TGI Black Friday, powered by TGIblackfriday.com and DealCatcher.com, is the ultimate Black Friday application. I received an email about this app over the week-end and since downloading it… I have spent WAY too much time on it! I’m pretty sure it has every feature you could want in a Black Friday specific application. Not only that but, it is nicely organized and easy to navigate.

Upon opening the app, you will find five options on the lower menu bar; Home, Stores, Categories, Search and My List. In the Home option you are given a list of the most popular Black Friday deals as well as a list of the newest Black Friday ads that have been added to the application. The Store option will list all the stores (in alphabetical order) that have already released their Black Friday sales… if you scroll all the way down, you will see a grayed-out list of stores that are still due to release their Black Friday sales.

The Categories option displays a list of categories in which you can view specific items that are on sale this coming Friday. For example, if you choose the Camcorders category, you will get a list of all the Stores that are having sales on camcorders along with the sale prices thus allowing you to find the best deal.

The Search option allows you to search all the Store deals for any item. For example, if you search for Hot Wheels, it will display a list of all the store that are having Black Friday deals on any Hot Wheel items. It’s pretty sweet. No more looking through every single ad to see if the one item you want is on sale somewhere… There an app for that! Just search and it will find all the results for you! Sweet action!

If you do find an item that you are interested in, you can “Add To My List” and it will then display in the My List option. One nice feature of the My List option is that everything is broken down by store which makes The Big Shopping Day much easier!

The best part… it’s free!

Features:
- View Black Friday ads for all major retail stores weeks before they are available in your local paper.
- Frequent updates with new leaked ads for your favorite retail stores.
- Search thousands of Black Friday deals across stores and categories.
- Create a personal shopping list to check off items as you purchase them on Black Friday.
- Email your shopping list or individual deals to yourself or others.
- Get exclusive online deals and coupons.
- Compare prices for items to confirm you are getting the best deal on Black Friday.
- Shop online for items that may be available before Black Friday.

ScreenShots

App Store Description:

Black Friday (November 27th) is the busiest shopping day of the year. Use this app to plan your holiday shopping weeks before Black Friday ads are available in the newspaper. In the past Black Friday ads have leaked as early as October. However, the majority of the ads arrive the first two weeks of November. Please check the app frequently for new ads from your favorite stores such as Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Sears and many more.

Features:
- View Black Friday ads for all major retail stores weeks before they are available in your local paper.
- Frequent updates with new leaked ads for your favorite retail stores.
- Search thousands of Black Friday deals across stores and categories.
- Create a personal shopping list to check off items as you purchase them on Black Friday.
- Email your shopping list or individual deals to yourself or others.
- Get exclusive online deals and coupons.
- Compare prices for items to confirm you are getting the best deal on Black Friday.
- Shop online for items that may be available before Black Friday.

This app is powered by TGIblackfriday.com and DealCatcher.com, two of most popular shopping resources on the web.

Discount Price is a simple application that allows you to quickly calculate discount prices.

The application is pretty straight forward, enter the price of the item and then enter the discount amount (ex. 15%). It will then calculate what the price of the item will be after the discount and how much you will save.

You are able to choose from pre-entered discount percentages ranging from 5% to 80% or, there is also the ability to enter a custom discount percentage.

A very simple application that allows you to quickly figure out discount prices without a bunch of hassle. With the Holiday season coming up, this could be a handy application!

PS. I love the description for this app… I totally do that to Doug!

Have you ever had this happen to you? You are out shopping with your wife and she sees a blouse that is on sale. She looks at the tag and then looks at you and asks how much is 15% off of $19.99? No more second guessing yourself, just get out your iPhone launch the iSale Price application and tell her what the price is and what she will be saving.

ScreenShots

App Store Description:

Have you ever had this happen to you? You are out shopping with your wife and she sees a blouse that is on sale. She looks at the tag and then looks at you and asks how much is 15% off of $19.99? No more second guessing yourself, just get out your iPhone launch the iSale Price application and tell her what the price is and what she will be saving.

Discount Price is an easy to use percentage calculator for shoppers that lets you input the price of the item you want to buy and simply press a button to tell you what you will pay and how much you will save.

Discount Price takes advantage of the picker, which allows the user to roll up or roll down to the numbers that indicate the price of the item.

Discount Price was put together with the user in mind. The user doesn’t want to have to think about what operation to use on a regular calculator, they just want to hit a button and have the answer.

Features:
- Easy to use.
– Displays Sale Price.
– Displays how much you will Save.
- Preset Percentage Buttons for quick information
- Can select custom percentages
– Choose from three different color schemes. Black, Blue, and Pink.
What’s new

*Release 1.1
*Name Change
*Icon Changes

CompareMe is a shopping utility that allows you to compare prices between products. At a first glance you might think; “What a basic little app” but, after further review, you would realize that CompareMe has quite a few “hidden” features.

The most predominate feature of this application is the ability to input the amount, unit and price of two items in order to compare them and find out which one is the better buy. You are able to choose from a large selection of Units allowing you to compare basically any two items. Once the information has been added, you are quickly given a comparison detailing how much you would save (the discount %) and how much extra you would pay (the premium %) depending on which item you purchased.

