once it’s in your database you can just add it again the next time you need it without scanning. If you don’t have the item you want currently just key it in and search for it.
The only thing I had a problem with is that it is quite slow, even on a fairly fast machine (Samsung Galaxy S/AT&T Captivate). Otherwise, it’s a good piece of work.
The big problem for using this with groceries is the huge grocery chains have their own product codes. Scanning a store brand item will result in item not found. And there’s no way to add items without a scan code.
ZipList has the same problem except it allows you to enter generic items without the need for a product code. For that reason I went with ZipList. Ziplist is more forgiving with scans, too. They’re both worth of consideration.
No bar code scans “No match Found” Help not helpful. Though it is a useful list.
Trying desperately to find an app that will do all this and then let me add store brand items as well. If we could just flag them as a “store brand” and build that kind of database, wouldn’t that be valuable at all?? For me it would be priceless. You’d think SOMEONE would want that kind of database built by willing participants!
My $0.02…
How do I download this app on my HTC evo?