I personally use this all the time when shopping. Just today, I used it to compare something that was on sale (in a larger quantity) to something that wasn’t on sale… that way I would know if the sale price was actually saving me any money.

Besides the obvious function of being able to quickly compare two items, there are also quite a few “hidden” features. You are able to switch the discount and premium options, convert prices, transfer package size and negotiate a price. These feature allow you to do a more in-depth comparison of products.

The thing I love about this app is that it is very fast and easy to use. This is important to me because I don’t want to be standing there forever trying to figure out which item is the better deal. I want to be able to figure it out quickly and move on to the next thing. This application is perfect for that!

Overall, CompareMe is a well designed, easy-to-use application… a handy tool that is perfect for any price conscious consumer. It is worth the $1.99 price tag, hands down (I saved more than that using it today!).

For more info and a demo video… check out their website.

Supported Units

• Numbers: pieces (#), dozen (dz), thousand (k)
• Mass: gram (g), milligram (mg), kilogram (kg), metric ton (t), ounce (oz), pound (lb), quarter (qr US), short hundredweight (cwt US), short ton (ston), quarter (qr GB), long hundredweight (cwt GB), long ton (lton), Pfund (Pfd DE)
• Volume: liter (l), milliliter (ml), centiliter (cl), deciliter (dl), hectoliter (hl), cubic meter (m³), cubic millimeter (mm³), cubic centimeter (cm³), cubic decimeter (dm³), cust. fluid ounze (fl oz), quart (qt US), liquid pint (pt US), dry pint (dry pt US), liquid gallon (gal US), dry gallon (dry gal US), bushel (bu US), petrol barrel (bbl US), Imperial quart (qt GB), Imperial pint (pt GB), Imperial gallon (gal GB), bushel (bu GB), cubic inch (cin), cubic foot (cft), cubic yard (cyd).
• Surface: square meter (m²), square millimeter (mm²), square centimeter (cm²), square decimeter (dm²), square kilometer (km²), acre (ac US), acre (ac GB), square inch (sq in), square foot (sq ft), square yard (sq yd), are (a), hectare (ha).
• Length: meter (m), millimeter (mm), centimeter (cm), decimeter (dm), kilometer (km), foot (ft), inch

ScreenShots

App Store Description

CompareMe is the perfect companion for price conscious shopping, price negotiations, bargaining, checking the cheapest and much more.

COMPARE AND CONVERT
This utility application compares and converts prices of products with many different package sizes, volumes, and lengths. Discounts and premiums are calculated and displayed directly or can be set by the user.

OPTIMIZED USER INTERFACE
You can set prices, amounts or discounts really fast with the optimized number keyboard. Selecting the right unit with the unit-picker is simple, too. Converting prices and transferring package sizes by drag-and-drop turns CompareMe into a powerful but a more than easy to use mobile app.
Check out the video walkthrough of CompareMe at the codedifferent website.

WHO NEEDS COMPAREME?
- Everyone who’s doing price conscious shopping when going to the grocery store, supermarket or at a DIY store. No matter whether you are searching for the bargain of the century buy to save money and buy cheap stuff or you get the best quality for the best price – CompareMe is your shopping assistant.
- Everyone who’s haggling when buying investment goods like cars, TV, fridge – it’s easy to check sale prices and set the preferred discounts as a basis for the price negotiations.
- It’s also a useful business tool for purchasing agents, too.

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There’s also a link to see a seller’s other items. This is nice when you find something you’re looking for and want to see what else the seller might have. You could not do this before. Another of my favorite features of this update is the ability to see search results for more than 100 items. Usually you would search and 25 items would appear in the list with a link to load 25 more. After 100 loaded it would stop searching. Now it goes on and on!

Along with this big features there are other minor things like a link to the eBay support page and support for the new 3.0 firmware.

ScreenShots

Lately I have been trying to get into the habit of using my iPhone to create my shopping lists (I’m totally a paper and pencil shopping list kind of girl). If you are anything like me, then you have tried using a few different application for making your shopping list. Yet, I tend to find each one lacking is some way. Well, not any more! I have been testing Grocery iQ for a while now and must say that I am becoming a huge fan. It has basically all the features I could want in a shopping list application and even a few I hadn’t thought of!

When you first open Grocery iQ, you will be on the main List page. The first thing you will get is a nice hint menu instructing you on how to use the List feature. You can choose to hide the hint (which will hide it until you close and reopen the application) or you can choose to not show the hint again. Adding an item to the list is easy, just select the + icon in the upper right corner and search for the item you are looking for. The database is extensive and detailed. I personally like to go with the basic Kleenex Tissue option and not the Kleenex Anti-Viral Tissue; 3 Ply option. Only because I already know which kind I am going to get! If you find that something you need isn’t on the list you can quickly add it to the list by selecting Done in the upper right corner.

Once you have selected an item that you would like added to your list…you can add specifics based on that items. So lets say you add Tomatoes to your list, you can then enter the variety of tomato, the size, the aisle tomatoes are located in your store, the quantity and even your own notes about the item. These option changes based on the product. I personally love the ability to add notes to the items (a feature my current shopping list apps does not have). Once you have all the info entered about an item, select Save in the upper right corner and the item will be added to your list.

On the lower menu bar you will notice a few more options; Favorites, History and Aisles. Favorites and History are two feature that allow you to quickly choose items to add to your list. If you almost always get Avacados when you go to the store (as we do), you can add it to your Favorite which then allows you to quickly add it to your shopping list without searching for it every time. The Favorites option takes a little time to set-up but once you do, it makes things much faster. The History option is also nice.

When you are finished at the store, you can select the Grocery Cart icon, while on your list menu, and you are able to clear your list. When you clear your shopping list, the items are added to your History. This allows you to quickly go into your History and add items to your current shopping list.

Another great feature is Aisles. In the Aisles option, you are able to create new aisles, delete aisles and arrange the aisles. I LOVE this feature. Every item that you add to your shopping list will ask you to choose an aisle…your items are then put in order by aisle on your list. Now, what I love is that if my store doesn’t have a certain aisle or I know that I will never use a certain aisle such as Beer, Wine & Spirits, I can delete it off the list. I can also create new aisles that my store has that are not on the list. But, the best feature of all is that you can arrange the aisles based on the order they are in your store. That way, your list is right in order and you can go right down your list as you shop! It’s really sweet!!

Overall, I really really like this application. I honestly can only think of one option that I think the application is missing and that is the ability to have multiple stores and/or lists. But, the developer says that version 1.1, due to be released in late October, will have that option!! Also, version 2.0, due to be released in mid to late November, will have the ability to for sharing/syncing lists to other iPhones via a free service hosted by Grocery iQ servers. The only thing Doug would like to see now is the ability to add a photo to items (he thinks that will help him when I send him to the store for something!!). Grocery iQ is definitely an application worth it’s $4.99.

Click here to download Grocery iQ via the App Store

We wrote about GroceryZen back in May and were very excited about this application. The application is now available in the App Store and we have not been disappointed. GroceryZen is a grocery list designed how all todo type apps should be… simple. There are three tabs across the bottom: Items, Recipes, and Shop.

Starting with the Item tab, you have a search bar and a list of all the possible items to add to your shopping list. There is also an alphabet scroll bar on the right to quickly scroll to an item. If you search for an item and it doesn’t show up in the list, you can select the plus button and permanently add it to the list of choices. This makes the app customizable and personal to you. Tapping an item adds it to your Shop list. If you’d like to change something about an item, tap the edit button and you can change the title, aisle or area it’s located in the store (this comes in later with the Shop Tab), quantity, and an “Add to recipes” button. Of course you can also delete an item when in edit mode by tapping the red minus button and then tapping delete.

On to the Recipes button which makes this application awesome. If you’re like my wife, she plans out the meals we’re going to have, then creates her shopping list from that meal list. Well the recipes tab lets you create mini lists that include all items for a specific recipe. Tapping it brings up a list of what is needed to make that recipe and you can then add all those items, or add them individually. There is also a nice photo of the finished result. Of course you can create you’re own and even add your own photos and notes.

Finally the Shop tab is where you go once you’re at the store. This gives you a list of everything you need and you can check them off as you buy them. They are nicely organized by aisle or area in the store. Once shopping is complete you can tap “Check Out” and it resets your lists.

I have a few ideas of what would make this application perfect to me. First, adding a thumbnail image to each item in my list that would have a stock image or I could edit. This way when I go shopping, I can see the exact branding or packaging we’ve used before. It would also be nice if tapping the image would give me a full screen image. The thumbnail could be smaller than the recipe ones this way the text height can stay the same. Next, I would figure out a way to make the aisle categories include a way to tell what store I need to get the items at, then make the app location based and when I’m at a specific store, it only shows that list, or shows it first in priority kinda like Omnifocus.

This is a great app and just a little pricey in my opinion at $4.99. If it had the features above then I’m all for $4.99.

Click here to download GroceryZen via the App Store

Plan your trip in seconds – Once you have entered an item into your grocery list, it will stay. Meaning the next time you need that item all you have to do is select it!

Your favorite recipes – Here is what the list of recipes looks like. The next time you want to make a certain meal, just tap on the recipe and it will add all the ingredients you need to your list! YAY!

Your list rewrites itself – Your grocery list stays organized by product. This is great because then all your Produce items are together and all your Dairy items are together. No more going back through the store because you forgot an item!

Aisle by aisle – This is another feature that I really like. You can rearrange the product categories based on your grocery store. You can move produce first and cereal second if that is how your grocery store is set-up.

For more info head over to groceryzen.com.

“NearbyNow provides a sneak preview of their new Web Application optimized for the Apple iPhone™ allowing shoppers to graphically navigate a shopping center, search mall store inventory, list available sales, and even find the closest restroom.”

Could you imagine if all places of business had an interactive application like this. The possibilities are endless!

Note: This application will not be available until June 2008.